demzco-blog

[demzco-blog]

Review of MacBook Pro I have recently purchased the new MacBook Pro 13 inch in space Grey. I decided on the option without the touch bar. I will tell you more about my reason for this later. I went for the entry level MacBook Pro as I feel this is enough for my needs, I have an external hard drive which has more than enough storage for my needs. I decided on a MacBook instead of a windows laptop as I am a major apple fan for a start and I also really liked the idea of being able to access my documents and photos on all my devices and also being able to start a piece of work on my MacBook and then finish it on my iPad Pro. This was really the major selling point. I also went for the space grey option as this is the newest colour, apple have made MacBooks in silver for a number of years now and I fancied something a bit different, however, I know that some people will prefer the silver as this is the iconic MacBook colour. Colour I suppose isn’t a major factor its all about the aesthetics. Another reason I treated myself to the MacBook was that I have been looking at them for a while but I have for the past 18 months been using my iPad Pro 12.9 inch with the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil, this has been great but as for apple claiming this as a laptop replacement, I have recently become aware that this is not the case for my needs. Although the iPad is fantastic for many thing and is still greatly loved and will be used often it just didn’t quite do everything I was looking for. As I said for the most part of 18 months I had not noticed this and had no major reason to need any other device but at the end of last year I decided to take photography up again after a number of years out. I tried all the accessories for the iPad that transfer photos from camera to iPad with a varied success. The lightning to camera usb did not work at all, the lightning to camera usb 3 wasn’t much better, I had reasonable success with the lightning to SD card reader but again this only worked with some SD cards and did not work when video was recorded onto a micro SD card and then put into an adapter, this was not showing up to import. After spending hours chatting to apple support and making an appointment at my local apple store I decided to bite the bullet and hey presto, I have a shiny new MacBook Pro. For what I am using this MacBook for I did not feel the need for the touch bar version as this was a good few hundred pound extra. I ended up getting my MacBook from Currys PC World instead of apple as Currys had £100 of my chosen device at purchase. Its the same machine so why not make a wee saving on it. At the same time I also purchased the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter, I went for this instead of the USB-C to USB adapter as this has the port to also plug the charging cable in and also the HDMI port for connecting to external displays, TV’s, projectors etc. I also have a normal USB hub that I used with my previous MacBook Air meaning I can connect multiple USB cables into the one port. I was a bit unsure of USB-C to start with as this is something very new. Yes the speed of transferring data is great but this is not widely supported at the moment, however it is inevitable that in the future USB will be a thing of the past. 

[demzco-blog]

Review of MacBook Pro (no touch bar)

I have recently purchased the new MacBook Pro 13 inch in space Grey. I decided on the option without the touch bar. I will tell you more about my reason for this later. I went for the entry level MacBook Pro as I feel this is enough for my needs, I have an external hard drive which has more than enough storage for my needs. I decided on a MacBook instead of a windows laptop as I am a major apple fan for a start and I also really liked the idea of being able to access my documents and photos on all my devices and also being able to start a piece of work on my MacBook and then finish it on my iPad Pro. This was really the major selling point. I also went for the space grey option as this is the newest colour, apple have made MacBooks in silver for a number of years now and I fancied something a bit different, however, I know that some people will prefer the silver as this is the iconic MacBook colour. Colour I suppose isn’t a major factor its all about the aesthetics. Another reason I treated myself to the MacBook was that I have been looking at them for a while but I have for the past 18 months been using my iPad Pro 12.9 inch with the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil, this has been great but as for apple claiming this as a laptop replacement, I have recently become aware that this is not the case for my needs. Although the iPad is fantastic for many thing and is still greatly loved and will be used often it just didn’t quite do everything I was looking for. As I said for the most part of 18 months I had not noticed this and had no major reason to need any other device but at the end of last year I decided to take photography up again after a number of years out. I tried all the accessories for the iPad that transfer photos from camera to iPad with a varied success. The lightning to camera usb did not work at all, the lightning to camera usb 3 wasn’t much better, I had reasonable success with the lightning to SD card reader but again this only worked with some SD cards and did not work when video was recorded onto a micro SD card and then put into an adapter, this was not showing up to import. After spending hours chatting to apple support and making an appointment at my local apple store I decided to bite the bullet and hey presto, I have a shiny new MacBook Pro. For what I am using this MacBook for I did not feel the need for the touch bar version as this was a good few hundred pound extra. I ended up getting my MacBook from Currys PC World instead of apple as Currys had £100 of my chosen device at purchase. Its the same machine so why not make a wee saving on it. At the same time I also purchased the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter, I went for this instead of the USB-C to USB adapter as this has the port to also plug the charging cable in and also the HDMI port for connecting to external displays, TV’s, projectors etc. I also have a normal USB hub that I used with my previous MacBook Air meaning I can connect multiple USB cables into the one port. I was a bit unsure of USB-C to start with as this is something very new. Yes the speed of transferring data is great but this is not widely supported at the moment, however it is inevitable that in the future USB will be a thing of the past.