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Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

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Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#151

Post by franciscop »

dsr_ wrote: post #122
franciscop wrote: post #78

It's funny how Americans (USA) use the freedom as in this situation "they are necessary connections that offer you freedom" but don't even realize that's the same " freedom " they are stuck in the Imperial system; lack of standardization. I for once welcome these changes; if companies were not brave enough to let go of old ports to standarize the USB we'd be stuck in the old days with dozens of dongles. At the speed…

You mean instead of the new days with dozens of dongles? Gigabit ethernet. Video converters for each external monitor type, plus for the projector that you only use twice a year. The external mouse that you really like. The phone. The 2TB USB3 hard disk that you already have. The external DAC and pre-amp that turned your Mac into a high-quality 4 channel recorder. The non-bluetooth wireless mouse that you like so muc…

Now you have to carry dozens of dongles, but the objective is long-term. I almost never need VGA/DisplayPort/etc for instance because it was standardized to HDMI (and now to USB-C). What port does that non-bluetooth mouse use? USB, right? Well before you'd have to check, because it could be using a PS2 as the keyboard. But now you know for sure they use USB if they use any port, which is a good thing. I remember my older cousin complaining about me having a USB mouse when I should have a PS/2 back in the day.

Forgot your phone/laptop charger? You can borrow mine as it will be the same USB-C. Yes, now it's painful, but in ~10 years it will be glorious. However, the problems of the switch are happening now while the benefits will come unannounced, which is a pity.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#152

Post by ykxkyxkgc »

thomaslee wrote: post #60
kabdib wrote: post #24

It's pretty bad. We use YubiKeys a lot, and there are no ports for them. So sad. Also: Magsafe is great (it's saved my bacon a few times). Gone. ESC key, gone. Don't know about the keyboard yet, but everything I've read doesn't point to it being decent. Probably not buying this generation of MacBooks. Might just bite the bullet and finally go to Linux on some decent hardware. So, what's a decent laptop for running Li…

> So, what's a decent laptop for running Linux? Good keyboard, good trackpad support, good sound . . . Sadly enough, I think the lack of really great options is what may have pushed some engineers to macs in the first place. :) Admittedly, last I looked was several years ago -- I'm interested to know too! Keep hearing good things about the XPS series, but last I had one it ran hot enough that I couldn't comfortably k…

>I think the lack of really great options is what may have pushed some engineers to macs in the first place

Is this what we're calling web developers now?

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#153

Post by ethbro »

chimeracoder wrote: post #100
quantumhobbit wrote: post #26

So who is making good laptops that run Linux well these days?

Dell. The Dell XPS 13 is the best line of laptops I've owned. They come with Linux preinstalled, and all the drivers that they write to support the hardware are pushed upstream to the kernel, so you can run whatever distro you want.

Seconded. I picked one up off Dell Outlet as a disposable machine, but it ends up going with me more than anything else. Actually having Dell dedicate support resources to Linux makes a huge difference in compatibility too.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#154

Post by toyg »

I could have got over the ports loss -- or even turned it into a net positive by finally buying a dock (I literally use all ports on my 2012 mbpr).

... but I'm not going through the pain just to "enjoy" a machine that is only marginally faster than what I already have (which still works perfectly fine), with a paltry 16gb of ram and a crappy gpu, and spending almost twice what direct competitors would charge for better hardware without the ports hassle.

Who enjoys getting mugged?

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#155

Post by pjlegato »

dingo_bat wrote: post #131
paulddraper wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only the fact that it's 16gb, it's that it's soldered in, so 16gb must last for another five years or however often it is you upgrade. Edit some movies, run some servers, launch Atom, repeatedly read lots of files, do some gaming, and it's nice to have a lot. Or just open a couple Chrome tabs.

Even if the ram is soldered in, nothing stops them from providing am expansion dimm slot. In fact I'd be surprised if they haven't included that.

Manufacturing costs -- it's cheaper to not include a DIMM than to include one, so why would they?

Also, this way, you have to buy another whole computer in five years when 16 GB is no longer enough.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#156

Post by dingo_bat »

pjlegato wrote: post #155
dingo_bat wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the ram is soldered in, nothing stops them from providing am expansion dimm slot. In fact I'd be surprised if they haven't included that.

Manufacturing costs -- it's cheaper to not include a DIMM than to include one, so why would they? Also, this way, you have to buy another whole computer in five years when 16 GB is no longer enough.

It's cheaper not to include a screen but they still include it. Because users want it. So they can include the dimm slot too.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#157

Post by Yodoshi »

eridius wrote: post #149
Yodoshi wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call my windows desktop a desktop and an Imac desktop an Imac or 'imac' because that's how I make the distinction because I have used Windows for the majority of my life, don't care as long as people know what I mean when Im saying something. Im not some elitist 'iOS' developer, I don't even put 'iOS' first on my CV yet I enjoy it and even had put out an app related to a hobby as a CV filler and for the fun of it.…

> Im not some elitist 'iOS' developer ...huh? If you develop for iOS, you're an iOS developer. Where does elitism come in? As for the computer, I wasn't complaining that you didn't call it a "desktop", I was trying to point out that the computer is called an iMac, not an Imac. Do you also call your iOS device an Iphone? And do you call Xcode xCode? These kinds of careless mis-capitalizations are a strong sign that yo…

I feel getting angry about capitalisation of a product (which some may see as being a 'grammar nazi') is very much a sign of elitism.

Looking down on me for not being a 'serious' IOS developer therefore implying I cant have opinion and voice it is doubly so.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#158

Post by ploxiln »

AvenueIngres wrote: post #53

Recently bought a Macbook Pro Retina (3 months ago), the charging cable is already dying and the ethernet - usb adapter they provide is utter crap. Each of those cost an arm and honestly, maintenance costs isn't something I factored in when I bought this 1800$ laptop. All around, the laptop is OK but not great. That experience really contrasts the very positive one I had five years ago. What went wrong? How can basic…

I've used a few usb ethernet adapters over the years, and the most reliable and performant one in my experience is the StarTech USB31000S which is based on the ASIX AX88179.

It's been around for a few years so the driver for it is included in all recent linux distros, and you can download surprisingly up-to-date and maintained drivers for OS X and windows from the chip manufacturer's website: http://www.asix.com.tw/products.php?op=pItemdetail&PItemID=1...

I use it mostly with OS X. I've actually bought about 5 of them, because some coworkers had problems that turned out to be caused by flaky usb ethernet adapters, and it was well worth my debugging time to get them better (but still cheap!) hardware.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#159

Post by yladiz »

One thing I find annoying is in a lot of their promo images and images I've seen from various first looks, the escape key isn't at the very edge of the touch pad. Why couldn't they have just made a flush key on the left like they did with the TouchID sensor on the right? Now you have to hope that clicking the escape key without looking works, unless there's ways around it.

Thankfully I don't have any plans or any need to upgrade my laptop anytime soon, but I will miss the SD card slot and the HDMI output slot if I end up upgrading to a new MacBook Pro in the future. Was it really that much space to keep the SD card? It's thinner than the headphone jack and the headphone jack is still there.

I'll also be a little curious how the teardown looks. The MacBook uses up barely any space inside of the chassis for motherboard (barely larger than a phone motherboard), and I'm curious how much space the MacBook Pro uses...

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#160

Post by rashkov »

rayiner wrote: post #132
rashkov wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldn't you still need a brick at the other end of that usb-c cable? Very surprised to hear of the battery capacity reduction. Is that confirmed? I haven't looked at the numbers. Anyway, I always felt like that is a red line that Apple would not cross.

The USB-C charger is like the iPad charger--the USB-C cable detaches. The battery capacity is under "tech specs." Up to 10 hours wireless web Up to 10 hours iTunes movie playback Up to 30 days standby time Built-in 76.0-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery 87W USB-C Power Adapter Up to 10 hours wireless web Up to 10 hours iTunes movie playback Up to 30 days of standby time Built-in 49.2-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery…

Thanks very much. I was on a phone so I couldn't look this up as much as I liked. Much appreciated
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