Intel 16 inch MacBook Pro: is it good enough? 

Ended up buying one 2 months ago and think it's amazing. Had to get a macbook for starting audio engineering school, and M1 is not an option because of compatibility. Buy what you need when you need it. If you keep waiting and waiting, you will never be happy and will stay without a computer.

I love my 16”. It’s nice to have bootcamp to avoid gaming workarounds. It’s a decent Mac with a decent PC. Two functional operating systems in one device.

"is it still good" man, this device is still top tier. I view this as a portable 21.5" Intel iMac. I love the video and acknowledgement of the used market. Buying used on these devices is a must nowadays.

It is still good - 16" MBP owner 😛

I bought a used one and can get almost the same amount when I trade it in. Also older eyes love bigger screens!

You should do an update video in 2023 with 2023 used prices.

watching you in 4K on my 16 inch macbook. the detail! my 16 inch pro was made in may this year and so far im loving it, theres some software glitches now and then, but the speakers and screen are amazing!

I love my mbp16”, makes me smile whenever i turn it on. The sound is awesome the bigger screen is great. I really do not notice the fan noise.Never had a problem with Touch ID taking too long ,maybe I’m just not in that much of a hurry. Certainly no regrets here. Love your videos Luke. Especially like the repair /makeover ones. Uk viewer.

For me, I would not have a problem spending full new cost on the 16” Intel…possibly even when the Apple Silicon version comes out. Still a valuable machine. Although I think the best option would be buying off Apple’s refurb list which brings it in at a discount.

These are my absolute favorite videos from you man. Exactly what I needed to know.

Purchased my 16" last summer. Has been an amazing Mac and Windows machine for me. The only downside is the power management, as it kills the battery. But I wasn't going to keep waiting for a new computer that may or may not come.

I bought mine last summer. Although it pained me to pay out that amount of money it's one of the best things I've ever bought - and runs all my software with no problems whatsoever. Delighted with it. TBH I haven't noticed mine overheating, it's mostly cool to the touch and the only time it makes noise is when I'm working on something complex in Final Cut Pro.

I’m a graphic designer working on a late 2013 MacBook Pro running big sur, and it still working like a beast!!

Got a 16 inch MacBook Pro i9 8 core 16 GB RAM 1 TB SSD. Never had better, I can run 10-20 apps at the same time without any performance issues and everything just works. Loving it!

8:57 Luke Miani goes stereotypically Italian

Ordered mine last week. 8-core, i9, 16bg ram and 1tb of storage for 750$ I think it's a great deal, this machine should last me for at least 5 more years

I have one that bought new with a great discount Still is amazingly fast after ~2 years

i need that layout great video

I have the same kind of a love/hate relationship with my 2019 16” MacBook Pro. This one will definitely be up for sale when the new matte black model is released.

I love, love my 16 inch i9 Intel Macbook! And it is about 7-8 months now and works much better than my pc. I love having Final Cut Pro on it! I got it with 32GB and 1TB specs! I can wait a few years to upgrade to the M1 16 inch. No problem. I find the Intel 16 inch to be still quite snappy and of course the graphics is great! Oh yeah the fans, I found that my macbook is actually quieter than my pc laptops😱. I do hear the fans but they seem a bit quieter to me🤷‍♀️ Great information Luke!!!

I got one for $850. The guy hated it because he was a graphic designer and hated the overheating to the point that he sent it to apple and got a new one from apple. But ended up buying the M1 Max instead. He wanted $1,000 I got him down to $850. This thing was brand new. It only had 18 battery cycles. Plus i'm a Finance major really wont be pushing this device to its limits. A great upgrade from my 2013 Macbook Air.

I moved from windows to a MBP 16, after a month I would say the 16' is the best laptop I have ever used

I bought mine new in early 2020 and it's been a workhorse for video edits and general productivity! That being said, I'll definitely upgrade to an M1 machine (after using a base M1 air for DD) in the same form factor if I can get good multi display support and more gaming power for those work trips.

I just paid $700 for a 2019 MBP i9-9980 16GB/1TB. great condition.

I picked up a 2019 MBP 16 inch at the pawn shop for 720$. its space gray nd looks brand new and the inside is very Clean and only has 70 charge cycles on the battery

I couldn’t/can’t wait for apple silicon to be usable in my field. I need windows x86 emulation and dedicated graphics. I just bought the 16 inch i know it is being phased out but apple silicon needs more features for me before i can use it in my field.

Nice video, a particular issue I noticed missing is that in the MBP versus the M1, you can go to 32 or even 64GB ram... lets see if apple offers those options in teh M-based, as memory being integrated in the SOC, it should be very very expensive to produce those 32 and 64gb options.

I'm definitely getting one of these very soon

I wanna see Luke doing a video about BeamNG now that he’s shown it here! Ahahah

Always enjoyable. But would love to see another 'buying a pile of old gear and repairing' them vid.

I've had mine (core i9, 1TB) for 18 months. Had to replace a cracked display but otherwise had zero problems. When brand new I had the temp and fan issues. Did an SMC re-set and no problems since . I only get fans very occasionally when rendering video. For everything else it stays nice and cool. After 30 mins of watching YT it is actually cool to the touch.

Bootcamp is what I miss most since I moved from the 2018 Mac mini to the M1 Mac mini.

I love my 16”. It’s a powerhouse for editing. Until the 16” M1 with a dedicated GPU is released, this is still quite the machine.

be honest, 2015 pro is still good in 2021, 16 inch is perfect))

Love your vids Luke I’d be happy with one of these 16” Intel MBPs… but only bc I already have an Apple Silicon one!

Iv got a late 2011 MacBook Pro, 2TB SSD 8GB ram, runs AMAZING

Exactly the reason why I'm still on a 15" MacBook Pro (2016)

As a member of the music producer community I can absolutely assure you we NEVER got numb to that fan noise. It’s genuinely the thing I’m most excited about for the M1X I’m waiting to upgrade to and is the single reason I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of buying a 16in intel Mac. Not even for 0 dollars.

I'm from the future where this configuration costs $759. Can't beat it. Screen size is paramount. it will be years before a 16" M chip is competitive pricewise.

Excellent Video!!!, this is SUPER SMART AND USEFUL information. Thats why we watch 👍👌🙏

I have a 16” i9, 5500m, and I use activity monitor to close intensive apps running in the background. Fixed all fan issues. My creative cloud always opens in the background and sends my temps to max until closed. Then it runs cool

I have the 16inch MBP for a year now. It will do me fine for now.

Love my 2019 16 Mac Pro! It’s now 2024 and my music and video recording and editing is first class!

I bought this beast last May and I am a little bummed after the new releases, but it still is a power-horse and it does everything I need it to. Still hoping i'll get a few years out of it, thankfully I got the i9 one open box for only $2200 instead of $2800 ❤️ Plus I'd still pay extra any day for the bigger screen

I love you man you’re very blunt in a good way

Just bought a 2017 pro and cant get over how quiet it is. My thinkpad collection all randomly turn on their fans whenever they feel like it even if they've been idling for a day or something. That said, at least they have good keyboards.

8:09 seeing BeamNG was unexpected, but very welcome.

I still have my 16-inch i7 MacBook Pro from two years ago and it's great. I've recently purchased the M1 Mac mini, which'll be my main desktop computer but what I don't like about the M1 MacBook Pro is its port limitations. I had a 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro and I found only having two USB-C ports very limiting. The only thing I don't like about my 16-inch is the heat, it's very hot to the touch and I have to use Software to cool it down.

I got a 4 port 2020 13 MacBook Pro as a replacement for my 2017 13 base model MacBook Pro due to keyboard issues. Pretty nice computer.

I used to always buy the bigger MacBook pros for the better performance and larger batteries. When the 16" Macbook pro came out, the i9 version I bought was an obvious choice for me over the high end 13" version and I absolutely loved mine until I replaced with with an M1 MacBook earlier this year. The battery life was excellent and it was more than fast enough to be a desktop when I needed one. The M1 Pro I have is nearly as fast while being more portable and having much better battery life. That being said, if you need a high end Mac laptop with discrete graphics and the ability to run windows natively, then the 16" is still the only choice.

He definitely deserves more subscribers

I'm really contemplating selling my 15" 2017 2.9 Macbook Pro to upgrade to a 2019 i9. I am debating whether it is worth it or not. I will need to use native Windows apps (one being Quick Assist for family tech support), some light gaming, and other things. Thoughts?

No mention of the very nice "studio quality" mics.

hahahahaha that deep voice edit was so funny

I love my larger MBP - I have a 13" that I frankly hate the size, but it is maxed out on everything. I use for different purposes.

I recently bought a MacBook Pro 16 i7 and with the Radeon 5500m for $725. I think it’s a smart purchase since it’s more powerful than the M1, you have the latest generation that will have touchbar and boot camp, in the long run it can be a relic for the world of Apple.

Will the Intel MBP be compatible with all of the features that macOS Monterey? If not, that would make the 2016-2019 16” MBP an even less enticing buy in my opinion.

hello luke, i have a question regarding buying a refurbished macbook should i buy a i9 5500m 1tb macbook or a base m1 air i do edit 4k videos and use lightroom, mostly on my laptops and occassionally watch movies

I think for your Only Fans you should make videos reacting to fan noise from Intel Macs

What the best used Mac air to buy ? Cheap one ?

I had an old hp lap top that had the fans the second I turned it on but when I bought this MacBook Pro mid 2019 I was so surprised of how little the fans turned on compared to my old hp laptop! D o not complain. I still love this video!😊

I just bought my 16 inch Mac book pro with the I9 processor for audio engineering . works perfect!

Still rocking the 17 inch pro. I hope one day we can get 17 inch screen again.

I just bought myself an M1 Macbook Pro 16Gb of ram and I love it. I was hoping that the 14in was going to be available before I go to school in August but it's not so RIP.

I'm in the process of replacing my old Macs for new Intel Macs to get the latest models before Intel goes away. The main reason is virtualization. I have VMs for tons of old software I don't want to spend tons of money to replace: MS-DOS, Windows, Mac OS X 10.6, 10.8. This why my old machines are on Mojave too--for 32-bit support. (Plus the Music app is worse than iTunes.) I'm already torn about having to upgrade to Big Sur on the new hardware. So to give some examples: I still use Adobe CS4 on 10.8. For translation work: I have an unabridged foreign language dictionary on MS-DOS ($300), an unabridged bilingual dictionary on WinXP (not available elsewhere), a monolingual ($200) and a couple bilingual dictionaries ($300) that are 32-bit which I run on OS X 10.8. I still have Adobe Acrobat XI on 10.8. I pick earliest OS that the software supports to save on resources for when I'm running multiple VMs simultaneously. MS Office (for Visio, mainly) on Win 10. It would cost a couple grand just to replace all that software, so the preserving it with new but soon-to-be out-dated hardware is a strategy for me. There are few random things that require Rosetta on 10.6 for PPC translation. Plus, there are a whole host of other apps that run on Windows or Older OSes that occasionally save the day when you need to accomplish something. Since hardware can fail after it gets old anyway, I'd rather spend on hardware that can preserve the old software, rather than waiting a little while longer for Apple Silicon and taking the double-whammy of having to find completely new software solutions as well, which might exceed the cost of the new computer.

just got a 2019 i7 16GB 512GB W/ AMD Graphics configuration used for $700. I saw that's pretty good value. With a very limited budget, and not able to quite afford what I want in the M1... I opted for used. There's still some great value in the 2019 versions, I think especially for users that are using graphic intensive applications. However you bring up one really good point that might get me to flip this computer and try to shoot for an m1 or m2... and that's the FAN noise. I hate fan noise. So if it's as noisy as you say then that will probably be what I do.

The 16 inch is gonna go down as one of the best MacBooks of all time, as long as reliability issues don’t pop up over time. The keyboard doesn’t stick and has proper arrow keys, the touch bar… can be ignored, the display is as accurate as can be and huge as well, it has four high-speed thunderbolt ports and can be charged from both sides, it has a dedicated GPU, and so much more. It’s a zero-compromise laptop for a specific type of person.

To be frank, that old Intel 16 inch held up alright against the M series chips. I got four years out of mine before needing to upgrade due to ports and battery failure. As much as I love my M3 Max. I just now started to appreciate how well the Intel 16 inch had aged before some of the components started to fail. I could have probably gotten another year out of it if it wasn't for those issues. I'm going to hold on to mine even when it takes that last step into Computer Heaven.

Traded my 16 for the 24 iimac while the trade-in value was still decent

I own a 16-inch MBP with Radeon Pro 5500m and I think it just works for me coz I'm always travelling but I still like to game whenever I can (on bootcamp of course). Would definitely consider just replacing the 16-inch with an M1 and another Windows laptop but I guess it's really not worth the hassle of carrying around 2 laptops. Love the video btw!

MBP 16 i9 or Air M1? I will get one of those as company laptop but which to choose ?

I bought the base model 16" MBP right after when it was launched and I have no complaints with it aside from the fans going into overdrive occasionally, but after I got myself a case with air vents, and replaced Safari with Edge, the fans and temperature weren't as aggressive anymore. The phenomenal speakers on it and the large screen size totally justify my purchase. And I agree with the advantage of being able to charge from both sides.

Hey just want an opinion.... I'm planning to buy a base model m1 air for some video editing, some music production and other college stuff along with basics of blender....what do you say...also my budget is limited and maxed out to that price

Is there any generation of the 16inch intel mbp that had more technical issues?

You forgot another big problem with them - flashgate problem. And there is a new problem discovered now by Luis, related to screen suddenly dying, and taking also 3 chips with it

you're the only leaked products youtuber that i trust and also like :D

Just remembered that apple screwed up with the thermals on that models, switching to ARM help them to keep the same design without getting a considerable heat on use. Love the keyboard of the MBP 16 hope Apple fix some bugs related to speakers and stuff

this might actually be best time to buy 16 inch intel macs while stock lasts. Possibly last macbook without notch for years.

I sold my base model last week. I’ll miss it a little, but got an m1 air for work. Probably going to build a crazy hackintosh later this year, unless m1x comes CRAZYY

Bought my 32GB/2TB 2.4Ghz i9 8-core 16" in March 2020, right before lockdowns, as I'd had my 2014 15" in the shop 3x over the previous 3 months (bad battery, then the E key and cmd-v stopped working, then bad battery again, and another bad one). I foresaw a shortage, and got the last one in town with more than 16GB/1TB without waiting 6 weeks. It's been great, and fast enough that I can use Parallels for a Windows 10 VM instead of boot camp, letting me still access my Mac apps without rebooting out of Windows. Yeah, the fans run a lot, but I can turn off turbo boost and the fans stop and it's cooler, at the expense of performance, which is okay when I need longer battery while mobile. With turbo boost on and plugged in now I'm at 57 degrees while having 50 Safari tabs open (not very common to not hear fans tho).

The "new"16" never appealed to me enough to leave my mid-2015 top spec MacBook Pro. However, I am looking forward to replacing it with one of the upcoming models.

Hey Luke. Had an idea for a video you could do during these lean product times. Recently had to reexport an old docu project I did in Final Cut Studio. I had to do a 10.12 install on my MBP 2015. Was expecting the i7 with DG to crank through the editing and rendering compared to the Core2Duo I had at the time. The experience was shocking and it was obvious why. Would be fun to see you do a video that illustrates just how far pro editing has come using an apples to apples comparison (intended). Also just remembered, June was the 10th anniversary of FCPX. I know you love to experiment with old tech. (Sending from my 16". I can write youtube comments in silence, at least.)

I bought it two weeks after it was released… Hope it’ll last a few more years

Luke if you reading this can you drop me a link of the destroyed retina MacBook Pro b roll song I am trying to find it over a year ;-;

Not if you are tired of your lap baking from the heat. Time to go to an Apple chip for no-bake knees and thighs.

I think it depends on what it's for.. I love my 16". and my M1 mac mini. very different machines, each great for its use. I don't get the complaining about noise though.. I haven't had any issues with it. sure, it spins up when the AMD card is active as expected, but otherwise, rare to hear them at all unless I put the machine to work.

Now that the new 16” with M1 Pro and M1 Max is out this discussion may have changed for many. But unfortunately Apple silicon will take years to be fully supported by a majority of apps. The other issue is when you run Windows through Parallels, there are limitations because it’s using the ARM version of Windows. I purchased a 16” M1 Pro a few weeks ago, but I also purchased a 2019 i9 refurbished from Apple recently. The model I got retailed for $3,599 and I paid $2,438. My plan is to keep it around during the maturation of Apple silicon and hopefully there will be better support for the ARM version of Windows in the future. For now, I still need Boot Camp for applications like SSMS because it’s not supported by the ARM version of Windows. In a few years I’ll trade both devices and get a maxed out M3 Pro 16”. Definitely going to wait for refurbished for my next Mac purchase!

I just bought a MacBook Pro 16" 8-core i9 2.3GHz 32GB RAM 1TB SSD 5500M 8GB Graphics for around $2,300 Canadian from eBay which was a great price in my opinion. I looked at these specs when the 2019's came out and they were around the $6000 dollar range so I'm very happy with my purchase.

I had the 16" and I loved the speakers but the screen actually kinda sucked. It has very slow pixel response times that made scrolling look obnoxious "ghosting" .. there are many forum threads about this. Definitely hope it's better with next generation of MBP . I never had this problem with my 15.4 models.

Is it still good in 2023, used/refurbished, for a price around $800. I think a Macbook Air M2 might be a better choice in the long run.

As for me, I just purchased a 2019 MBP 16”. It has 32gb of RAM and 512-SSD. It is a core i7, not the i9. It arrives next week and it cost me $950. I could have easily got the m1/m2 for cheaper. Hence it’s also my first MacBook I ever owned. I wanted the starlight M2 soooo bad. Then I was looking at the 2015 MBP, but settled for the 2019. The reason why I didn’t buy it. Was, because I’m not going to settle for a 13 inch screen. My older windows laptop which is a “Dell” is 15.4-16 inches. I’m not going to settle for a top of the line laptop. Just, because it’s the newest product. For me, I bought it, because it’s an affordable 16 inch laptop, inexpensive and it still runs smoothly. Just, because there is a better version out there. Does not mean that the older generation laptops are horrible (except for the 2017 macbook) the 2012 MacBook is running strong still, the 2015 is still a really nice option too.

Put sections in your video to go directly to what I'm interested too. In this case, battery and heating.

They're $300 off at Costco now!

are 15in touchbar macbook pros still worry it?

I got an M1 MBA with 16GB of rams as soon as they started taking orders, and yet I still decided to get an Apple refurbished 16” with the 5600m last month

Hi bud. I’m interested in buying a 2019 16”i9 32gb 1 tb MacBook only for lightroom cc and photoshop. QCurrently using a 1st gen iPad Pro. Would this laptop be worth buying in 2023. I can’t afford a used m1 14” I’d only be using for photo editing and RU-vid. And once updates stop for in tel comps can I still use the laptop. Great channel 👍

In my case intel now is my option, cause I’m a Adobe Premiere user, and the m1 is good but not completely reliable to use as my main computer. I hope the m1x o m2 gives us better performance, mainly in graphics. Love your content Luke!

I myself have the 2019 16" MBP with the i9 and use Bootcamp heavily for my engineering study. It is a great and powerful machine, but boy do the fans blast when using windows 10. I'm really looking forward to the new MacBook Pro's and can't wait until virtual machine software truly supports Apple Silicon in combination with an ARM-based version of windows 10.

I have an M1 MBA but love my 16" MBP.

I love the Intel still, based on the fact it can run Windows on BootCamp and use the whole power of the computer, not just through an application. And I like the TouchBar and the slimmer design. Having said that the 16-inch M1 Pro is still way better for the most part