MacBook Pro? No

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 help train your fingers to find the right keys and reduce errors from accidentally hitting a corner or edge of the neighboring key. The change to the arrow key layout is IMO a serious regression.

I also think the key travel is a bit too shallow, but after a while most people can sort of get used to it. The new snappier tactile feedback is pretty nice. I wish they could figure out a way to make a keyboard with the old amount of key travel (or even slightly more), very reliable, but with the new tactile feedback which hearkens back to full-travel clicky switches of the 70s and 80s.

Many people used to rubber domes and cheap laptop keyboards end up with a typing style where they really mash the keys down hard into the bottom of the stroke. This especially comes about when people use the cheapest type of rubber dome boards (e.g. the ones that came with most PC desktop computers in the 2000s, including Macs) which need to be pressed all the way down to actuate, and sometimes actuate unreliably unless the key is pressed very firmly; using such a keyboard for any extended time ingrains incredibly damaging habits.

If you try to do a hard mashing style of keypress on a key with extremely shallow travel and not much cushion at the bottom, you’ll put a sharp impact on your fingers with every keystroke, and cause quite a bit of strain. It’s kind of like what happens if someone habitually runs wearing shoes with thick padded heels, landing on his/her heels with every step, and then switches overnight to running barefoot on concrete, without changing running form. Ouch!

If this describes your typing style, try to figure out a way to type with a lighter springier kind of stroke, ideally with your forearms and palms floating in the air above the keyboard instead of resting on any surface. Try to type with just enough force to reliably actuate the key, but not much more. (Irrespective of which type of keyboard you are using.)

Edit: in response to otempomores’s dead comment: this is not intended as an apologia (maybe try reading more carefully?). As a long-time keyboard nerd, I’m just sharing some of my impressions of the changes (positive and negative), and providing some hopefully helpful additional feedback/advice, most of which should be broadly applicable beyond this particular keyboard.

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 dropped it and called itself “brave”. Any other vendor I’ve seen that sticks with legacy connectors will gimp one of the other 3 parts; it’s the chipset that ties their hands.

Next is RAM. low power DDR3 only runs up to 16GB and that’s what you get from Apple. Want more? Nope, Intel chipsets don’t support lp DDR4 so that’s what’s on the menu. Other vendors will use chipsets to get those 32GB but they’re power hogs and turn the machine into a skillet.

Apple’s only homemade blunders are the asinine keyboard and the silly half assed attempt at touch-but-not-screen.

Oh and the stupid obsession with thin, give me back an unibody design without CD drive and more battery. I’ll be fine rocking 12h on a charge thanks

Ctrl-c does the same and it is easier to press.

An honest question, how many developers really need a laptop ?

I thought a did but have since some time now a very good desktop (paid around 3k for 16 core machine with 64 GB memory) and a light travel laptop with excellent battery.

This combo works very well.

Depends on the model. Here's some items from my last build...

Most in the series come with 4Gb of RAM soldered in, so you get another 16Gb stick[1].

Regarding the SSD, typically you get a laptop with one installed, but you can add in the m.2 ssd slot[2].

Then you buy the battery pack [3].

You should be good to go from there. I've seen people replace the screen, trackpad, and keyboard as well, but those are all I typically replace.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Single-PC4-19200-Unbuffered-2...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-960-PRO-Internal-MZ-V6P512BW/...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Battery-0c52862-Factory-Sealed...