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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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371–380 of 567 posts

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

#371
I don't understand how people don't go crazy from the the MBP overheating issues. It's gotten to the point where I've broken out my 2012 ThinkPad to offload anything CPU-intensive. If I have high-compute stuff running in the background, I can barely type, the keyboard gets so uncomfortably hot! (not to mention the loud, ineffective fan)

(and let's not even talk about how useless it is as a laptop)

I would pay an extra $200 just to get a MBP which was 50% THICKER, if it got proper airflow to the internals and cooled down properly.

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

#372
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.

You sound insane

Nadella IT cells are trying to disrupt another discussion like the sheep bleating in AnimalFarm.

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can she disable the touchbar?

I've offered to help, but she doesn't want to mess with configuration. I've posted in other threads how she "fixed" it. She actually bought one of those keyboard covers, cut off the touchbar part, and fixed it with tape. She literally has a crappy piece of plastic on top of her keyboard that physically prevents here from accidentally touching the touchbar. A 10 dollar hack on a 2k$ machine. I don't think she will buy…

Agreed, it's terrible that that's required. At least it works for now, hopefully she can sell it and buy something much cheaper.

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

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Let's say Microsoft adds one. You tick it and what MS currently considers “essential telemetry” is turned off completely, instantly, and for real. The risk seems to be that people who don't understand the implications of not sharing basic telemetry, when faced with a box that says “share nothing”, “share essential“, and “share essential and optional” would choose “share nothing” every time, because it just _feels_ be…

I get where you're coming from, but I think it's indicative of exactly what I don't like about Microsoft's attitude, and part of why I don't use their software.

At the end of the day, it's my computer. Not theirs.

Regardless of how much it's "For my own good", that's not their decision to make.

It's my hardware, that I'm paying for. Ultimately, I need to have the final decision on what it does.

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

#375
I have a work Macbook Pro that I requested in anticipation of better quality compared to others. Ended up being disappointed, it's just as crap as my other laptops. Build quality is iffy, it has heat problems comparable to the lowest quality gaming laptops, the keyboard is garbage and the touchbar is the most useless piece of tech I've used in a long time. And this is probably even more subjective but OSX Catalina is quite slow and the free tooling I am used to now costs money. I also heard bad things about Applecare in my country but I have no personal experience.

Since I have other issues also with not having Nvidia GPU, I can't wait to dump this hardware.

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

#376
post #301
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…

As a former long-time Ableton user, just want to recommend Bitwig Studio[1] as a viable (improved?) alternative that runs natively on Linux. I've used it for live performances and label-released music for over four years now and other than the typical setup issues related to Jack (one time thing resolved in an hour or so) I couldn't be happier. [1] https://www.bitwig.com/en/home.html

I'm really tempted here. I've got a paid Ableton license, and I absolutely love Ableton, but it's the main thing keeping me from dumping Windows 10 for Linux.

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

#377
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone know of a good hub that works that way?

CalDigit TS3+ is the one that solved my issue.

I might be missing something here: CalDigit TS3+ costs £230 -- that is a fuck-tonne of money, to solve a problem that should not exist in the first place.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/CalDigit-TS3-Plus-Thunderbolt-Dock-...

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

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there a Candy Crush ad in the menu that would install it as soon as you click on int?

No, I specifically looked to remove any crapware and was surprised that there wasn't anything. I also just did a search for candy crush and I only got the website.

Are you signing in with a domain account? I think the crapware is only made visible for local accounts and microsoft.com sign ins.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-steer-clear-of-windows-...

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

#379
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…

That's weird, reliable low latency audio is one of the few things where I still find the Mac to be pretty solid. I've got a 2015 15" and I've used several times a 2018 13", on both Mojave and Catalina and I have to say that it outperforms my 2015 (it can easily manage a 32 buffer with some plugins loaded, while my 15" starts to struggle under 64). This was using Reaper with an Apple USB-A to USB-C adapter and a UMC20…

I use Ableton with Focusrite Scarlett 2nd gen. I'm currently using 256 buffer. I've tried using 128 but it screwed up some vocal takes I did the other day (there are 5-10 seconds of cracks in the middle of each 4 minute long complete song take). Also I froze the other tracks (eight of them, so not that many) before starting recording. No FX on master track.

Maybe I should've bought 2015 MBP then. Or maybe I should downgrade to Mojave? Or buy the Apple adapter? Or a different interface? No idea; both Focusrite and Ableton say they are compatible with Catalina.

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

#380
post #298

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…

I've had an XPS 13 and XPS 15 and both suffered from coil whine, bad graphics and overheating. I would steer clear if I was you. My current dev laptop is a Razor which has been a much better experience than the XPS.

I have the 2020 XPS 13, no coil whine. I'm hearing that no one is getting coil whine in this year's model. It's my first XPS, and it's amazing, I highly recommend it.
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