I love reviewing hardware, there is something about each piece that has a sense of familiarity, but also a chance to be surprising and this is very much a fact when it comes to the Apple MacBook Pro, as it was the first time in a long time, that I had gone and used an Apple laptop, but after sinking a few months into it, was it an experience or just another piece of tech?

The model in question that Apple were kind enough to loan me for the review, was the 13inch model but packed with the top of the line insides. What I got was a 2.8GHz Quad Core i5 cpu, which was able to be overlocked up to a staggering 4.7GHz, but I had no need for that, combined with a sold 16gb of LPDDR3 memory, running at respectable 2133MHz, meant that the machine could handle almost everything I threw at it. On the storage side of things, the base model comes with a 512gb SSD, but the one I had was a whopping 2tb SSD, giving me ample space to play around with, it was a real beast of a laptop. In fact, the only real anchor around it, spec wise, is that the it was sporting an Intel Iris Graphics Pluss 655 chipset, which is admirable, but really feels out of place with the rest, but even with that limitation, I was still able to get a lot done with it.

All that power of course, comes at a price that is space and heat, the anchors around any laptop and Apple have once again proven that they know what they are on about. The body is aluminium which comes in a very modest 1.5cm thick, which is a little crazy for the amount of power you are able to play with. On the remaining dimensions, the depth is a little over 21cm and the entire width clocks in just over 30cm, so it will easily fit inside all your existing bags, without issue. The display was an impressive 13.3 in Retina, which means it looks great, and was able to display a resolution of 2560x1600, perfect for watching movies through iTunes with. In addition, the display also sports True Tone, allowing for the colours to change, depending on the light source around it, something I was very welcome to as I used it a lot on a train and while it is a decent brightness, there were times I wanted it to be a little more.

As Mac’s have been known more as productivity devices, then gaming machines, I went and played around there first, installing photoshop and such. While installing programs felt a little odd on the Mac software, the ease of running them was quite welcome, something Windows can learn a little about. Photoshop installed fine and ran fine, in fact I started to use it to do work, even when at home, where I had a full-size PC, with Wacom tablet and all, it was just that smooth to use. The trackpad, which Apple call Force Touch, took a bit to get used to, but now most other laptops feel slow and rough in comparison, while a dedicated mouse is always going to be my preferred option, what Apple have included is a real wonder.

Going from that sings, to something that is a little tone deaf, the Touch Bar, it is not bad or broken, just a little confusing. Above the keyboard, there is a screen, which can be used in place of hot keys and rather than Apple having to make extra keys, that developers then need to make use of, the Touch Bar, in its base form, was designed to allow for custom keys, designed by the developer and on that level it works, it is elsewhere that it fails. A few examples of it in use are when using Chrome to save files, the screen displays the normal save where option, a normal function, the Touch Bar also presents the save icon or cancel, just as on the main display. The problem is that in order for me to reach the Touch Bar, I needed to remove my hand from the trackpad and move it all the way up to press the option, something that seemed a little pointless. Sadly, it was not just saving files, as I spent a lot of time in Photoshop, something I know makes significant use of the Touch Bar and while Adobe will promise you that the Touch Bar is great for working without a mouse, I found myself reverting back to hotkeys and a mouse almost instantly. This was not due to it not working, again the tech is solid, but more that as a laptop, it felt unnatural to reach away from myself and the options the Touch Bar presented, felt like things I could just do my normal way.

That being said, when using the Touch Bar in normal use scenarios, it was quite well done, just being able to modify the volume level, with a swipe of a finger was nice. But on top of that, being able to swap out the default options for some more optional ones, was a welcome touch, I just don’t know if the Touch Bar will take off though, if the MacBook Pro sported a touch screen as well, it might be easier to adapt to it, for now though, I will shy away from it.

Perhaps the most divisive thing about the hardware is the lack of USB-A ports, the ones we have come to know over the decades and while the inclusion of USB-C is very much a welcome one, leaving the older ones behind feels like a misstep. I know when Apple first did that some people were quite angry over it and while the company marches to their own beat, it feels like a misstep to not include one older connection. With that being said though, the fact that I could charge the laptop regardless of which port I plugged into was great, something that came in handy as the battery would last around 6 to 7 hours, which is a bit under what Apple claim, this could be due to the load I was putting on the CPU, with all the Photoshop work, or it could be something else, even watching videos had the battery level dropping quite quickly at times.

Perhaps the only real issue I have to complain about, outside of battery life, is that the trackpad had this odd issue where the centre of it, had started to seem dirty. Looking at it closer, it was like there was a clear film, that started to be removed as I used it, but not something I could actually remove, the result was a patch where it appeared warn down, even after a few months of use. This did not impact the overall use of the device, but did make me wonder, if I had it for longer, or owned my own, would other issues like this start to appear.

If you are a fan of the Apple MacBook range, then suggesting that you look towards the Pro for your next purchase, is quite an easy thing to do. The hardware is rock solid, not once did I encounter any issues in using it and while the battery life is short, plus that odd trackpad issue, it would still not be enough to deter my purchase of one.