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Laptops · Apple MacBook Pro

Apple MacBook Pro 2016

16owners with an opinion
36%of verdicts positive
5/5positive/negative since 2024
10 yrslongest happy owner
2happy after 3+ years

Praised for performance and reliability; criticized for support.

What owners wrote

Likes itOwned 10 yearsStill going
While I get the butterfly keyboard hate (though mine is so far still perfectly fine) the USB-C ports were amazing. I have a 2016 MBpro and that thing still cooks really well. As somebody who worked in video production those ports were a godsend. No more waiting around for footage to transfer all the damn time. Complete game changer. Plus with one or two quality docks I could plug-in literally anything I ever needed. With the AMD GPU i could also edit pretty beefy 4K with no proxies most of the time. In 2016/2017 that was pretty awesome. Plus last good intel machine they made IMO, so good compatibility with lots of software, target display mode for old iMacs, windows if I wanted it, etc. Probably my favorite laptop I’ve ever owned. Powerful machine, still sees work, runs great.
Doesn’t like itOwned 5 years
Yup, some of the keys on my 2016 MacBook Pro started not working reliably and thankfully Apple had their extended warranty program for that and they replaced the entire top cover (keyboard, trackpad, aluminum housing) + battery. This was about 5 years after buying it. It was pretty nice because I had like 1200 cycles on the battery or something crazy like that!
NeutralOwned 3 years
> There was a good GitHub repo tracking it for up to I think the first touchbar Pro, and basically it was dismal then and only got worse (according to repo owner who consequently stopped bothering iirc). As I'm said repo owner, let me chime in here quickly to shed some light on that. I used a 13" MacBook Pro 2016 for 3 years with Debian as my sole machine for work. When ordering it back in 2016 I wasn't sure how difficult it'd be to get Linux properly working on it, as at that point it was only known that it's possible to boot Linux, but nobody had figured out even such basics like support for the integrated input devices or the NVMe SSD yet. However as I was using Linux on Macs since 2006 I figured it'd be somehow possible to get it to work for me. Fortunately I wasn't the only one serious about running Linux these 2016+ MacBooks, as I have very limited knowledge of the required lowlevel programming skills. What I did was to provide and moderate a Github repository ( https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux ) as a central place to document and discuss of the status of hardware support for these MacBook Pros, some little patches and lots of feedback and bug reports. A big shoutout to all contributors who did an incredible job at reverse engineering, implementing and upstreaming drivers for various components! That's quite an achievement for such a complex device with no public hardware documentation at all! After a while it turned out that support for certain components woul
Likes it
A 2011 mb air weighs almost half a pound more than this and is slightly larger. Also you are forced to run on 1) MacOS (which I like but is a limitation for many) and 2) since it’s unsupported will have many (especially modern) apps and such not work. I love my 2016 MBpro. Can still render edit and render 4K video, pulls solid work. But it’s limited. Can’t even download Final Cut on it anymore because Apple won’t let me pull the latest supported version of the app. Luckily resolve does.
Neutral
Well, my Ive-cursed 2016 MacBook Pro had 4 (!) ThunderBolt/USB-C ports, which I kind of miss (though you had to use one of them for charging, you could also charge from either side). It was both thinner and lighter than recent 16" MacBook Pro models (but with ~5 hour battery life.) It also had a semi-useful touchbar, no actual physical ESC key, a terrible "butterfly" keyboard that was replaced twice, and a large trackpad that had terrible palm rejection until they eventually fixed it. So mostly not great, but I miss the form factor and those 4 TB/USB-C ports. I dream about having more of them.
Doesn’t like it
Those 2019-2020 models are absolute trash. I don’t know what happened. My 2016 MBPro smokes the few we have bouncing around at work. They started falling apart like year 3, and my MBPro was the first iteration of their newer builds with the butterfly keyboard/non-optional Touch Bar!
Likes itStill going
I'm using a MacBook Pro 2016 for dev still works great, and its still better than every windows laptop available now. The touchpad itself is still superior - its crazy when you think about it. I know people on their 3rd or 4th windows laptop since I've been using mine. I tried a M4 recently and its battery life is fantastic, and its faster so I'll probably upgrade when this one dies, but it still works well. Edit: just did a google and it seems I can still sell it for about $600AUD, I don't know how anyone is buying a non apple lap top.
Doesn’t like it
Exactly that is what I think, and I do think it is just not possible. I’m searching for a new laptop, I want unix, so either linux or macos. I was looking at framework, system76, tuxedo and slimbooks, and mac air. I want an ANSI keyboard, which seems an oddity in Europe (there is English iso, which viscerally hate) If you want thunderbolt ports, and some good specs, mac air is cheaper. And I’ve heard with arm processors you can tun linux at almost native speeds… I’m almost decided for Mac Air… If somebody wants to add something to make me change my mind, you are more than welcome. BTW I’m replacing a 2016 Macbook pro, which was buggy as hell, and I learned to really hate it. Also I’m not a fan of MacOs… but !4$ I cannot beat it.
Doesn’t like it
I'm one of the rare weirdos who really likes the feel of the butterfly keyboard. I love the snappy, tappy reaction. The new "magic" keyboards feel mushy in comparison. BUT… my 2016 MBP is on its third keyboard, and seems ready for a fourth. AND… for four years I've been wondering if my typing has been getting progressively worse worse; a couple weeks ago I picked up an M1 Air as a kind of stopgap while waiting for the M1 16". LO AND BEHOLD: my typing accuracy got better overnight. That fraction of a millimeter between the keys makes a huge difference. I love the butterfly keyboard. It was a disaster. RIP.
Doesn’t like it
I own a 2016 Macbook Pro and 2018 Macbook Pro and I have to agree with the others in this thread: don't buy a modern Mac laptop. I really regret purchasing the 2018, my next laptop will probably a Linux based machine. I recently switched to iPhone after using Android devices for many years to get away from Google and that was actually a purchase I can recommend. The Macbook Pro, not so much.
Doesn’t like it
Made an account just to comment on this. The new keyboards are a nightmare. My keys on my 2016 Macbook Pro kept sticking and after a while started falling off. To fix it, they have to replace large parts of the machine, including the screen, so your machine is likely to be in the shop for the better part of a week. Once repaired, the problem will persist, because it's not like they're actually able to correct the design flaw by giving you a new keyboard. I've been a loyal Mac user for about 16 years - even used to run Yellow Dog Linux on my old PPC - but I've started migrating my family to the Dell XPS for their new laptops. From what I read, the new rubber components in the most recent laptops don't really fix the issue either. I'd stay away.
Doesn’t like it
Based on my (admittedly unusual) workloads, the effective charge time of the 2016 is awful. I already only get 4-5 hours out of a 2014 MBP. I bought a 2016 and only managed 3 1/2 hours. Maybe they've improved that with some software fixes, but it's still a non starter. So I returned it. I know I'm not a typical user, but I get much better battery life (with lower productivity) out of my windows laptop. Which was not the case when I switched to Macs years back.
Doesn’t like itHasn’t owned it
I have a 350MHz Power Mac G4 from 1999, and it’s one of the most thoughtfully designed desktops I’ve used. Not only is it visually appealing, but it is very easy to access its components using its door. Ive was also behind many other innovative desktops, such as the iMac G4 and the Power Mac G4 Cube. I enjoy my “trash can” Mac Pro; it’s just too bad the dual-GPU approach was a dead end. While I believe Ive took his desires for thinness and simplicity too far with the 2016 MacBook Pro, I appreciate the work done on the PowerBook G4 (titanium and aluminum), the original MacBook Pro, the unibody MacBook Pro, and the Retina MacBook Pro. These successive laptops set the standard for laptop design, and they helped make laptops easy to place in a backpack. Laptops used to be quite bulky in the 1990s; I have a PowerBook 5300 I acquired nearly a decade ago that is quite thick and heavy. I don’t agree with all of Ive’s design decisions, but overall I like his designs.