Incredibly quick SSD ; True Tone for non-visual creativity ; Reasonable CPU and GPU boosts ; Quad-core processors with Hyper-Threading

Battery life ; Price is close to two grand

The MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (13-inch, Mid-2018) is a welcome, but mostly straightforward, improvement to a capable laptop.

More powerful innards ; Keyboard is quieter ; True Tone display is great ; Really nippy SSD

Expensive ; Touch Bar lacks support ; Non-Touch Bar model not (yet?) updated

A strong update to Apple’s 13-inch flagship notebook, not least if you look beyond the surface

Delivers portability and power ; Fast and capable

Apps likely need to be tweaked to be able to access the eGPU’s power ; A significant investment

As it stands, it may be that the apps you depend on can’t access the eGPU’s power, but the potential here is huge, and at a purely hardware level, this is a wonderfully capable, flexible set-up.

Outstanding speed; Longer battery life; Attractive design

Expensive

Apple’s 2018 MacBook Pro refresh offers strong CPU performance and blazing fast SSDs worthy of the Pro name, but it could use longer battery life and is still short on ports.

Faster than before thanks to 8th gen Intel CPUs ; Better battery life ; Refined keyboard

Still stuck with 4 USB-C ports (get your dongles ready) ; No dedicated graphics on the 13-inch model ; Touch Bar still needs work to truly replace function keys ; PC competition offers more compelling 13-inch laptop hardware

While this latest generation of the MacBook Pro might seem understated, it's a more significant upgrade than last year's, when Apple just added some aging CPUs. These new models are more powerful than ever -- though, if that's your main concern, you...