CultCast #345 - 2018 MacBook Pro: The good, the great, the UGLY.

Send us a text!

• The 2018 MacBook Pro is both a beauty AND a beast.  In fact, it's one of the most exciting MBP refreshes in years.  The benchmarks are in and they’re impressive. 
• A popular tech reviewer warns that the i9 processor upgrade in the MBP has a major flaw, and his video proof is compelling.  We’ll fill you in.
• We also bring back Matthew Taylor, creator of the very popular butterfly keyboard recall petition, now with over 32,000 signatures,  to have a frank discussion on the state of the 2018 MBP keyboard.  Has Apple fixed the issues plaguing their butterfly key design?  
• And stay tuned for a strange new HomeKit controller and the best insulated water bottle on the market in an all-new Under Review!

• The 15- and 13-inch MacBook Pro models launching this week boast significantly faster processors. Tests with the Geekbench benchmarking tool show speed increases as high as 86 percent.
• The improvements come from faster Turbo Burst frequencies and more processor cores.
• “For the 15-inch models, single-core performance is up 12-15%, and multi-core performance is up 39-46%
• “For the 13-inch models, single-core performance is up 3%-11%, and multi-core performance is up 81%-86%

• Majorly faster CPU
• Much faster SSDs
• Faster DD4 RAM
• CPU:
• • John Poole from Geekbench: “The 2018 MacBook Pro is the most substantial upgrade (at least regarding performance) since the introduction of the quad-core processors in 2011 MacBook Pro,” 
  • Photography Austin Mann did to covert a 4K Mavic Pro video file to 1080p H.265 (HEVC) using QuickTime Player. 
  • • 2013 MBP with 16GB RAM = 33 minutes
    • Maxed out 2016 MBP = 99 seconds
    • Maxed out 2018 MBP = 24 seconds
• SSD
• • Laptop Mag: “It’s rare that I don’t believe