Yeah, that’s one of the remaining outcomes of Jony Ive’s obsession with thin. Silly in a high-end computer aimed at people who want function more than chic. Nobody asked me whether I cared if my new MBP was 0.5cm thinner. Once again Apple decides “onward to (our vision of) the future, ■■■■ the past!”.
No HDMI? No SD card slot? No Ethernet? (though that’s been gone for a while). No thunderbolt 1 or 2 without a pricey adapter from Apple? Give me a break!
The USB-A issue is easily solved with inexpensive adapters (I got 4 for $7 US on Amazon). The others with a more expensive adapter.
Of course, the only relevance to SketchUp is that I have to use adapters to attach my mouse and Space Navigator.
Yep. Now I have to carry around a handful of adapters.
Love my SpaceMouse! Don’t know how I ever drafted without it (and I’ve beed drafting and designing for 30+ years - back when AutoCAD had a tablet and Puc).
Overall the MCP 16" is a nicer machine - except for that. I had a 2011 MCP 15" that finally crashed and burned (the second time) that had a CDRoom (remember those). It was a great machine but replacing the Logic Board every 4-6 months got a bit pricey at @$500 a pop. But the machine was completely updatable and repairable - not todays machines - don’t even bother cracking the case open to update it - buy it the way you want, because that is what you will be stuck with.
You have to buy an add-on board. I did that that and realized the new computer wasn’t an improvement and took it back. Top of the line MBP. Very disappointing.
Beware of Apple trade-in practices through their partner Phobio. My son traded in his 2013 MBP a couple months ago. Answered all questions honestly and was supposed to get a $500 credit. Phobio inspected it, lowered the offer to $50 and said it had a delaminated screen and sent him a blurry pic of his trackpad. He complained to Apple and within a couple days his trade in magically changed back to the quoted amount.
Then my turn. A few weeks ago I traded in my 2013 MBP and decided my son’s experience was an anomaly and overall I trusted Apple more than the other trade-in companies. i answered all the questions honestly–which was easy since it was in excellent condition–and was quoted $420. I sent it in and they pulled the same scam. Sent me an incomprehensible picture that could have been the inside of someone’s pocket or from a colonoscopy–I couldn’t make anything out. Once again Tthey said screen delamination and offered $150. I raised hell with Phobio and Apple and was armed with time-stamped pics from the day I shipped it. Two days later I got an email from Phobio saying they made a mistake and honored the full trade-in of $420. FYI!
I am trying to use SketchUp for medium-to-large acreage farm sites, landscape architecture, and humanitarian permaculture design, using hi-res 3D modeling and really am considering BIM for SketchUp.
But my experience with this new MacBook Pro is SO FRUSTRATING!!!
I bought the 2019 MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9, 64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB.
SketchUp is hella choppy once the geometry gets complex, but when I run Activity Monitor and monitor CPU & GPU, they are hardly being used.
I’ve spoken to Apple on the phone and shared screen, they said check with SketchUp. I am seeing in other threads information about Apple possibly having a conflict with NVIDIA some time ago, and that the AMD cards do not handle SketchUp well…
I am also seeing other people report they are fine, but I am not sure if others who are stating their SU performance experience is postive are trying to do things like BIM modeling for landscape architecture and VR workflows???
I am seriously considering selling this thing and switching over all my devices, but that is no small undertaking… @thomthom1 - I am also a heavy user of the device interoperability with Mac, and part of the reason I use Mac is because I got super frustrated with the amount of time, effort, and attention I had to spend on digital security with PC OS, and in the short-term it has been expedient for working in security-challenged environments.
Now I am getting frustrated with SketchUp being super choppy!
Yes, I have to agree with the fact it is hard to tell if it’s hardware or Sketchup? With the massive changes, plugins and constant hardware upgrades. I have noticed one very frustrating part of Sketchup, it does not seem to want to always give me a blue, green or red direction! I have to save, quit, reopen and most of the time it works better.
You didn’t reply to my colleague’s email from 10 days ago. Are all models choppy?
One thing you should try is to turn off Profiles in the View, Edge Style menu. That can make the performance become a lot better.
At SketchUp most of us use MacBook Pro, though very few are the 16 inch version. Mine is, and I think that @TheOnlyAaron has a new machine that will be the 2020 16 inch version. As far as I know we only get choppiness on models that are extremely demanding.
I agree David but that is nothing new for Apple.Makes all their Vendors jump with joy to cash in making adapters. I bought one of the early docks that plugs in the side on both of the USB-C and it lasted about 3 months. Now I just have a single USB-C to USB. They did the same with the iPhone when they did away with the standard jack.
I got a 2018 MacBook Pro that required me to buy a whole separate board for the jacks I needed to make it work for my setups–almost as wide as the laptop. I never got to see how it lasted. I took the MBP back.
I think SU isn’t as good on Macs as other programs. Still a lot of people use it. I think most Mac users have more problem with SketchUp 2020 and LayOut 2020 appears to be worse on both platforms. I don’t believe SketchUp 2019 is that bad on my Mac. I do OK with it. Macs also seem to be weaker with renderers in general. I gather from these forums that there are a number of factors that give people better or worse experience on Macs, but PC’s are more consistently better performing (unofficial poll, which CAN’T be worse than the official polls).
Does anyone use a Macbook Pro but with Windows installed on it for Sketchup?
I’m thinking of buying a used Macbook Pro 16 (2019) with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M graphics card but will install windows 10 on it for using Sketchup and Vray (but only using Vray for low quality test renders).
I’m undecided between an XPS 17 and Macbook Pro 16" but they would be used older models in either case due to my budget and there seems to be more choice of used Macbooks available.
Note that V-Ray supports GPU rendering only with Nvidia graphics cards so even if you install Windows on a Mac it will not be any faster than the Mac version.
I have experience of three large screen laptops. They are large and heavy to take to trips. The result was that I now have at home a large external screen and keyboard and my home laptop is the smallest screen I could find with separate Nvidia graphics. So I have a small laptop to move around and a decent screen for my actual work. The total cost would be the same or even smaller.
Thanks for your input.
Interesting, I didn’t know that vray only supported nvidia cards, I’ll bear that in mind. Although I would only use Vray on the laptop in ‘interactive’ mode (pre renders) and all main renders would be done cloud based. I prefer Windows as I’m more familiar with it, I have tried using OS in the past and didn’t really feel had the fluidity I need for my work flow. But I like the idea of getting a macbook for the power and portability (also nice screen and form).
I’d like a large screen as I plan to travel and work for a few months, so better to have the larger screen on a laptop as I don’t have a fixed address and therefore no home office.
I have the 2019 MacBookPro 16” you described and use it regularly for SketchUp. I also run windows 10 on it via Parallels when I need to investigate a windows-specific issue with any of my extensions. However, I would not recommend getting one for Windows unless you prefer macOS and or Mac apps, and plan to use it that way most of the time. You can get a better Windows PC for less money and get the benefit of a NVidia graphics card for V-ray as well.