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2018 MacBook Pro Review

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421–430 of 528 posts

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#421
I don't begrudge Apple their quest for thin and light. All else being equal, of course everyone wants that.

But they have three portable product lines: the MB, and Air and the Pro. Surely the point of that is to allow them to differentiate? It seems strange that "thin and light" is the priority above all others, for all three.

I'd happily sacrifice a couple of millimetres and a few ounces of my 2016 MBP to a return to the 2015-era keyboard.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#422
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!"

It's almost as if Apple aren't even basing their hardware strategy on what developers are complaining about on Hacker News.

Apple knows it will sell on looks alone.

So the hardware looks very good (maybe the best looking laptops in the world?). The screen looks very good (high res + great color). The keyboard looks great and some may even say that a hockey puck as mouse looks great.

This is what sells.

I also think that Apple never intended to serve the pro market. They tried some times but brands like Microsoft, HP, Dell and Siemens are still too strong.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I cycle, and if I'm cycling while carrying around a 15" piece of metal, I'd rather it was a thin and light 15" piece of metal :)

You can have light without being anorexic thin. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon has a 14" screen and weighs half a pound less than the MacBook Pro, and it has the missing ports.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you need adapters and dongles for if your goal is to go out to a cafe or a park and work with the computer? Do you, like, need a 7tb media drive with you at all times or something? Are you constantly plugging it into different monitors? Not like you wouldn’t need adaptors for that unless you exclusively live around DisplayPort screens anyway. Do you carry around a wallet full of DVDs and an external drive for…

Strawman - most people are not working in a cafe or park, but an office where you have to plug your laptop into actual things - projectors and so on. And almost all the projectors I use at my work, my customers' work, or the last few conferences I've been at, are HDMI - which is cool because I have an HDMI port right there on the side of my [2014, may-it-last-forever] macbook pro. It's next to the SD card slot where…

But.. but.. the new Macbooks have 4TB SSDs! Isn't that pro??

I seriously saw someone claiming that the addition of a really fast $2700 SSD makes it Pro, not the missing connectivity.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#425
post #398

Finally adding 32GB gets a big thumbs-up from me, somebody at Apple is finally listening. I'll have to check the keyboard, however I don't expect any improvement - maybe it'll get stuck a bit less, but I bet travel will still be atrocious. The MBPr was released in 2012 and redesigned in 2016, so I guess we might expect the next big iteration to come in 2020 or so; then it will take a year or two to work out the bugs,…

> Finally adding 32GB gets a big thumbs-up from me

Worth noting the 32GB option is only available on the 15" model and costs £2,700+

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#426
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this so often it's becoming ridiculous. "pfft, it works fine as long as you use it less like a desktop!" We'll I can build a much more capable desktop for one third the price, so no thanks. If the intention is to use it as a desktop then why keep sacrificing function for fractions of a mm?

The intention isn't to use it as a desktop. The intention is to not plug anything into the computer (other than the charging cable, sometime) except when using it as a desktop. Everything is wireless these days. Input devices, audio devices, networking. You basically only need a cable to charge the thing (with your USB-C charger), for mass storage (where most new mass-storage devices are USB-C devices as well, and if…

So as soon as I get up from the desk I should stop using anything USB? Never connect to anything HDMI unless I'm at my own desk? I think that's preposterous. Not to mention, Apple wouldn't be selling very many dongles if this was really how most people used their laptops.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#427
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truthfully, it's why I'm very sad that the Air looks to be discontinued. I'm still using a 2012 MacBook Air, and it was quite possibly the least stressful computer purchase I ever made. $1000 and some change to get a computer that has just worked magnificently for nearly 6 years now without missing a beat. I walked into an Apple Store, told the Apple employee I wanted a 4 gb MacBook Air, and in 5 minutes I walked out…

Why do you think that the Air is discontinued? They're still up for sale on Apple's site. The most recent updates were apparently in 2017.

The 11” was discontinued, which was a shame. My favourite laptop ever.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I too base my decisions of which laptop to buy based on how a YubiKey looks.

Right, it’s important that the whole world stand still for a decade because of some fucking “YubiKey dongle”.

Calm down. It's not just YubiKey. The world isn't moving to USB-C everything for a while yet.

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#429

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Can you really not comprehend that people can spend $2300 on a computer, or are you just being facetious?

I'd happily spend $2300 on a computer- but not a macbook. $2300 will get you far more power and quality.

Which is failing to apportion any of the price to the value of macOS . Sure I can buy a cheaper laptop, but then I’d be without macOS and that for me is worth quite a bit of a premium.

(This is absolutely subjective and I totally respect other people like other operating systems, I just find myself much happier and satisfied when I’m using macOS and will - and do - happily pay for it indirectly through the hardware purchase.)

Re: 2018 MacBook Pro Review

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're extolling the benefits of USB-C not the lack of USB-A. The presence of a USB-A would not affect your listed benefits in the least.

Definitely, they should put a SCSI port on the next version. Weren’t we having this discussion when they dropped the floppy drive? Should they keep USB-A forever? When is it ok that they drop USB-A? The original move to USB-A was met with resistance to people then that were angry that suddenly their ADP or other older devices wouldn’t connect — but then device markers saw the advantages of USB and quickly moved to em…

> In 3 years, nothing but dollar-store junk will still use USB-A.

Good. Then I'll give up my laptop with USB-A and buy one with USB-C only. In the now, where I live, many things still use USB-A. This is the main reason I didn't even consider a new MacBook Pro for replacing my 2015 one.

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