The 15-inch MacBook Pro has ever been the go-to computer for creatives and media fans. Need quad-core processors, dedicated graphics and a large old screen that's just slightly smaller in the screen? If this is so, Apple's 13-inch laptops probably have not cut the proverbial mustard to you in the past.

Much like the newest 13-inch MacBook Pro, Apple has given its bigger model a whole redesign. Not only has the company shaved depth in the last-generation Pro's large chassis, but this new model also gets a fancy tactile Touch Bar strip in place of the function key row.

Read more: Apple Final Cut Pro X

Additionally, it benefits from an update to Intel's sixth-generation Skylake processors, flexible USB-C ports with quick transfer prices, a brighter and more colour drenched display, faster graphics and booming speakers.

However, because Apple aficionados have been used to by today (and not only from the computing space either), if the Cupertino company giveth, it generally taketh something off. Conventional USB ports? A built-in SD card reader? A luminous logo in your lid? That startup chime that annoys everyone around you once you thought you had muted your Mac? For better or worse, they're all gone.

So, who may want to obtain this brand new 15-inch MacBook Pro? Anyone looking at an update in the MacBook Air, or the elderly 13-inch MacBook Pro into the identical model, possibly has an easier choice to make more careful last-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro owners looking to make the jump.

Along with the disruption posed by a movement to USB-C, the 15-inch MacBook Pro remains the most expensive laptop in Apple's line-up. It currently starts at £2,349 ($2,249 or AUS$3,140), increasing to £2,699 ($2,599 or AUS$3,481) for the high-end version.

Both models could be further configured using faster processors, additional memory and beefier graphics cards to get additional price.

Screen and display

One of the brightest points about the new MacBook Pro (quite literally) is its own fresh Retina display. Rated at 500 nits brightness, it is one of the very luminous and color-saturated displays we've seen on a laptop, and also the best we have seen since first laying eyes on the Dell XPS 15.

Having a pixel-resolution of 2,880 x 1,800, it is not the most pixel-packed display out there. In reality, the resolution is the same as the prior 15-inch MacBook Pro.

But such as Apple's Retina 5K iMac, it's received a vibrancy increase and today supports the P3 color space. That's a blessing for photographers that shoot in RAW format and will need to look at files shot in the broadest possible colour gamut available.

In 1 sense, that implies that unless you are a pro who shoots the routine, you do not require the new display on your lifetime. But, even so, there is a real difference between the screen quality with this year's 15-inch MacBook along with the last-gen model.

It is merely brighter, more color saturated and pleasing to the eyes. Even backgrounds choose a new vibrancy, and as soon as you've clasped eyes on it, it is difficult to go back.

Magic touch

By Retina displays to Force Touch trackpads, new features provide talking points for consecutive generations of MacBooks. This time round, it is the Touch Bar -- an OLED strip situated over the keyboard, which provides a long, thin touchscreen used for tactile input. Handily, it is possible to log in the MacBook with TouchID along with your fingerprint similar to in an iPhone. In addition, it can be used to pay for goods and services on Apple Pay-enabled websites.

Going for a strip of glass, rather than a full touchscreen, is a movement that makes sense for many reasons. While laptop displays used as touchscreens can prove functional on machines running Windows 10, that was sculpted to a touch-friendly operating system because Windows 8, macOS is far from optimized for touch input.

Moreover, pawing in the screen leaves fingerprints, and doing this for extended stretches of time causes your shoulder pain. Interacting with the Touch Bar, on the other hand, could be achieved while your hands are closer to their normal resting position on the keyboard.

The clear limitation here is that, while adequately long enough to cram in a variety of icons and buttons, which vary based on the app that's available on the screen, the Touch Bar lacks vertical space.

As a result, in spite of the ability to socialize with all 10 fingers, interaction is restricted to tapping and dragging from the space the size of a tape measure.

There is, also, at least a good degree of customization in regards to that icons are displayed on the Touch Bar. From delving into System Preferences, you can drag and drop program functions on the bar in any sequence required for fast access.

Its usefulness is going to be completely determined by the creativity of programmers who will maximize the use of space. After turning the MacBook on, the Touch Bar displays system icons like brightness, brightness and also an escape key.

Loading an app shifts these icons into the right-hand facet of the Touch Bar, making space for contextual commands specific to the app you are currently using.

In Safari, as an example, a row of bookmark icons appears, letting you load many websites using a tap. Tapping an arrow onto the right-hand side brings the machine icons back.

Touch Bar support is mainly confined to Apple's very own, rather than third-party apps.

Beyond Apple's library, apps that now support the Touch Bar comprise djay Pro, Pixelmator, 1Password and OmniGraffle. People who have support in the works include Photoshop (at the end of the year), Microsoft Office/Outlook/Skype, Affinity Designer, Day One, Coda and Blogo.

Keyboard and trackpad

Both the newest 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models use Apple's second-generation Butterfly key switches. Apple claims that it is four times more stable than conventional scissor mechanics, and prolonged typing sessions surely prove that to be true.

The keys have a bigger surface area than those over the prior generation MacBook Pro and Air models, and in 0.5mm key travel, are considerably reduced compared. The newest Butterfly switch makes for a strangely satisfying typing experience, with every key eliciting a sharp"snap" beneath the fingers.

They don't, however, help typing rate. We found ourselves typing slower total on the keyboard compared to the one on Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air, which remains the gold standard for typing, as a result of its deeper journey keys.

The 15-inch MacBook's keyboard is superior to the one found on the 12-inch MacBook, which owns first-generation Butterfly keys and lacks the pleasing snappiness of the bigger model.

The largest problem the 15-inch model faces, which has been strangely absent on the 13-inch model, is that its large trackpad causes the cursor to slide across the screen when you are typing more often than we'd like. About the 13-inch MacBook, hands on rejection kicks effectively, however the absolute size of the trackpad on its bigger cousin signifies that we often found ourselves needing to manually place the cursor back in the sentence we had been typing.

On the other hand, the trackpad's roomy surface area makes it ideal for implementing gestures and swipes to browse about macOS.

Performance and battery life

Apple is notorious for placing a number of the fastest SSDs around into its MacBooks, also this season's 15-inch model and 13-inch models are no exception. Here we've got SSDs that may reach successive read speeds of around 1.8Gbps. Its rate can be sensed through day-to-day tasks: it's fast, as is opening and closing apps.

To check the MacBook's battery life, we downloaded a 1080p picture and played with it on loop at VLC player before the battery has drained. We retained the MacBook screen brightness and audio about 50%.

Only at 7 hours and 45 minutes, the MacBook readily has enough juice to get you through a couple of films on a very long excursion.

So far as gaming is concerned, the addition of AMD's Radeon 460 does not make it a much more viable option than a gaming laptop with any of Nvidia's GTX Series 10 graphics processors.

That said, with 4GB of video memory, there's more than enough power to handle even modern names with comparative ease. We could play Tomb Raider and Batman: Arkham City well over that in the 900p resolution mark, therefore expect games to float around that in golden 60 frames per second normal in 1080p based upon the game, of course.

For better or worse, Apple's brand new 15-inch MacBook brings the invention that many said was missing from the last generation model. If you are thinking of updating, the modifications will probably make you do it in a way that you may not be ready for -- whether that's something as straightforward as finishing a dependence on MagSafe to maintain your laptop safe -- to buying terminals for hooking up heritage peripherals.

General assessment

Like the 2016 version of the 15-inch MacBook Pro is a true desktop replacement. (Provided that you bring together a couple of adapters now around.)

It is possible to depend on its own large and gorgeous screen more than any other MacBook ever. The capability to hook up three 4K monitors or 2 5K panels feels just like a bonus more than anything else and even if you did that, you'd still wish to use the MacBook's screen for its incredible luminosity.

In case you update from the past year's MacBook Pro? If you are dead set against carrying around adapters, then write always, can not abide by shallow keyboards and do not like retraining your mind to new function key layouts, then the solution is likely"no more".

For everyone else, the newest model is better-looking, more powerful, thinner, richer-sounding, faster and more capable of gaming than previously. It is simply not the groundbreaking model it may be down the line, after that enormous trackpad was reined in, the keyboard has plumped up a bit along with the TouchBar has attained its full potential. Oh, and after your assortment of accessories scholars to USB-C.