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Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

businessinsider.com

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Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#141

Post by brightball »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #123
Keyframe wrote: post #80

I went to a store in order to try one out. I wanted what was in 15" model in a 13" form, but ok - I went out to at least check out the 15" model. Even though I knew it was too big for my needs. What really surprised me was how bad the keyboard was on new models. What's up with that? It feels like a cheap plastic mockup of a keyboard. That turned me off completely. I hope they get their act together within a year and…

I'm still happy with the high-end Lenovo ThinkPads (currently using a W541) - not as awesome as in the early 2000s but still very solid, well-built, great keyboards, matte screens (but check if you mind this, I'm not sure if every model has them) and with trackpoint, which becomes a must when you get used to it.

Finally pulling the trigger on a 17" System76 Oryx Pro today with baseline specs aside from the screen and graphics card. It's got so much room for expansion that I'm comfortable looking at it as a 10 year investment. Going up to 64GB and room for 4 HDs, makes it a very comfortable futureproof purchase.

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#142

Post by adtac »

RandomOpinion wrote: post #138
mmjaa wrote: post #19

I've had mine for a week now, and have been able to use it alongside my late-2014 rMBP, which has been a solid workhorse. I'm starting to notice very subtle preferences for the 2017 model creeping in - after an hour of typing, for example, going back to the old keyboard feels really, really inefficient and antiquated, and my typing rate is lower than on the new rMBP. I also really enjoy the Touchbar - it hasn't been…

> binding ESCAPE to Caps Lock has been an acceptable re-configuration for me as a vim user I've seen a lot of people say this but I dunno. I'm kind of leery of doing something that would cause me to develop problematic muscle memory when typing on normal keyboards, e.g. on other people's machines. I have enough trouble flipping between Mac and Windows keyboard shortcuts already.

`Ctrl + [` is the best way IMO.

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#144

Post by koja86 »

S_A_P wrote: post #106

I'm pretty disappointed by the new mbp and the state of Mac in general for several reasons. I've made pretty significant investments in the Mac ecosystem. I bought a semi pro sound card(uad Apollo 8) tons of software audio related plugins and logic and I don't have a lot of confidence that when it's time to replace my 2014 mbp that there will be a viable Mac option to replace it with. That immediately makes my sound…

Sorry to hear that. It's when it hits the fan when abstract words like "closed", "locked" or "proprietary" suddenly get meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#146

Post by waffl »

spilk wrote: post #115
symfoniq wrote: post #47

A co-worker who upgraded last week to a 2016 MacBook Pro from a 2013 is complaining about battery life, too. He used to get 10+ hours and now he's lucky to get six.

Having owned MacBooks/PowerBooks/iBooks in various configurations over the past 15 or so years, what models were getting real-life 10 hour lifetimes, and while doing what? I've never seen anything near that on anything I've owned before.

Likewise, I've owned a huge number of mac laptops since the titanium PowerBook and I don't think I ever managed to get more than 4-5hr of real work use (adobe suite etc) I've always been confused by these 10hr claims and have never expected more than 4-5

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#147

Post by rbanffy »

s_kilk wrote: post #71
mgkimsal wrote: post #28

Had one for about 10 days, returned it for a variety of factors, but overall, it was a nice machine. But for my workload, I think I'll move to a 2015 if I can get the config I want - should be ~ $1000 cheaper for about 95% of the benefit (some weight, some speed, retina screen, etc). $3700 ($3500 + tax) ended up feeling just a bit too much for the speed/value. Apparently, though, if I wait a bit longer, we might see…

> we might see a 32g model next year? Wasn't this year supposed to be when 32GB landed?

Would have been if Intel had released a 32GB capable mobile chip that's not slower than the last generation.

Probably it got delayed after the overall shape and size were set in stone, so Apple had to go with the previous gen and work a miracle.

Or it was a conscious decision since this shape/size will be the base of all laptops for the next few processor generations and will be supported for the next 10 years or so.

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#148

Post by pcl »

mmjaa wrote: post #19

I've had mine for a week now, and have been able to use it alongside my late-2014 rMBP, which has been a solid workhorse. I'm starting to notice very subtle preferences for the 2017 model creeping in - after an hour of typing, for example, going back to the old keyboard feels really, really inefficient and antiquated, and my typing rate is lower than on the new rMBP. I also really enjoy the Touchbar - it hasn't been…

In my experience, spotlight re-indexing mostly happens if you run out of disk space and the OS decides to drop spotlights caches in favor of swap space. If you keep an eye on the size of your swap files (in the /var/vm dir), you can see when things go nuts and take corrective action before the index gets whacked.

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#149

Post by IBM »

spilk wrote: post #135

Honestly to me the worst thing about the new MacBook Pro isn't that there are no legacy ports on it or that the battery may be smaller, it's that the new all-things-for-all-people ports it has are confusing. The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can y…

In practice most people aren't going to have multiple Macbooks, and if that's you you should go to Monoprice and just get different color cables for different types.

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#150

Post by wyager »

spilk wrote: post #135

Honestly to me the worst thing about the new MacBook Pro isn't that there are no legacy ports on it or that the battery may be smaller, it's that the new all-things-for-all-people ports it has are confusing. The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can y…

Putting everything and the kitchen sink into USB-C was a mistake. I already have a horrible mess of weird cables that aren't interoperable, don't support Superspeed, have current limits, etc.

USB should be one thing and one thing only; a Universal Serial Bus. Can you send video over a serial connection? Great, let's do that instead of using the same physical connector for 85 different incompatible video cable designs that may or may not work with any given device.

USB 1.1 was about the right level of complexity. Maybe a bit too high. Since then, we have gone off the rails. It's no longer reasonable to suspect that anything except super-high-end devices will even bother to support a majority of the things in the USB spec. How many laptops actually support most of the charge profiles? The MacBooks do, but none of my friends' non-mac laptops do. It's a mess.

The speed we have now is great. Let's keep that. But let's also erase all the cruft and bring USB back to the simple, universal protocol it was supposed to be.

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