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Falling Back to an Older MacBook Pro

ericasadun.com

31–40 of 71 posts

Re: Falling Back to an Older MacBook Pro

#31
post #26

I've come up with a modern version of Gate's saying of "640K ought to be enough for everyone". 95% of people are fine with an i7 and 16GB of RAM. If you're not running a bunch of VM's, that's enough computer. That's my 2012 MacBook Pro, and it's still getting the job done.

16GB. Interesting. Is this the magic threshold?

My Dell XPS has 8GB. Definitely not enough!

Re: Falling Back to an Older MacBook Pro

#33
post #10

> Unexpectedly, on returning to the 2015 MBP, I didn’t suddenly go “omgomg the keyboard is amazing again”. The older style was never amazing compared to any good mechanical keyboard. I adapted to the new keyboard just fine, even though my hands never really were big enough for it to be truly comfortable. Yes, the older keyboard’s keys really are less of a stretch but it wasn’t that much of a hardship either way. New…

Well I for one did go omgomg when I went back. Stuck keys or not, I never got to more than 80% typing speed on the new keyboard and I never learned how to use the arrow keys. I hope my “brand new” mbp2015 will last at least 5 years and then I can reevaluate the situation which might very well lead to me buying a Surface.

Oh my god, the arrow keys. After 2 years still can't use them.

Re: Falling Back to an Older MacBook Pro

#34

Surprised she did not mention MagSafe. This is, IMO, the single biggest unforced error Apple has made in a decade filled with them.

MagSafe had two flaws: the magnetic connector could become unreliable, and the cable around the connector was weak. USB-C is rated for a much higher number of inserts and being able to insert on either side is covering a lot of my old vulnerable cable situations. I don’t know enough about EE to say why they don’t want a magnet between the USB-C connector and the rest of the cable.

I'm still using a laptop with a MagSafe charger and have never seen the connector becoming unreliable (nor do I know anyone has had this issue).

Re: Falling Back to an Older MacBook Pro

#36
post #11

Highly recommend checkout out Dells XPS lines once you've had enough. I find them nicer to use than any MacBook I've had.

dhh is pretty frustrated with apple's years-long keyboard screw-ups, so he had a fresh look at windows:

https://m.signalvnoise.com/back-to-windows-after-twenty-year...

his conclusion would be mine as well.

yes, apple is making a lot of mistakes, but their story is still miles beyond windows or linux, as far as i'm concerned. the situation would have to get a lot worse before i would consider switching.

Re: Falling Back to an Older MacBook Pro

#38

Surprised she did not mention MagSafe. This is, IMO, the single biggest unforced error Apple has made in a decade filled with them.

MagSafe had two flaws: the magnetic connector could become unreliable, and the cable around the connector was weak. USB-C is rated for a much higher number of inserts and being able to insert on either side is covering a lot of my old vulnerable cable situations. I don’t know enough about EE to say why they don’t want a magnet between the USB-C connector and the rest of the cable.

The MagSafe connected to the computer I'm on right now is 10 years old and in perfect condition.

I own a few USB-C devices, which are all obviously much newer, and none are as reliable as the MagSafe.

Re: Falling Back to an Older MacBook Pro

#39
I use a MacBook Pro 15" Retina mid-2014 as my main laptop. The screen is beautiful. I upgraded it with a 2TB SSD (Apple OEM from a Mac Pro, but Intel 660P works with an adaptor), and an Adam mDrive SD adaptor (currently 400GB, but hopefully 1 TB or 2TB eventually).

Recently I bought some more Thunderbolt 2 adaptors (they're getting hard to find). A dual USB and Ethernet adaptor has been very useful, I didn't realise how often I need 3 USB ports. The Transcend JetDrive 855 is also great for using the old SSD over Thunderbolt, and also supports M.2 using an adaptor.

Earlier this year my spare laptop was a 2013 MacBook Air 13". My dad's MacBook Pro 13" mid-2015 had a swollen battery, so he bought a new laptop and told me I could inherit his old one if I repair it. So I gave the Air to my girlfriend. The reflective coating is peeling off the 2015 Pro's screen, and that makes it look worse. But the battery life is still much better than my 15", for reasons I don't totally understand but is probably related to background processes.

About a month ago, I repaired a friend's Mac SE, and he gave me his 15" MacBook Pro 2007! That was the computer I had when I went off to university. Oh, how I love that keyboard. It feels amazing. The keys blend together without the holes in between, it's a joy to type on. Now I'm upgrading it with a dual USB 3.0 ExpressCard 34 adaptor and a new battery, and I'm wondering about buying a 4 TB Samsung 860 EVO (or two, one for the optical bay). That would give it more capacity than my main laptop!

I'm still procrastinating the SSD upgrade, because I wonder if new 2.5" SATA drives will be released with even more capacity, e.g. 6TB or 8TB. It seems like Samsung often schedule product releases in November, so if I haven't heard by the end of the month, I'll probably just order it. If a new 4 TB M.2 drive comes out then that would be nice too, for my main laptop. There's also the possibility of a dual M.2 to SATA adaptor, but then the M.2 drives need to support SATA and I think the 2TB Intel 660P doesn't.

Re: Falling Back to an Older MacBook Pro

#40
post #26

I've come up with a modern version of Gate's saying of "640K ought to be enough for everyone". 95% of people are fine with an i7 and 16GB of RAM. If you're not running a bunch of VM's, that's enough computer. That's my 2012 MacBook Pro, and it's still getting the job done.

> I've come up with a modern version of Gate's saying of "640K ought to be enough for everyone". he never said that. i personally really don't like the guy, but putting words in his mouth is never fair. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/09/08/640k-enough/

He did say something very close to that:

> When we set the upper limit of PC-DOS at 640K, we thought nobody would ever need that much memory.

The parent is not even using the quote for it’s original effect, I find it amusing that you’d take the time to comment on that.

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