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MacBook Pro? No

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Re: MacBook Pro? No

#231

Post by mygo »

jnwatson wrote: post #190
eecc wrote: post #83

I’m also stuck on an old MacBook Pro model. Can’t justify the price but after some research — namely trying to find an equivalent Lenovo or Hp or whatever — I reached the conclusion that it’s mostly Intel’s fault. Let me explain: Intel chipsets don’t support enough lanes to supply USB-c, GPU, SSD and anything else with no less than 4 of them. The extra “legacy port breakout” ruins the tally and that’s why Apple dropp…

The chipset doesn’t have to provide all the functionality. There’s no reason they couldn’t add another USB controller chip like most PC motherboards. The RAM is technically Intel’s fault, even though it isn’t like Apple has no say in Intel’s roadmap. IMHO the 2015 MacBook Pro was the apogee of Apple design. It will be hard to beat.

> IMHO the 2015 MacBook Pro was the apogee of Apple design.

It might be worth noting that, for some odd reason, in the 2015 macbook pro Apple decided to run the keyboard/trackpad cable directly on top of (and glued to) the battery. So with regular use, in about a year the battery destroys the cable and the keyboard / trackpad fails. Major design flaw.

And it's such an obviously dumb thing to do (hey let's glue that thin, flat cable flush on top of the battery that heats up and expands!), that the tens of thousands of people viewing the youtube videos on how to fix this issue themselves have questioned whether this was a designed / controlled hardware failure.

Re: MacBook Pro? No

#232

Post by vijay_n »

Obviously no to the Macbook Pro 2017(13inch without touch bar), indeed having a poor battery life, hardly getting 6 hours, Sametime my MacBook pro Early 2015 is still getting 9hours of backup. Overall the quality of Apple products seems to be degrading.

Re: MacBook Pro? No

#233

Post by vijay_n »

andrewprock wrote: post #230
coryfklein wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Professional" moniker signals improved workload capabilities more than it does mobility/battery life. Essentially, Apple needs to change "MacBook Pro" to "MacBook On-The-Go" and just admit they don't have a Professional device. When you think of a person with the title "computing professional", is your first thought, "Gee, I bet this guy spends very little time around power outlets"? No. While that may be true i…

The battery life on my touch bar pro is horrendous.

So do on mine without touch bar

Re: MacBook Pro? No

#234

Post by SZJX »

bartread wrote: post #160
tannhaeuser wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell XPS 13 or 15. Some will recommend ThinkPads, but in a side-by-side comparison two years ago, the XPS 13 won hands down against the Carbon X1 they had on display at the shop, for its much better display alone (and it's cheaper, too). ThinkPads keyboards are held in high esteem, but I found the XPS keyboard to work better for me. Didn't get a chance to play with the retro ThinkPads with old-school, non-chiclet key…

I have a similar problem to GP. Going to try to make my late 2015 MBP last another year, but not sure what to do next. Problem with the Dell XPS is it still only supports 16GB of RAM, which is getting to be aggravating for me. The reason I keep buying Macs though is OSX - I just like it. Linux would be a good fit in many ways, but you can't run Office 365 on it, which is unfortunately a deal breaker. (I know there ar…

> Problem with the Dell XPS is it still only supports 16GB of RAM, which is getting to be aggravating for me.

XPS 15 does have 32GB RAM? Though it only comes with the 4K UHD model.

Re: MacBook Pro? No

#235

Post by nimish »

coryfklein wrote: post #226
nimish wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional means that I use it in the context of my profession. For me, the new touch bar pro is fundamentally better than the old for what I do because I need more battery life but I also don't want to pay a weight or size penalty for it. I get paid to get work done with my computer, so in that context I am a professional.

Historically the "Pro" in the MacBook line has referred to a device that is optimized for professional computer work. A journalist can certainly _be_ a "professional" and use their computer to get work done without requiring anything beyond a glorified tablet. The kind of device required for a video rendering, database engineering, software development, or some other _computer_ based profession is inherently differen…

I am a professional software developer / data scientist :)

I definitely agree that video rendering and HPC is not going to go well, but that is not that relevant to even many "pros"

The scope of the professional software world is broad.

Re: MacBook Pro? No

#236

Post by mthoms »

bogomipz wrote: post #202
mthoms wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt like this about the keyboard for about 4-5 months. Now that I'm totally used to it, I prefer it over the old style keyboard. The old style keyboard now feels mushy and clumsy to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Interesting, this is close to the amount of time where I decided to throw in the towel. Do you agree that this seems like a particularly long period of adjustment? I have been through many new laptop purchases at this point in my life and I can't ever remember the a period of adjustment longer than say a week or two tops.

Yes I agree. After a month or so, I wasn't expecting things to change.

Of course, this begs the question - is it actually better or is it just that I'm accustomed to it now? All I can say is that going back to the old keyboard feels very wrong.

I'd still prefer to have a real escape key but I've remapped it to CAPS LOCK and it's good enough.

Re: MacBook Pro? No

#237

Post by GordonS »

jacobolus wrote: post #81
GordonS wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. The 2017 Macbook Pro is the first Macbook I've ever had, and I find the keyboard terrible . I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I just struggle to type on it, often finding letters missing from the words I've typed, and the keys never being where my fingers expect them to be. The key travel just feels wrong too. By comparison, I also have a very cheap Asus netbook (13", I think) - it was about £100…

How long have you had it? What’s your typing style? Finding where the key tops are is largely down to familiarity/practice, and it’s possible your netbook had smaller-than-standard key spacing, which then might take some time to readjust to the standard key spacing. I’m sorry Apple made the key tops bigger and the gaps between keys smaller on this version though, as smaller key tops with wider spaces between tend to…

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed response!

I've had the netbook for 1-2 years, but I only use it one every few months or so. Still, it's a joy to type on for such a small device.

The Macbook I've only had for 6 months or so, and I only use it once a week or so (I work mostly on Windows, but need to build iOS apps). I should also have said it's the 13" version.

TBH, I don't really want to try change my typing style to suit the MBP; that kind of reminds me of Apple's infamous "your're holding it wrong" response to users complaining of aerial issues with one of the iPhones from years back :)

I regularly work on quite a few different keyboards (6, I think!) and indeed have worked on several over the years, but this is the only one I've ever had any real issue with.

Re: MacBook Pro? No

#238

Post by jacobolus »

GordonS wrote: post #237
jacobolus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long have you had it? What’s your typing style? Finding where the key tops are is largely down to familiarity/practice, and it’s possible your netbook had smaller-than-standard key spacing, which then might take some time to readjust to the standard key spacing. I’m sorry Apple made the key tops bigger and the gaps between keys smaller on this version though, as smaller key tops with wider spaces between tend to…

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed response! I've had the netbook for 1-2 years, but I only use it one every few months or so. Still, it's a joy to type on for such a small device. The Macbook I've only had for 6 months or so, and I only use it once a week or so (I work mostly on Windows, but need to build iOS apps). I should also have said it's the 13" version. TBH, I don't really want to try change…

> The Macbook I've only had for 6 months or so, and I only use it once a week or so

The once a week part might make it extra difficult to adjust. I’ve seen reports from several people who found the new Apple keyboard uncomfortable/weird for the first few weeks of full time use, but then got used to it well enough.

Switching between a full-travel desktop keyboard (of whatever type) and a very low-travel keyboard could be a pretty jarring transition.

Personally I prefer a keyboard with longer travel distance, and generally despise all laptop keyboards. The new Apple laptop keyboard is for me not really significantly better or worse than previous Apple laptop keyboards or than the better PC laptop keyboards. It’s a bit different – a nicer tactile response, but less travel distance – but for me those are roughly a wash.

Have you considered using an external keyboard with the laptop? I generally prefer to use an external keyboard if I have any significant amount of typing to do.

As for “holding it wrong” – many if not most people I have watched type have quite terrible posture and typing style, which is why so many end up developing repetitive strain injuries. 40 years ago, typists were likely to go through serious typing training at a secretarial school, and learn ways of sitting and typing which tried to accommodate human practice to the shape of the typewriter so that it was possible to be efficient while not injuring themselves. Nowadays people tend to learn in an ad-hoc way by just picking up the device and figuring it out for themselves. I constantly see people sitting slouched, their arms reached way out in front of their bodies and palms or forearms resting on the table, with wrists flexed uncomfortably upward, etc.

Most of our furniture (and definitely our computer keyboards!) are not very well designed for human anatomy. Ideally keyboards would be split into two pieces, tented upward at the middle, and detached from a display so that the keyboard part could be kept close to the torso. Each half of the keyboard would be better designed to put as many buttons as possible within very easy reach, and aligned with the fingers instead of an arbitrary staggered grid dictated by the implementation details of 19th century typewriters. The screen could be placed slightly below eye level, tilted slightly upward, and at least 2.5 or 3 feet away from the face. Logical keyboard layouts would be fixed to be more efficient and convenient. Etc.

Re: MacBook Pro? No

#239

Post by z5qjk »

macp wrote: post #76
chrisper wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but the main reason to buy is the OS Is that still true? I feel like that argument is vanishing more and more these days.

Some Linux distributions are very competitive nowadays, with many desktop environments to choose from. A key reason to own a Mac would be to build iOS apps and MacOS software.

Oh, that same old argument. No they're not. Absolutely not even close. This is coming from someone who actually uses linux 90% of the time every day. Linux on the desktop is still a huge mess, every desktop environment on linux is a real pain to use, I won't go into details, but those who use linux daily on the desktop cringe reading comments like this, unless using a wm like dwm or i3, but those suck BIG TIME too if you ever have to leave the terminal.
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