As reports emerged that Apple has scheduled the MacBook Pro 2016 for release before October ends, rumors continue to swirl on the feature upgrades to expect. Will Intel Skylake or Kaby Lake be on board with AMD Polaris 11 GPU? And will they be enough to beat the nearest competition, say the Dell XPS 15?
The latter question was posed by Forbes in a new report, wondering what could be the new things that Apple will unload with the MBP 2016. Or how exactly the MacBook Pro refresh will outpace the XPS 15 that was seen last year.
When MacRumors claimed this week that the MacBook Pro 2016 will unbox no later than October, the same report echoed the rumored feature upgrades for the laptop. There will be dynamic OLED function keys and Touch ID sensor embedded on the power button.
Such new feature offerings will give the MBP 2016 "nice touches," according to Forbes, adding that with USB Type-C ports plus what analysts call as the new notebook's slimmer and lighter build it is certain that the MacBook Pro upgrade will not only play catch up but likely overtake its chief rival.
But beyond the gorgeous factor, performance really is the key for the MacBook Pro to reclaim its old glory. The device has to be mightier and faster than ever and Forbes said any of Intel's Skylake and Kaby Lake will give the new MacBook the speed and muscle bumps it requires.
"Even launching ridiculously late with Skylake, Apple can at least slightly improve things over launch-Skylake configurations by using higher binned processors (higher clocks from better yields) and [do other tweaks] that could be done with the motherboard design," the report said, quoting Canalys analyst Daniel Matte.
And it would be great if the MacBook Pro 2016 will get an AMD Polaris GPU as suggested by MacRumors with a note that the graphics card will be found on the high-end 15-inch MBP 2016. Matte told Forbes that Polaris 11 is a near shoo-in for the device as the architecture syncs with the MacBook Pro 2016's rumored "lower power and thinner designs."
"If Apple decides to launch with Polaris ... that will indeed be a great upgrade," the analyst said.
But in the OS department, it remains to be seen how the MacBook Pro 2016, running on macOS Sierra, will stack up against the Windows 10-powered Dell XPS 15 following the former's rumored October release date. "Windows 10 ... is a galactically big improvement over all previous Windows versions," Forbes said.