After 10 days decided to return MacBook 2017. Got MacBook Pro 13" without TB instead.

I thought that the main reason why I might want to return it would be performance. But after I run my benchmarks, it showed expected performance, a little bit slower than MacBook Pro, but still more than enough to do day to day stuff, including some coding.

My reasons to return it are:

• Screen is not bright enough, comparing to MacBook Pro 2016/2017. I missed that when I ordered it, but 300 nits brightness is visible lower than 500 nits brightness. Still ok to work outside in the shadow. But because I already had experience with MacBook Pro, I know that it could be better.
• MacBook is very light. Comparing to MacBook Pro it is more like an iPad. But at the same time it is too small. Area for palms is not large enough. Hard to explain, maybe I could get use to it with a time. But MacBook Pro 13 feels better.
• If you owned MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, you probably know the feeling that Air is not the same quality as MacBook Pro. The same about MacBook and MacBook Pro. TrackPad is not the same. Keyboard is not the same. Screen.

Where MacBook shines:

• I mentioned it already. It is very light. Feels like an iPad.
• Quiet.
• Is not getting as warm as MacBook Pro.

Decided to get MacBook Pro without TB instead. I use MacBook Pro 2016 with TouchBar at work, so I know what I am missing by getting the version without TouchBar. Touch ID is great to have, but I have not seen any usage of it. Having F-keys and Esc keys is certainly a big plus comparing to TouchBar. Also after looking on some benchmark tests - seems like MacBook Pro without TB shows very similar results to the one with TB. Interesting that model without TouchBar has 54.5-watt-hour battery, but the one with TouchBar has 49.2-watt-hour, I assume that this can give some better battery life.

Comparing to the benchmarks I run for MacBook, run just few for the MacBook Pro without TouchBar:

• brew install llvm --HEAD test run for 42.1 minutes real time (151.3 user time). That is better than previous version of MacBook Pro with TouchBar.
• For the previous test MacBook Pro used 38% of battery. Close to MacBook. Much better than MacBook Pro 2016 with TB.
• Disk speed is the same as MacBook Pro 2016 with TB, which is 1768.7 write and 2233.8 read (used Blackmagic Disk Speed Test to test).
• Geekbench Results better than MacBook Pro 2016 13" with TB showed. Single-core is 4018 and Multi-core 9436.

I was told that new MacBook Pro 13" 2017 with TB showed similar results for the battery test as MacBook Pro 13" 2017 without TB.

See Also

• MacBook: benchmarks for developers