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2018 MacBook Pro Review

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Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#301

Post by kuon »

Apple lost me two years ago. While I was a big macOS fan and developer, I now work under linux.

I was very surprised to see how far linux has gotten as a desktop workstation. Including very good apps (darktable, ardour, inkscape and even gimp which had an horrible interface at the time).

I still think macOS had a superior UI (I say "had" because I haven't touched a mac since sierra) and that the hardware was beautiful. But my main workstation which has 3x 27'' monitors attached to it, was less than 2000$ (without the monitors of course).

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#302

Post by kuon »

Osmium wrote: post #137
blhack wrote: post #91

It's become comedy at this point. Many, many developers: "We hate this keyboard. It is atrocious! Give us back the old one please!" Apple: "We have listened to your needs. The keyboard is now 8% quieter, and the touchbar is mandatory!"

I love the keyboard, and I code all day. It's actually my favorite keyboard of any I've used with the exception of the current-gen external Apple keyboards. I enjoy the light-touch and low key travel required to type. I find the typing more pleasant and kinder on my hands.

I don't know how you can work on those keyboards. I feel lost when I am not on my mechanical keyboard.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#303

Post by GhostVII »

manigandham wrote: post #200
lclarkmichalek wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I go to meetings and work from home sometimes. Only thing I'd use a standard USB for would be charging, which isn't really something I do in meetings, and I have plenty of chargers at home.

You didn't answer the question. It doesn't need to be so dysfunctionally thin and light to travel between work and home sometimes. Nobody is going to suffer from an extra pound of weight.

An extra pound of weight in a backpack can be pretty annoying, since you have to move the backpack around a lot and carry it by hand sometimes.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#304

Post by nstart »

ebbv wrote: post #295
sbenj wrote: post #279

Am I the only person on here who is bothered by the specs of the base models? For $2400 you get a 2.2 Ghz machine with a 256 GB ssd and 16 GB of Ram. That was seriously overpriced and it hasn't budged in this new release. Seems like you've got to spend well north of 3K to get a reasonable machine. That is way over the market. The model in the review is fully loaded. Apple will charge you a cool $3200 to upgrade to th…

Apple has always commanded a premium for their laptops. Yes there’s competing specs out there for less but there always have been. I paid $3k for my Retina MBP in 2012 and it still works great for me today. It was a good buy for me. If the MBPs available don’t seem worthwhile to you, no need to get upset about it, just don’t buy one.

I for one welcome Apple's premium on hardware in general. It seems to make for a company that keeps its business model based on just their hardware. This is off topic so I apologise, but I've become rather disillusioned with how many better priced companies seem to be surreptitiously inserting constant tracking into their software and hardware.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#305

Post by slavik81 »

bigiain wrote: post #275
slavik81 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody asked for USB ports when they had serial/parallel ports, or for the floppy drive to disappear, or to lose the VGA connector. I don't recall being annoyed by those changes. In particular, the VGA->DVI transition was handled really well. Just about everything was DVI-I and would accept a VGA signal over a DVI cable, so you just bought a VGA->DVI cable and continued using VGA.

Macs with USB but no SCSI connector were a big cause of complaints where I was back then (I worked around lots of designers with SCSI Syquest and Zip drives, and all their client archives of high-res photoshop and page layout work on them), and _everybody_ in my circles thought Apple were insane for leaving floppy drives off... (These were a long time back though...)

To be clear, I remember those transitions being very smooth, but I was a Windows user. The first machine I bought without a floppy drive was my laptop in 2005 when CD-RW had long since replaced floppies on the Sneakernet.

My school was mostly iMac G3s and I vaguely recall the lack of a floppy drive being annoying once or twice, but the Windows machines had floppy drives and you could easily share files on the network, so it was never a big deal.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#306

Post by heimidal »

slavik81 wrote: post #282
reificator wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't recall being annoyed by those changes. In particular, the VGA->DVI transition was handled really well. Just about everything was DVI-I and would accept a VGA signal over a DVI cable, so you just bought a VGA->DVI cable and continued using VGA. Just about everything was USB-C and would accept a USB-A signal over a USB-C cable, so you just bought a USB-C->USB-A cable and continued using USB-A. I don't see a d…

There are a lot of USB devices that do not attach via a cable. You can't just use a different cable in that case, because you were not using one to begin with. VGA devices always connected via a cable, so you weren't adding bulk. Even adapters for devices with integrated cables (grrr...) were pretty minor compared to the sheer heft of the VGA cable itself.

So do we just stick with USB-A forever?

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#307

Post by pxeboot »

batiudrami wrote: post #232
sophistication wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who doubted Apple would be successful in ~2008? The iPhone and the MacBook Air were phenomenal products.

In 2008 the iPhone was a $500 subsidised device (at a time when other phones were "free" or up to $200) which really didn't do anything. It didn't do MMS, third party apps didn't exist, google maps didn't have turn-by-turn. I'm sure the user experience of a reasonable sized capacitive touch screen was great compared to the alternatives - but I never even saw one in real life and on paper it was very expensive and did…

The original iPhone was unsubsidized. It required a contract until it was unlocked, but you could only buy it at the full retail price, forfeiting any subsidies.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#308

Post by [deleted] »

slow_donkey wrote: post #286
manigandham wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An extra pound of weight makes a huge difference to me walking home. That's hard to believe. Are you walking 50 miles? How would you notice an extra pound? What about the rest of the stuff you carry, your clothes, your shoes? Is everything else already optimized? Why does the (likely) most expensive full-size computing device need to lose weight vs everything else, especially when it's infringing on the actual user…

Is it really that hard to believe that some people prefer to have a lighter laptop. My daily driver is thinkpad but I really appreciate my mbp when traveling or for conferences because it's much more portable and I can carry it with ease

[deleted]

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#309

Post by Fomite »

1996 wrote: post #183
godzillabrennus wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would increase the thickness of the laptop. Apple is design driven. I also hate the new keyboard but couldn’t care less about using dongles if I get a thinner laptop.

It might increase the thickness. It is not a given. I remember about old single slot pcmcia cards which had a push mechanism that would show a RJ-11 so you could connect a modem. Check the "XJACK connector" for pictures. It was technically possible. It still is.

I remember the number of people who had that snap off.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#310

Post by jimmcslim »

It is interesting that the review has a photo of the laptop in the author's most likely working environment, at a desk.

The laptop is closed and an Apple keyboard with PHYSICAL FUNCTION KEYS has been placed on top.

It is also interesting that the review doesn't mention the touchbar AT ALL.

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