Category: Apple Insider

 

Exclusive

By Christine McKee
Thursday, December 26, 2019, 01:40 pm PT (04:40 pm ET)

Just in, Apple Authorized Reseller Adorama has issued fresh price drops on Apple’s new 16-inch MacBook Pro, with the standard model falling to $2,175 ($225 off) with coupon. Those looking for the robust Core i9 model with additional storage and upgraded graphics can snap up the 8-core configuration for just $2,525. These exclusive Apple deals deliver the lowest prices, in addition to financing perks and discounts on AppleCare.

New 16-inch MacBook Pro savings

The new price drops are in the form of instant rebates stacked with exclusive promo code APINSIDER, delivering the lowest prices on the retail configurations from Apple’s brand-new 16-inch MacBook Pro line. In addition to the cash savings, AppleCare protection plans are $30 off, and shoppers can take advantage of no interest when paid in full within 12 months using the Adorama Credit Card.

Each of the models listed below is in stock and ready to ship, so you won’t be waiting long for your new laptop. Those needing different specs, such as additional RAM or top-of-the-line Radeon 5500M 8GB graphics, can also save on every other config using this special pricing link and the APINSIDER coupon. Step-by-step instructions for redeeming the code can be found near the bottom of this page. Need help? Send us a note at [email protected] and we will do our best to assist.

New 16″ MacBook Pro deals

• 16″ MacBook Pro 6C (2.6GHz, 16GB, 512GB, 5300M) Gray: $2,175* ($225 off)
• 16″ MacBook Pro 6C (2.6GHz, 16GB, 512GB, 5300M) Silver: $2,175* ($225 off)
• 16″ MacBook Pro 8C (2.3GHz, 16GB, 1TB, 5500M 4GB) Gray: $2,525* ($275 off)
• 16″ MacBook Pro 8C (2.3GHz, 16GB, 1TB, 5500M 4GB) Silver: $2,525* ($275 off)
  *Price with coupon code APINSIDER using the special pricing links above or in our 16-inch MacBook Pro Price Guide. Prices above are the final, total prices for most shoppers. Plus, save $30 on AppleCare at time of purchase. [Need help?]

(*) How to apply the Apple promo code at Adorama

1. Make sure you’re using a browser with cookies enabled that isn’t in private mode.
2. Click on the price link to the desired configuration from this article or the Adorama price links in our Price Guides. You MUST click through our links in the same shopping session that you use our coupon. If you try to save a link for late, the coupon WON’T WORK. Once you click through a price link, you’ll see a price that’s higher than advertised (we’ll fix that in a moment).
3. Add the MacBook Pro 16 inch to your cart anyway, and when you’re done shopping, begin the checkout process.
4. Look for a link that says “Do you have a gift card or promo code?” next to the gift icon. Click that to bring up a coupon code field.
   

5. Enter the coupon code APINSIDER in the field and click apply. The discount should appear under “Promo Savings” above the order total.
6. That’s it.
   As always, if you have any issues, you can reach out to us at [email protected] and we’ll try and help.

Additional Apple deals

AppleInsider and Apple authorized resellers are also running additional exclusive savings on Apple hardware for the holidays that will not only deliver the lowest prices on many of the items, but also throw in bonus discounts on AppleCare, software and more. These offers are as follows:

Interested in additional Apple hardware? See if there is a Mac, iPad or Apple Watch deal that will save you $100s by checking out prices.appleinsider.com.

 

By Christine McKee
Wednesday, December 25, 2019, 10:07 am PT (01:07 pm ET)

With only a week left until the New Year, Amazon is knocking up to $310 off belated gifts and year-end business purchases. Save on Apple AirPods, MacBook Airs, iMacs, Apple Watch bands and more.

Year-end savings

Whether you received a holiday gift card or are still looking for the perfect present for that special someone, Amazon has a variety of deals on Apple products, from AirPods to Apple Watch bands. Shoppers can save up to $310 instantly with many items ready to ship out asap. Here’s a small sampling of the top Apple deals, with many more options available in the AI Apple Price Guide and via Amazon’s dedicated Year-End Deals page.

Apple AirPods savings

Powerbeats deals

Up to $300 off MacBook Airs

Up to $310 off iMacs

Apple Pencil on sale

• Apple Pencil: $94.08 ($5 off)
• Apple Pencil 2: $114* ($15 off)
  *Look for green bonus savings message on product page. May not be available for all accounts. YMMV.

Magic accessories

Apple Watch bands

Additional Apple deals

AppleInsider and Apple authorized resellers are also running additional exclusive savings on Apple hardware for the holidays that will not only deliver the lowest prices on many of the items, but also throw in bonus discounts on AppleCare, software and more. These offers are as follows:

Interested in additional Apple hardware? See if there is a Mac, iPad or Apple Watch deal that will save you $100s by checking out prices.appleinsider.com.

Those on the hunt for a fun last-minute gift can pick up one of these digital gift ideas just in time for Christmas.

Disney Plus

Star Wars and Disney fans can enjoy new and original content with a Disney Plus subscription, with more titles added weekly. Friends will delight in seeing baby Yoda in The Mandalorian, or re-watch favorites like Avengers: Endgame and the original Star Wars trilogy.

Subscriptions start at $6.99 per month, with a bundle available for $12.99 per month that includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.

Amazon Prime

A useful gift that can save recipients money year-round thanks to exclusive deals and free shipping upgrades, an Amazon Prime membership is an excellent choice for everyone from co-workers to close relatives.

Along with exclusive access to Prime Day deals and the shipping upgrades referenced above, Prime members can access a variety of movies and shows through Prime Video, as well as unlimited access to 2 million songs through Amazon Music. Annual plans run $119, offering recipients benefits for an entire year.

Adobe Creative Cloud

With apps for photographers, videographers and business professionals alike, an Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan is great for a variety of content creators. Enjoy access to over 20 creative desktop and mobile apps with the All Apps plan, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and InDesign.

Annual plans can be prepaid for the entire year or broken down into monthly payments, allowing for easy gift giving.

B&H SmartGift

B&H Photo offers a neat SmartGift feature that gives gift recipients the ability to review, customize or exchange the gift you choose.

Once the gift has been accepted, you’ll be prompted to pay for it and B&H will ship it out for a quick and easy way to get friends and family the items they really want. And with deals going on now on everything from iPads to Apple Watches, saving on the perfect gift is a snap. Just look for the SmartGift button on corresponding product pages to get started.

Amazon gift card

From household essentials to accessories for your home or office setup, Amazon has something for just about everyone. And an Amazon gift card is great to use after the holidays for cables, chargers and stands to enhance other gifts received for the holidays.

Available for email, text or print-at-home delivery, Amazon gift cards are available from $1 to $2,000.

Sling TV subscription

Gift recipients will love not having to pay for a TV subscription each month when given a Sling subscription. Select from Sling Blue, Orange, or Blue + Orange plans depending on the desired channels, with popular favorites, such as HGTV, Food Network and A&E available with any plan. Monthly rates start at $20, with the combo plan running $35 per month.

Sling works on a variety of platforms, from Apple TV to iOS.

The Mac Pro as it ships is limited to the Apple SSD modules purchased with the machine —but the Promise Pegasus R4i and Pegasus J2i are two options for adding enormous quantities of storage internal to the Mac Pro.

Thanks to the massive bank of eight PCIe slots nestled within the interior of the new Mac Pro, expansion potential is near limitless. Out of the gate, Apple alone will offer up an expansive 8TB of solid-state storage. For some pros, that isn’t near enough. Hence the wealth of third-party alternatives.

Co-designed with Apple, Promise introduced both the R4i and J2i devices specific for the Mac Pro. The former is a full-height MPX module while the latter connects over SATA. The R4i can be outfitted with up to four 3.5-inch drives, while the J2i can include two.

We’re going to spend a bit of time looking at how easy it is to install each of these modules, how fast the storage is, and how quiet the system remains.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW1ybNA1uPg&w=560&h=315]

Promise Pegasus R4i

The Pegasus R4i is a massive device — a full-height MPX module that tips the scales at 9.2 pounds with four 3.5-inch HDDs pre-installed inside. Those hard drives are 8TB, 7200 RPM models, pre-formatted in HSF+.

An internal RAID engine can support RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10. By default, Promise sets up the module in RAID 5, which offers redundancy at the cost of 25% of the total storage, which reduces the usable storage down to 24TB.

The install

The enclosure itself is quite light, a given as the device is nearly a shell without any drives installed. A locking mechanism holds all four of the drives in place and yet makes them easy to swap when necessary. A handy rail system guides each of the drives in and out of place when removed.

As the drives come pre-installed and there are no cables necessary, install takes no more than a few moments after opening the Mac Pro. It slots into either of the two MPX bays and is held into place with guard plates and a lock.

After the hardware is installed, installing the Promise Utility app will allow you to configure the RAID format to one of the others, change settings, manage events, and more.

Performance

According to Promise, users should experience around 680 MB/s in the RAID5 configuration. We performed the usual Blackmagic Speed Test as well as several file transfer tests. In those tests, we saw close to the advertised speeds for real-world usage with results of 791 megabytes per second read speed, and 567 megabytes per second write speed.

As we continued to push the system, we monitored the system for additional sound output. As it stands, we rely on massive arrays of external drives for handling our video storage and backups. We were quite curious regarding how lout the internal system would comparatively be.

No matter what external storage device you are looking at, it must manage its cooling. With the internal Pegasus R4i, it instead relies on the excellent thermal management of the Mac Pro. In our initial hands-on, we found the Mac Pro nearly silent in many configurations.

That stayed the same with the Pegasus R4i installed. You can still hear the drive heads operating and the exceptionally silent fans kicking in. But, it is still far quieter than an external enclosure.

Promise Pegasus J2i

The Pegasus J2i s another internal bay for the Mac Pro, but connects over SATA rather than in an MPX module. Installation is slightly more involved as it needs to be connected to those internal ports, rather than just sliding into a PCI-E slot.

The J2i arrives with a single 8TB 7200RPM Toshiba drive pre-installed and formatted. A second bay allows users to install a second drive to boost storage even higher.

It also includes the necessary cable to connect the SATA drives to internal ports of the Mac Pro.

Installation requires the removal of a single plate at the top of the Mac Pro. Following removal, three cables are plugged into the motherboard of the machine.

Following that, the housing slides along protruding screw mounts that are on the top frame of the Mac Pro before sliding to the right to lock it into place. Then the final SATA cable needs connected to the included drive, and optionally the second user-installed drive.

Given that the drives rely on the SATA connector, speeds will be limited to 6 gigabits per second. A single hard drive won’t hit that, but a SSD can.

Should you by the Promise Pegasus R4i or Promise Pegasus J2i

Considering the included drives of the Pegasus R4i regularly run around $1400 on their own, the device is a bit pricier than creating an external bay. The near-silent operation coupled with the ease of installation make it a serious contender for users out there who need additional storage internal, and not external or across a network.

If you ever take the Mac Pro out on shoots as well this is beneficial because you don’t need to tote an external bay that can get damaged, lost, or inadvertently disconnected mid-transfer.

The J2i is similarly convenient —albeit much smaller and without RAID options —but still useful when you need to add storage but not quite the capacity or formatting options available with the R4i.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Where to buy

The Promise Pegasus R4i is available for $2299.95 populated with 32TB of storage through Apple. The Promise Pegasus J2i is available for $399, with one drive.

The Flye Sport Rush wireless earbuds are sweat-proof, rain-proof, long-wearing earbuds geared toward athletes and outdoor enthusiasts of all kinds, but they still miss the mark with an important feature.

Today we’re taking a look at the sports-centricFlye Sport Rush.They’re IPX5 rated, meaning they’ll stand up to sweat and rain, and their extra-long battery life encourages you to take them on all your adventures.

Audio quality

Let’s start by putting this out here: the Flye Sport Rush earbuds have incredible audio quality for something that costs less than $100. As long as you take a few minutes to figure out what ear-tips work best on the earbuds, you can get that perfect snug fit that helps to round out the sound.

The bass is surprisingly deep, the mids pleasingly full, and the highs refreshingly crisp. We were quite impressed. Again, you’ll need to make sure that you get the proper fit, but Braven includes several different tips to help you find what you need.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t remind you to listen to your audio at reasonable volumes, and with earbuds, it’s doubly crucial as there’s not much of a buffer between your ears and the sound.

As far as microphone quality goes, the Fly Sport Rush earbuds were okay. The microphone doesn’t seem to be particularly special, but in our test calls, we could easily hold a conversation without any problem.

Comfort

The Flye Sport Rush earbuds are a bit divisive when it comes to comfort. We found that, when a person is capable of finding a set of tips that work for them, the Flye Sport Rush were comfortable enough to wear for several hours at a time. They felt secure and those who liked them seemed to like them quite a bit.

However, when someone was in between sizes or had ear canals that seemed too small for even the smallest provided tips, it didn’t take long for them to cause immense pain.

The ear wings —a bit of flexible rubber designed to keep the earbuds in your ears while active —could have been softer as well. When hooked into some people’s ears, even the smallest ear wings provided more pressure than was bearable. Thankfully, Braven does include a wingless-cover, which eliminates that problem, though at the cost of them feeling more secure.

We suggest that anyone who has small ear canals or ears look elsewhere, but for the average user, these are probably going to be quite comfortable.

Controls

Here’s where we’re going to have to dock points off the score —the controls. The Flye Sport Rush earbuds do feature on-device controls, but it’s not likely that users are going to want to use them.

To change a song or pause music, users will need to physically push a button on the outside of the earbud, rather than tap them like AirPods. By pushing on the earbud, a user will uncomfortably push the device further into their ear canal.

Not only is this moderately painful to do, but it can also cause damage to the area in and near the ear canal. We do not advise anyone use the on-device controls for that reason.

Battery life

These earbuds have a better-than-average battery life, coming in at just over ten hours when played at a regular volume. The charging case can charge the earbuds a few times, giving nearly 36 hours total playback.

In addition to long battery life, there is a handy rapid charge feature. Ten minutes in the case gives you a full hour of playback, perfect for those moments when your headphones unexpectedly run out of battery.

The earbud case charges via micro-USB, which is disappointing. We hoped that Braven would have made them compatible with USB-C.

Overall

Braven’s Flye Sport Rush earbuds are a respectable contender in the entry-level truly-wireless earbuds category. Their excellent sound quality earns points from us, but we wish that we would have seen integrated touch controls rather than the downright painful push-button. If you’d like to get your own Flye Sport Rush earbuds, head over to Zagg, where they retail for $79.99.You can score an extra 20% off at checkout by using the code INSIDER20 from now through 12/31/19.

Score: 3 out of 5

Pros
• Excellent sound quality
• Above average battery life
• Sweat and rain-proof

Cons
• Poorly designed device controls
• Highly variable tip sizes
• Stiff ear wings

We finally have our hands on Apple’s new Pro Display XDR, the company’s first branded monitor since the cancellation of Thunderbolt Display in 2016. Follow along as we run through the pro-level display’s design and features.

Apple’s new pro-oriented display comes in at 32 inches when measured on the diagonal and sports a 6K resolution of 6,016-by-3,384 pixels for a pixel density of 218 PPI.

Unboxing and setup

The display arrives in a large — yet thin — cardboard box. Opening the box, which boasts an unusual linen-like texture, reveals the display centered above a small box of peripherals.

Included is Apple’s signature polishing cloth, a power cable, and a Thunderbolt 3 cable. Both the Thunderbolt 3 cable and the power cable are black and wrapped in nylon, similar to the braided nylon USB-C to Lightning cable included with the Mac Pro itself. It’s disappointing Apple doesn’t sell this premium Thunderbolt 3 cable as a standalone product.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3xiMpN3TKc&w=560&h=315]

Moving on to the display itself, after removing both the soft paper shell and adhesive screen protector, we finally get a good look at the Pro Display XDR.

In-person, it feels much thinner than we had originally expected, but it is a very solid-feeling block. There are no curved or beveled edges other than the slightly rounded corners. The back is etched with the same 3D lattice pattern found on the Mac Pro.

This lattice effect is not only eye-catching, but serves a functional aspect as well. With so many openings, it allows maximum airflow for all the components needed to power such a bright and pixel-dense display.

Also on the back is a single Thunderbolt 3 port, as well as a trio of USB-C ports for connecting additional peripherals.

To use the display, simply connect the Thunderbolt 3 cable to both the monitor and your Mac Pro (or other compatible machine).

There is no configuration or setup necessary and it works in both portrait and landscape orientations. As a nice touch, the display automatically detects when it changes orientations and adjusts your resolution to match.

A phenomenal-looking display

Without going into all the specs, the new Pro Display XDR is a very impressive display. With its 6K resolution, it has a maximum sustained brightness of 1000 nits though it can top out at 1600 nits to support HDR content.

Speaking of HDR content, the Pro Display XDR can handle HDR10, Dolby Vision and HLG playback. We watched a few Dolby Vision videos on the Mac Pro and can say whether you are watching or creating high dynamic range content, you will be happy.

The display was exceptionally bright and even with our glossy model did an excellent job of reducing glare. If you prefer a glare-free option, Apple does sell a nano-etched model for an extra $1,000.

Apple’s new Pro Display XDR is available to order now for $4,999. The nano-etched version clocks in at $5,999 and if you want Apple’s Pro Display stand that is an extra $999 at checkout.