By comparison, the XPS 15's keys have 0.8mm of travel, while the Surface Book 2 (1.2mm), Dell Precision 3530 (2mm) and Spectre x360 (1.4mm) offer more travel as well. If vertical travel matters to you, the MacBook Pro's keys measure a mere 0.7 millimeters, so they don't move that much. I scored a good-for-me rate of 75 words per minute on the 10fastfingers typing test (my average is 80 wpm), and didn't feel any discomfort as I typed sections of this review on the laptop. More surprisingly, - after years of turning up my nose at butterfly-switch keys - I didn't find these keys aggravating to use. I couldn't hear the difference when I tested this keyboard against that of the previous year's MacBook Pro. This should prevent debris from entering the keyboard and, as a result, help avoid stuck keys. While Apple's only touting the 2018 MacBook Pro's keyboard as a quieter version, it's reportedly more reliable, as a teardown of the system confirms that a membrane rests underneath each key.
The screen's brightness, though, is still strong enough for a wide range of viewing angles, as I saw colors retain their tones at 75 degrees to the left and right. While that's similar to the 340-nit Spectre x360, it's not the brightest of them all, as the 417-nit Surface Book 2 and 371-nit XPS 15 outshine the MacBook Pro.
The MacBook Pro is also quite radiant, with a max brightness of 354 nits, leaping over the 307-nit average and the 289-nit Precision 3530. Watching the Mission Impossible: Fallout trailer on the MacBook's screen, I noticed the warm oranges of an exploding car turning into a fireball, the serene blues of water flooding a sinking SUV and the verdant greens of trees on a faraway island. The Surface Book 2 hit a higher mark of 131 percent. According to our colorimeter, the MacBook Pro produces 117 percent of the sRGB spectrum, which is higher than the 111 percent premium laptop average, and similar to (or tied with) the ratings from the Spectre x360 (119 percent), the XPS 15 (115 percent) and the Precision 3530 (117 percent).