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Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

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Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#281

Post by ClumsyPilot »

ubercow13 wrote: post #177
C1sc0cat wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can set windows not to update in core hours and even then you can decline the update. I have never had a bricked OS from an windows update You know you can unpin stuff from the start menu to get rid of clutter.

If you leave some task processing overnight, that's probably not your 'core hours', unless you set it that way and not in the day. But then what if all your work is lost when an update is installed in your lunch break? It's ridiculous that there is (or was? Not sure if it's changed) no way to never automatically install an update. Remember when Windows 10 was released and there were reports that Windows 8 would liter…

I renerally assume that all work can suddenly dissapear unless saved to disk, duew to powercut or app crashing or whatever else. Autosave, etc.

If you do have some long task like rendering that takes hours, thats of-course trickier.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#282

Post by beckler »

rednum wrote: post #217

I did switch from 2012 Macbook Air to 2019 Macbook Pro a few weeks ago and I can't agree more with the article. One of the reasons I'm using Mac instead of Linux is that I make music. And the new Macbook sucks for this purpose: the same recording settings I used on my old laptop are not usable on the new one. 90% of time things work fine, but sometimes I get glitches and pops in the middle of the recording. Why? Who…

I play at a local church sometimes, and they use ableton for their click tracks and loops.

They've had SO many issues with it. It has randomly died mid-performance, the tempo click has completely gone off the rails mid-performance, and the loops got transposed once into a completely different key mid-performance.

I use a 2012 MBP stuck on High Sierra. It has occasional issues when I record, but nowhere near the amount of issues that we experience at the church. I want to upgrade badly, but I really don't want to deal with those kind of issues.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#283

Post by mstudio »

Totally agree. After reading so many reviews panning the new MBPs, I ended up replacing my ancient 2011 MBP with a 2015 model. You can still find new/unopened or relatively unused models on eBay. I love this laptop. i7, 16GB memory, AMD Radeon R9, great keyboard with F-keys... plus, it has all the standard ports I need: USB, HDMI, Thunderbolt. All for much less money than a new machine from Apple. No complaints at all.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#284

Post by blunte »

SCdF wrote: post #81

> By the way, not including the extension cord is unacceptable. This cord is not only a convenience, but it increases safety, because it's the only way to have earth grounding for the laptop. Without it, rubbing your fingers on the surface of the computer generates this weird vibration due to static. .... THAT'S WHAT THAT IS? I have wondered for _years_ why my laptop sometimes feels that way. Another mystery solved!

Whats (not) fun is having two laptops and not being able to touch them both at the same time because of some grounding difference. With just one, sometimes I feel the electrical vibration. With two, sometimes there is a very uncomfortable zapping sensation in both hands as they each touch a different laptop. It's a bit like if you've ever touched a 9v battery to your tongue, but much stronger.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#285

Post by lostlogin »

rednum wrote: post #263
lostlogin wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could this all be dongle related? So much bad seems to get introduced by dongles and I have spent so much time debugging crazy issues that have been due to USB C dongles. Mine have almost all been monitor related, but at this stage there is almost nothing that I would be surprised to see fixed by switching/removing a dongle.

By dongles you mean just hubs or also adapters? Unfortunately, I also want to record vocals or external instruments for which I need a MIDI interface (which uses USB A); and I don't think you can buy USB C midi keyboard yet (actually Roli Block has USB C but I don't like it much and 95% of time I'd rather use normal keyboard). Is there particular dongle you can recommend? (By the way, my Focursite interface does not…

I think I am lumping them all together, but my bad experiences are all with adaptors (Eg USB C to HDMI and similar). At least half the problem for me is the USB C cable and the variety of things that can be plugged into the port that look the same but are not. I have been scarred by a target-disk-mode recovery which required a new, non-Apple cable to work. It’s crazy that we have ended up here. Audio is not something I know well, but I have yet to have problems with Belkin adaptors. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.macworld.com/article/291181...

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#286

Post by whalesalad »

My mid-2012 air was also the best machine I’ve ever owned. The chassis and portability could not be beat. I have a well equipped 2018 Pro now, but it’s not the same. I like having a serious H series processor and 32GB of ram, but the 15” chassis is just too big.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#287

Post by Gracana »

lostlogin wrote: post #237
Gracana wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have said, that's not it. It's the line filter capacitors in the power supply. There's two types: X capacitors which filter differential noise (between line and neutral) and Y capacitors which filter common mode noise (between line and chassis.) Some small AC current (microamps) will pass through the Y capacitor to the chassis. If the chassis is ungrounded, you may be able to feel the current when you touch…

> you may be able to feel the current when you touch it. Are there people who can’t feel it? It really is gross and people comment on it as soon as they touch it.

I don't have a macbook so I can't comment on it, but I have a touhgbook with thinkpad power supply, and I feel it only on my wrists when I'm well grounded. Can't feel it on my fingers or palms.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#288

Post by harpratap »

joeberon wrote: post #42

Honestly the first time I've ever heard someone complain about a macbook trackpad

I agree with the author. I never used all the space dedicated to this trackpad, seems like a waste. That and I cannot get used to this "3D Touch" trackpad compared to the older clicky ones. 99% of the time I'm going along just fine and randomly I cannot seem to select a line or something and it infuriates me when that dictionary lookup thing pops up instead.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#289

Post by modernerd »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #255
modernerd wrote: post #123

The XPS 17 will be my next “MacBook”. It should be out this month and it ticks all the boxes for me (great screen, supposedly good cooling, user-replaceable SSD/RAM, acceptable weight and size for a 17" laptop). https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/13/21257006/dell-xps-17-15-r... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyRUWM_LOPQ I've been trying Windows again after ~20 years on Macs (via a borrowed Lenovo Carbon X1 and then a s…

Once there's a terminal emulator for Windows that works as seamlessly as iterm and there's no more weird hacks required like Cygwin / minTTY (I believe the windows subsystem for linux does that) I might start to consider moving; most software I use for development is cross-platform anyway (vs code, intellij, nodejs, go). But for now my 2017 macbook works well enough. I do think it's overpaid though; outside of the oc…

Windows Terminal is great. https://github.com/microsoft/terminal

Just missing a Quake mode for me (summon from a screen edge with a keyboard shortcut), but that's being talked about for v2. https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/653

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#290

Post by SahAssar »

modernerd wrote: post #190
blub wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On paper Windows is good. In practice the telemetry and the story behind its introduction and how they handled communication means that I won't consider Windows as a primary OS candidate until there's a CEO change at least. It's disappointing to see so many being ignorant about this topic.

I understand abstaining from a platform on principle. But it's pretty simple to opt-out of non-essential telemetry because so many people complained about it in Windows 10: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-view-and-manage-diagnosti... I set telemetry to 'basic' which means I'm comfortable with essential system data being sent in return for my system gaining updates and security patches. Microsoft does a better job…

There is no such thing as essential telemetry. There should be an option to turn it off completely.
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