Keep in mind that probably the most important spec when considering a new laptop is one that is often not directly stated: the processor series.
I'm not talking about i3/i5/i7, but rather U/Y/H. This letter determines the TDP (thermal design power/point) them machine is designed to run at. The TDP will govern the setting for the base clock speed, and, just as importantly, the throttling behabior under load.
Processor series TDPs are Y: 4.5W, U: 15W, H: 45W.
The new MacBook Air appears to have a Y series processor, like the MacBook, which means it will be aggressively throttled to keep power consumption and heat generation low.
Practically, that means that the new Air will not be capable of running sustained workloads much above its base clock speed, which makes it unsuitable for many programming-related tasks.
The Pro is still a much better choice for programmers. The 13 is suitable for many things, but the 16, with the H series processor, is really preferred for computationally intensive work.
You can get away with this machine if your workflow primary involves a text editor and remote servers, but otherwise I would still opt for the pro.
Totally. To back this up with a real world example, Apple screwed up the throttling of the i9 MacBooks originally, causing them to be over throttled. A software update that pretty much amounted to an MSR write on boot fixed it.
Why does Intel let OEMs play with that? It's to give OEMs a knob they can play with to balance perf and price for their segment. It lets OEMs cheap out on cooling (or go with new form factors like the tiny GPD models) and go with the low minimums, or have a full system that's capable of higher TDP like Apple's tend to be.
This is underestimating modern processors and overestimating programming compute resource usage.
Your post may apply if we're working with 4K+ resolution video files, rendering and other activities, but the modern programmer, even compiling binaries, will be fine on a MacBook Air.
How do I know?
I use a 2 generation old Macbook as my primary personal development machine. I write Go, Rust, Java and TypeScript using the common tool chains for all those languages.
Generalizing "programming" is a fools errand at this point. For some, their IDE alone would warrant a pro-spec machine. Some people need to virtualize their development environments. Some people need to virtualize several environments interconnected. And for some people, programming is just a simple terminal session with tmux running - VIM on one screen, shell in another, tests in another.
You haven't been forced to deploy something that builds a local K8s cluster and builds and runs 10+ containers just to get a microservices app up and ready for development, I see... (only partially /s).
Well my "programming laptop" spends all of its CPU these days on corporate garbage such as splunkd, which regularly melts down, some kind of corporate managed software updater which is terrible, Zoom, and trying to render dashboards from Grafana which is among the most flagrantly wasteful javascript hacks ever devised. It doesn't help me much that vim and screen are efficient.
In fairness, as a Rust dev my computer sounds like it's a jet engine anytime I compile. I wouldn't even think about using a slimmer CPU. Not that you're wrong, it's just where my head is at haha.
I thought the same thing, but then I got a MacBook Air and couldn't believe how slow it was in practice. I didn't know if it was thermals or memory bandwidth or something, but Java compiles which used to take 5 minutes would suddenly take 30 minutes and it just wasn't even really tractable to use.
Even Chrome brings my machine to a halt. I've been running Docker recently and 8Gb of ram is instantly gone.
Sometimes I think most folks are simply more patient with their computers, and will wait a few seconds for operations to finish, while I get a feeling something is taking too long and start messing around with ps aux, killing processes and such...
I agree with you :) but let's not tell the employers who gladly buy the top-of-the-line models for their programmers ;)
I am quite happy with my new 2020 MBP.
I'm using a 4-year-old Thinkpad with a dual core U-series i7 and 32GB or RAM. The results are...adequate.
A typical compile for me takes about twice as long compared to colleagues with newer H-series processors, but the individual projects are pretty small so that often isn't a huge deal.
However, once you try and run nearly a dozen docker containers for local testing, things slow down quite a bit. Multitasking while those tests are running is very difficult.
I picked up the new 2018 Air right after the redesign, 16gb and 512 ssd model. I have had no problems with xcode doing iOS dev (even using simulator on occasion), vscode and nodejs/redis/mysql working fine, also no problems running windows in parallels desktop, it’s super fast and quiet!
Great machine, only wish I had waited for the true tone and keyboard redesign but those are minor, have grown to love the keyboard.
I did the same but got 32GB. It is a fantastic machine, but it is even better with the blackmagic eGPU. Heavy recommend on that if considering a home dock setup.
Can someone explain chip speed and relevance in a way I'd understand pretty please? I dialled out of this stuff years ago - at a point when bigger numbers just meant better, but now they just seem the same?
I'm still using a 2013 MBA as my primary machine day to day. It has an i7 and 8gb of RAM. I've been waiting for the keyboard change before I upgraded, but today I see my options are i5 and i7 (as 2013). I'd get 16gb of RAM, but literally have no clue about the chip stuff. I'm assuming we've moved on somewhat from 2013?!
For Intel chips i3/i5/i7 have generally represented feature ranges, so to really identify the chip you have to find out their product code or at least processor generation. Once you have that you can use ARK to distinguish between them. Here's an example of an older 2017 era desktop processor of i5 and i7: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?pro...
Complicating things recently is the introduction of the Xeon W and i9 lines, but for the most part the Xeon ones have yet more a new features and i9 are higher core counts to compete with AMD.
In broad strokes in the laptop space the majority of enhancements since 2013 I would say is higher RAM capacity (that Apple as a manufacturer has not to pursue compared to Lenovo, etc.), still yet lower overall power consumption to improve battery life, DDR3 to DDR4 ram, bigger L1/L2/L3 caches, and normal improvements to embedded graphics to support bigger onboard and external displays, and PCI-E enhancements for drives as NVMe-style drives are what I would consider the new standard.
That is it. Apple has kept it fairly simple most of the time.
Worth nothing the i7 is only very very very slightly faster as you are limited by thermals. I dont think it is worth the price. If you ever need the processor power then the current ( and future ) MBA isn't for you.
And in all honestly the CPU performance between your 2013 MBA and this MBA isn't all that different if you are getting the Dual Core. After all your 2013 CPU had 15W of thermals to play with, this newer CPU only has 9W peak, ( and 7.5W average ).
But the overall package of MacBook Air still many times better. Screen Quality, Ports, SSD Speed. Speakers. Not sure if they have updated the WebCam, if not it will be worst than your 2013 MBA.
Same question here. My 2011 Air is basically unusable now, so I've been waiting for this machine. i3, or $300 more for the i5 (which was my first inclination). Then you get into the i5 machine and they offer an i7 for another $150.
My work won't be processor intensive, just a personal machine. But given how long I kept my old one, I intend to keep this one for a long time, and I'm not sure where the best price:performance tradeoff is. I could argue going low-end and replacing it sooner, or high end, and keeping it forever.
Well I'm on a 2016 macbook air, 8gb RAM and doing web programming everyday. 3 phpstorm windows, sometimes Photoshop open, more than 20 tabs in Chrome, iterm, figma, paw... Honestly it runs pretty well and I was waiting for this update.
I think you’ll be happy with the update, especially if you were happy with the previous machine. Remember you can try it out for 14 days risk free, so if you have any doubts you have time to test it thoroughly before committing. https://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund
I'm on a 7200u (i5, 15W) and I could really use the extra oomph (rounding things, it'd be 40% extra performance assuming a cubed increase in power consumption vs performance improvement -- which is pretty close to what I've seen in practice) of it being 45W.
Been looking at the newer gaming notebooks, and I'm waiting the "real world confrontation" of 10th generation i7s (specially those that have AVX512) vs Renoir (lots of cores, AVX2 on a single instruction and (not as much as desktop) lots of cache), since I run some numeric heavy code and it's not quite clear how they'll stand up to each other.
Why do I run this on a notebook and not a desktop? Because I'm always on the move, and I can pack the notebook and go anywhere I have to and be able to work with or without internet connection (which is sometimes the case).
They don't advertise their memory models or disk manufacturer either. Probably typical customer does not care. Wait for teardowns if you're interested in those details.
I'm a FE developer (Mainly React/Node/React Native Development) and I'm still using a 2012 13" Macbook air (8Gb) as my daily driver at home. There's a noticable difference between it and my work (granted still relatively old) 2017 MBP 17". Running builds and an entire test suite maybe take twice as long but it's overall very usable and I see no reason yet to upgrade.
>You can get away with this machine if your workflow primary involves a text editor and remote servers, but otherwise I would still opt for the pro.
I bought a 2018 15 inch MBP with 6 core i9, 32 GB of ram and vega GPU with the idea that it would be my one stop development machine. The system is terrible, especially considering the outrageous price - it does have sufficient compute power but the thermals are insanely bad - it's constantly turning the fans to 100% and I can't even tune the power usage - when I run a VM/emulator along the IDE people in the office start turning their head in my direction because of the fan noise.
And the performance still isn't even close to a mid range desktop machine which would have cost 1/4 the price.
I'm seriously considering selling my MBP buying this Mac Book Air top config (I need an OSX machine to develop iOS/OSX apps, otherwise I would go for Lenovo X1 Carbon) and building a desktop which will be always on VPN for heavy lifting + it can replace my gaming console.
And the performance still isn't even close to a mid range desktop machine which would have cost 1/4 the price.
I'm seriously considering selling my MBP buying this Mac Book Air top config (I need an OSX machine to develop iOS/OSX apps, otherwise I would go for Lenovo X1 Carbon) and building a desktop which will be always on VPN for heavy lifting + it can replace my gaming console.
I have a MacBook Pro 2018 and Intel NUC running Linux with exactly the same CPU. In typical C/C++/Rust builds, the Linux NUC is perceptibly much faster than the MacBook.
Didn't dive much deeper, but I'd guess the difference is thermals (despite the NUC having a small enclosure) and much higher system call overhead in macOS.
That said, I still like having a Mac as well, since there are so many great applications that I use frequently. But a sweet spot (as you suggest) is a reasonably powerful MacBook for the things that macOS is good at and a powerful Linux workstation or server for compute.
Unlike most other Y-series devices (including the MacBook), the MacBook Air has a fan. This allows it to dissipate more heat and sustain higher clock rates.
This is why there is a huge difference between 8-gen or greater Intel CPUs on mobile. As of 7th gen, the only mobile CPUs that had quad-core were the HQ-series 45W TDPs which required a totally different cooling design. Then, with 8th gen, all the regular low-TDP CPUs got quad core and the 45Ws started offering six-core.
For example, the only ThinkPad of that generation's T-series that had one was the T470p which had a significantly different design in terms of batteries, thunderbolt features, etc. to accommodate the significantly larger cooling system. With the very next year's model, all the models got quad-core with their usual low-voltage/low-power (and low battery usage) design.
MacbookAir always seemed like a tablet with keyboard to me. I have seen ordinary people complaining that they can't multitask apps there, that they have to run one app at the time. I think Air is not supposed and never was to be used as a development or video processing machine.
Where do you even find this info? Even on the Tech Specs page for the macbook air on apple.com it says "3.0GHz 6-core Intel Core i5 Turbo Boost up to 4.1GHz 9MB shared L3 cache" and doesn't give the model number.
Practically, that means that the new Air will not be capable of running sustained workloads much above its base clock speed, which makes it unsuitable for many programming-related tasks.
Does that still holds when using the power adapter?
OP's comment was about thermal dissipation, which, if anything, would be a more difficult problem with the power adapter (since the processor doesn't need to be throttled to conserve battery, for example). So, yes.
So for peak load, it’s an upgrade compared to the previous generation MacBook Air. But for sustained load, it seems to actually be a downgrade, as the previous gen still had processors of the U series.
I've been issued a MBP at work and now thinking of picking a 5 year old MBP to work at home, since switching two OSes is overwhelming at this point. Is this a good idea?
> The Pro is still a much better choice for programmers.
I'm not totally sure I agree. I typically do a lot of programming on my MacBook Air. It's simply a box I use to ssh to something else more powerful to do the actual runs.
Yes, if you're running computationally intensive stuff on your MacBook Air you're going to be disappointed, but if what you're mostly doing is typing into a terminal screen then it's probably perfect. And probably even over-powered? :)
The refined scissor mechanism with 1 mm of travel delivers a responsive, comfortable, and quiet typing experience. The inverted-T arrow keys help you fly through lines of code, spreadsheets, or game environments.
This isn't progress. This is the baseline. Apple have gone from bad to OK, and they're celebrating as though they've achieved something amazing.
We all (most of us anyway) wanted them to go back to the scissor design. Are we going to now complain that they did what the community has been begging them to do? Was butterfly a mistake? Yes. Were they slow to correct the issue? Yes. Now that they fixed it we should be happy about it.
As far as talking about it being amazing, its called marketing spin. This is how it works. However, those two sentences do not say anything about it being amazing. It simply focuses on the positive features of the keyboard. The two sentences above clearly communicate to mac users that the company has fixed the problems that people wanted fixed. Did you really expect a bunch of public self-flaggelation? They are telling us clearly that they did what we asked for. Perfect.
I think it's the marketing copy most people are taking issue with with.
They tried a new design, which was horrible to use and had a high failure rate. They continued to claim the new keyboard was amazing, and stubbornly continued to use this crappy keyboard long after the problems were apparent.
And now they are touting a "normal" keyboard mechanism as if they've invented something new and wonderful... only Apple could get away with such transparent BS.
To be honest, yes, I'd like them to say "we messed up, and we finally recognised that, so we're fixing it".
I think it would be amazing if the most valuable, most design-focused company in the world admitted to everyone that they made a mistake. It would do a lot towards allowing everyone else to make mistakes without beating themselves up over it. After all, if the thousands of specialist engineers, paid billions in salaries, given the best equipment in the world, in a company that really (and I mean really) values design, can make a mistake, then it's kinda OK that your home page looks a little crappy on mobile.
Even with the fix, I'm ddisappointed in their response. II had a 2013 MBP that worked great for years and years, and was excited to finally get a maxed out MBP about eiighteen months ago. The ffirst year was great and then this damn keyboard started doing its thing. I'm deliberately leaving the keyboard errors in place for this comment, they aren't typos. Yes, they havee the keeyboard replaceement program for the enext 3-4 years. But then you have to be wiithout your workhorse for a week while they replace it, and then what, you'll probably have the same problems a year later. (Incidentally, I have a job switch coming up wiith some tiime off - my plan was to use that time to send in the laptop for repairs theen when my clieint isn't relying on my availability, but now that plan is shot wiith the Apple Stores and malls being closed.) And yes, I can fix this by just buying the 16", but this computer was expensive and was supposed to last me at least 3-5 years. I'm supposed to iincrease my spending to Apple? A sane program would be to buy back this lemon at a heffty price so I can buy the new one and be made whole.
Marketing spin is not clear communication. It does not deserve praise. It's not mandatory, either.
None of:
> MacBook Air now features the new Magic Keyboard, first seen on the 16-inch MacBook Pro. The refined scissor mechanism with 1 mm of travel delivers a responsive, comfortable, and quiet typing experience. The inverted-T arrow keys help you fly through lines of code, spreadsheets, or game environments.
says anything about "fixing problems that people wanted fixed" or "doing what people asked for." That would read:
> We used a lower-travel keyboard with a butterfly mechanism and alternative arrow key layout on recent models, and you said you didn't like it. We listened. The MacBook Air now features a proven scissor mechanism with a return to 1mm travel and classic inverted-T arrow key layout.
They're implying that they've come up with something new, which is a lie. That's not perfect.
The two sentence above clearly oversell the product: "refined", "delivers", "help you fly", plus all the details for something that is already known... It's not because everybody is doing glorified marketing, which often results in being deceptive, that we have to be okay with it.
Honestly, Apple's marketing has always been worse than the other companies when it comes to sell basic things as a revolutionary, life changing progress.
"We've gone back to where we were three years ago after a mistake, sorry."
I don't understand what the issue is with Apple trying to sell their products. It sounds like people here are upset that marketing and sales exists, and that they use language to try to make their products seem impressive, and that consumers aren't rational when it comes to buying things.
To be fair the butterfly keyboard was pretty nice after you got used to it but unnforrtunattelyyyyy itt enndddeed iin fffaiiilurree foorrr moosst off usss. I batted mine back to the apple store after 3 weeks. Thank goodness it was the Christmas no questions asked period.
> Ok. How should they communicate this? "We've gone back to where we were three years ago after a mistake, sorry."
Yes. We expect adults to own up to their mistakes, so why don't we hold corporations to the same standard and instead just accept corporate bullshit from them?
> "We've gone back to where we were three years ago after a mistake, sorry."
Yep this is the right move, and as someone else says, this would be worthy of respect.
I think we've all just about had it with corporate bullshit -- and to be sure that says more about this moment in time than anything else.
Apple is consistently guilty of blowing smoke up our collective asses. It would be nice if they could give it a rest and simply be honest. But here we are.
No, they're not saying it's innovative or amazing, they are simply calling it a "responsive, comfortable, and quiet typing experience", which I guess is true.
Their (very) old keyboards are still amazing to type on. They went from high quality mechanical switches to bad rubber domes to okish rubber domes. The current magic keyboard is actually not bad, but I would still prefer the old alps switches.
I completely agree. My 2014 MacBook Pro purchased refurbished still has the best keyboard of all the devices I use. The Lenovo X1 I use for work is a close second.
What I noticed in the image that made me excited about this device is the function keys. If the 16in MBP had function keys, I probably would have purchased one already. I do wonder if the top spec of the new MBA is going to hold up to my usage though.
Whole world seems to be celebrating that Javascript desktop turds runs 10 times slower and consumes 10 times more resources than 20 year old native applications. So I guess everything is worth celebrating.
In the olden days, we complained about apps that used all our ram. Nowadays, we complain about Firefox or proprietary web browsers using all our ram, when in reality they're doing the best they can. The task manager can't show users who's actually to blame, so lazy devs get the glory while hardworking browser developers cop the flack.
Nope, that's exactly what I wanted to hear before buying. Rather than just saying they improved it, they explicitly pointed out it has the keyboard you want from the 16" MBP.
>MacBook Air now features the new Magic Keyboard, first seen on the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
That saved me from having to google "hey, is the 'new magic keyboard' the thing in the 16" MBP that I've been waiting for in the Air and 13" MBP, or is it something else entirely".
Some people just seem to choose a target for life (like the Favored Enemy of a Ranger from Dungeons & Dragons) and never give it a break, no matter what.
I suspect that even if Apple comes out with the best keyboard that mankind is ever going to make, some of you are still going to be angry about how they removed optical drives 4000 years ago.
- Apple knows that at the very least, some set of vocal people don't like the previous keyboard. They also know that many of their customers had to get repairs, even if they liked the keyboard. Those customers might understand that "butterfly = bad"
- They need to tell people that they've fixed the problem but don't want to do so in a way that says "the last product was bad" (so they can't just say nothing about it)
I think we should also place some fault on other manufacturers for just blindly attempting to do what Apple does without thinking: check out the latest XPS 13. They've implemented the same arrow setup as Apple's butterfly keyboards. And yet, I haven't seen a single review online that criticizes the XPS for this choice.
So much this- I struggled with my butterfly mbp for about 18 months all under the guise of "its a stout machine, the keyboard isnt that bad" or "I can use an external keyboard".
Then I grew tired of the macbook fan noise when running windows 10 and debugging with the touch bar. I ordered a surface 3 laptop and immediately realized how important a nice keyboard is to me. Its tactile, its got enough travel, the keys feel nice. I type with fewer errors and I work faster. Anyone want to buy a 2018 macbook pro with 6 core and 32gb ram?
I think you're underselling how truly revolutionary the inverted-T arrow keys are. I hear they help you fly through lines of code, spreadsheets, or game environments.
So is this a not-broken keyboard design? I have the (now) previous-generation Air, and need a keyboard repair.
Would be seriously tempted to just buy a new one if I was confident the keyboard wasn't absolute garbage. Typing on it was fine when it worked, but it double-spaces, and a couple of the other keys are now wonky.
Never had a keyboard die on me before this -- Mac or otherwise.
This is essentially the same type of keyboard from before the crappy design you ended up with. I've had a MBP 2014 since release with that keyboard and I love it. I can't express enough how good it feels to type on (although some personal preference).
I also tried out the new version of that keyboard on the recently-released MBP. It feels almost the exact same as the old one, just a slightly more shallow depth.
I mean, this has a quad-core option, too. It's a no-brainer better machine.
I have the 16-inch that has the same keyboard mechanism as this. It's 100% an evolution on the previous design. While it is early, it's a proven design and there's no chance of it having any of the issues that the butterfly keyboard did.
I feel like my 16-inch is the computer I intended to buy in 2016.
If you can afford the upgrade cost after you sell your current one, you won't regret it.
If you liked the stability of the butterfly switches, but the travel and reliability of the scissor switches, the new thing is really pretty nice, and is arguably an advance over both.
It's amazing how well received the "I'm cynical and world-weary" angle plays on Hacker News.
"This is the baseline. Apple have gone from bad to OK"
Apple's scissor keyboard is pretty broadly considered the best in the industry by a country mile. Their butterfly mechanism was a bad misstep (I mean...almost indistinguishable from my Yoga 720, but compared to prior Apple keyboards), but saying that they went from "bad" to "OK" is just nonsense.
"and they're celebrating"
Advertising doing what advertising does. So brave on HN to point out that marketing is marketing-ee. Are you also telling me that the new car isn't going to make me an adventure seeking extrovert?
> Advertising doing what advertising does. So brave on HN to point out that marketing is marketing-ee. Are you also telling me that the new car isn't going to make me an adventure seeking extrovert?
Why is that acceptable? If you lie or misrepresent the truth in almost any other field, you get criticised. But when marketers do it, they're immune. That's just weird.
It is progress. Apple runs a monopoly, people seem to not be able to escape (I'm on Windows) and Apple has struggled to fix an utterly broken keyboard for 3 or more years. So, finally they did this on an entry model.
Even I who gave up on Apple thought, hey what a nice machine.
Imagine a country where a terrible leader comes to power, and the nation regresses for years. Then a new leader arises and reverses course. Does the country celebrate and boast?
This is below baseline. I still don't understand why it's important for them to make compromises at the keyboard, which is an essential part of the notebook experience. A keyboard has keys, keys have a certain height. Get over it Apple. I've tried the latest 3 generations of keyboards and the 2015 still comes out on top. It looks as if Apple's engineers are trying to fight the keyboard. Macbook's keyboard were almost unquestionably the best among notebooks. Now we're happy if they're not crap. Of course this is all personal opinion and I'm sure Apple tests these things extensively and only release them if they make for a significant improvement. They wouldn't release a broken keyboard and deny they're at fault for years, right?
After using the latest Macbook Pro 13" for over a year I have recently had my 2015 Macbook Pro 13" repaired. Both are max specs. It was a $600 bill, but it has been so worth it. The keyboard just works, it doesn't run hot and the fan doesn't blast under the slightest load, the performance is much better, the battery lasts longer and the external screen + keyboard and mouse are detected every single time without having to re-plug the USB-C or open and close the computer lid. Also, no dongles required to connect USB-A or SD cards. Yes, it does look a bit clunky and not as elegant as the newer one, but seriously it actually just works.
I almost can't believe how much shit I put up with on a daily basis for over a year. If you replaced a dying 2015 Macbook Pro with a new one, I very much urge you to reconsider getting it fixed at pretty much any price. It is so very worth it.
Ha-ha, reading this from the 2015 MPRO 13", exact same experience. I've tried to move to DELL XPS 13 2 years ago on Linux, did not work for me, however with a new line of Dell's I am starting to thinking about repeating this experiment.
Apple's 2016-2019 laptops were pretty unusable, hope they revert the touchbar too..
A question, has anybody tried System76 comparing to Dell/Apple?
Wow, this is a common theme.
I have a 2015 13" macbook which wasn't max specced out and I feel like I'm hurting these days RAM wise and HardDrive wise. I bought a super specced out 2020 XPS 13 2 in 1 because of reservations about the latest macbook pro 13 and I kind of hate it.
I think this is personal taste, but I just don't love the build as much, the trackpad, and ubuntu is acting pretty flaky. The camera and wireless chipsets are not immediately working right.
I think System76, Lenovo, or Tuxedo is a better choice than Dell XPS for Linux from a reliability standpoint. Additionally, if you plan to do full disk encryption, the XPS line has all sorts of issues. https://www.dell.com/community/Linux-Developer-Systems/XPS-1...
I use a MacBook and a fully loaded (with GPU) System76 laptop. I really like both, for different purposes. The System76 is much faster for large builds and is obviously much better for deep learning training. The MacBook is light and portable. I like having two laptops, at extremes of the weight/portability vs. computational power spectrum.
I had a 2014. It is a great laptop, no doubt but I recall before several patches I had issues w/ USB 2.0 port connectivity. I had the screen replaced once. So it wasn't without its own set of bugs. Working beautifully now.
My only beef is no NVME and it stutters a tad. If I could find a 2015 w/ 16gb/1 tb spec w/ NVME...
I'm hoping the glitches in the 16" can be worked out, eager to see how the 14.1 will look...
and I know Apple kremlinology is never the most accurate way to look at things, but boy were the Mansfield/Forstall years great...
oddly enough I have a system76 ibex pro and a 2015 macbook pro 13". I'm almost a year into switching over. (Everything except lightroom). The system76 is much bigger, clunkier and not as well built. But honestly its fine, the software is updated frequently and besides a couple of times where the keyboard didn't come back after sleep the systm76 has been a trooper (sleep awake cycle brought it back).
I'm still rocking my 2015 MBP as well, and having the luxury of working on newer models through various jobs, I'm still not convinced to upgrade 5 years later. That said, the new 16" MBP has been the best Apple laptop experience I've had in a while.
I have had every single MacBook Pro update since the 2015 and had either been returned or sold off. It was simply crap. I cant believe they have been making that crap for 5 years. Although judging from the 7 years of Mac Pro I guess MacBook Pro already got a better treatment.
At the end I stuck to my MacBook Pro 2015. Perfect Size Trackpad with Zero false positive. Most people put up with a few false positive on the larger TrackPad. But I dont see any reason why this have to be this way. The keyboard felt way better, even the new Magic Keyboard on MBP 16 felt exactly the same as butterfly. Touch Bar is Junk, again it sometimes freeze. And some people put up with it thinking it is a non issue.
The old Apple and its users used to be perfectionist. Nowadays a lot of people settle for mediocre.
I just wish they make MacBook Pro Classic. Just throw in a new CPU will do.
I wish I got this advice! I just replaced my 2015 MBP 15" max spec with a Mid-2019 version and that touch bar is annoying the heck out of me. At least it has a physical escape key I guess (I keep hitting F1/brightness controls on the Bootcamp side of things for everything).
Hah! I'm not sure what the situation is like for the current 15" MPB. The specs are quite different compared to the 13" one. It may not be as severe as my experience. I think I'd try to hold on to that 2015 model just in case.
I'm in a similar position, bought a 2019 13" Pro. I've got to say, I'm really happy with my 2020 Thinkpad Carbon X1 and won't be looking to upgrade again for a long time.
Or maybe a thinkpad, depending on your budget. I normally use a maxed out macbook pro but I didn't want to bring a $5k machine on vacation. So, I bought a $600 dell laptop last summer. The wifi range/reception was dreadful. Sitting beside my wife on the couch in the hotel and she was on her $1000 macbook air getting perfect reception, me wishing I had spent the extra $400.
I'm not sure if it was the wifi chipset or the antenna design, and maybe some of the higher end Dells with better radio chipsets would perform better, but I returned the laptop to Dell and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy that was. At least they're doing something right. After that, I picked up a $700 ThinkPad T-series for travel and the reception is great on it.
Last year I upgraded my main development machine - a 2013 11" Air (yes, seriously) to a new-to-me maxx'd out 13" 2015 MBP. I do "heavyweight" local development - IntelliJ, Java, Typescript, React, Postgres, etc.
It's faster than my Air, mostly from going 8 -> 16GB of RAM, and the high-resolution screen is great. But it still feels pretty slow and IntelliJ can get sluggish at times. The MBP has a 3.1GHz i7 so at least on paper it doesn't seem materially slower from the current gen of processors. Maybe memory speed is the issue? 1867 MHz DDR3 vs 3733MHz LPDDR4X in the new Air?
I miss the 11" form factor, but I guess that's a lost cause.
The 2015 MBP bought me (cheap) a couple years while Apple sorts out their keyboard issues, but I'm already looking forward to a replacement. It's just ok.
I very much feel your pain about the form factor. Apple seems to be moving away from the smaller form factors which is a shame. I like the look of the new 16" MPB but there is no way I'm lugging that around everywhere. Hmpf.
You would benefit from a 4-core machine. Even the dual core current models are a good 20% faster than what you have now, but you'd be amazed at how much better the 4 core models feel.
So happy to hear this! I just dropped CAD~800 to have the logic board on my late-2014 MBP replaced. I figured "it still works, why spend 3k on a new one?" Plus the new ones with those stupid bar things (I have one for work I never open because I always use workstation).
I recently got a 2019 MBP for work (with the ESC key!!!), and I have to say that a lot of the things you are encountering with your 2013 I encounter quite a bit with this new one.
Overall, I found the speed of this model far exceeded my 2017 MBP from my last job, but it's kinda surprising how frequently the monitors / keyboard / mouse encounter connection issues.
That being said, I feel like I'm being a little picky, especially when I think of how nightmarish it was to get any of this shit to work with my Windows machines. It's the exception rather than the rule that anything would work the first time as expected (monitors / keyboards / mice / printers / programs).
> That being said, I feel like I'm being a little picky, especially when I think of how nightmarish it was to get any of this shit to work with my Windows machines.
It would be different if it had always been like this with Apple. The older models show that it used to work pretty much flawlessly. It is such a big step backwards and just because other manufacturers are crap at it doesn't make it okay. :)
I feel like I could live with the performance issues. But I'm doing a lot of switching between offices and having external screen/mouse/keyboard not working straight away is such a major pain. Even sometimes during the day after walking off with the laptop and coming back to the desk it doesn't work. It could be my specific setup but then Apple doesn't sell any official docking setups either AFAIK.
I honestly never understood the hate for the touchbar. It allows me to be much more granular with volume and brightness, and I never really used F-keys anyway.
Volume adjustment is actually a great example of why I hate the touchbar.
- I can't adjust the volume without looking at it. Because the touchbar is flat with no haptic feedback when I land on a button, it's hard to remember the exact position of the volume 'button' without looking. Sounds trivial - but combined with point 2....
- The way the volume control expands - it actually moves the 'volume down' button AWAY from your finger, which again requires me to keep looking at the control.
This means that when a loud song comes on, it can take 2-3 seconds to quickly turn the volume down in total. I could do that with one single keypress in half a second or less on a keyboard, without needing to look at the keyboard.
That can also be the difference between missing a key detail from a quiet speaker on a Hangout.
Flashy, but it's a terrible user experience by every metric other than looks, I guess.
I only hate that it replaced the top row of keys. If it were an addition instead of a replacement, I'd be okay with it. It has it's moments, but so do the keys it replaced.
As a developer, how would I step into, step over, step out in Xcode without function keys?? (Continue being ctrl-cmd-Y is the worst shortcut ever). It truly hampers my development because I have to look at the touchbar to see where on earth those keys are (F6, F7) or step in/continue in Chrome (F10, F11).
Want granularity? Just hold alt+shift while pressing the volume buttons to adjust the volume in quarter-box increments. You can do it without looking and it’s way easier than moving that slide on that gimmick touch bar. Works for brightness, too.
Much of the hate is that the touchbar wasn't optional, at least not unless you wanted to opt out of an Apple laptop. If the touchbar had been something users could choose, Apple users wouldn't have minded so much.
Supporting more options is expensive, so it's understandable that Apple didn't want to give their customers a choice. Still, it seems like a gimick. And it appeared at the same time as the butterfly keyboard, cementing the notion that Apple had lost its way.
I appreciate the touchbar every day (esp. with bettertouchtool) but the soft escape is horrendous as it's used in so many of my workflows and isn't 100% responsive and doesn't give any tactile feedback.
It doesn't add any benefit to my experience. I'd prefer real keys that I don't need to look at. I could hit volume up/down easily on the previous models.
Using Terminal, I use the Esc key a lot for navigating and having a touch bar Esc key is not a great experience since you also don't feel feedback that you're touching the right key.
I've also accidentally hit the touch bar a few times while hovering one of my fingers above it as I press down on one of the number keys.
You can be just as granular by using shift + alt + volume/brightness. That way your changes will be in 0.25 step increments rather than the default full steps.
keyboards are meant to be used without looking at them. with the introduction of the touchbar, you have to look at what you're pressing. it's like a giant touch screen in a car, it works, but you have to look at it, where as if you have buttons, you can find what you want to do by feel/memory.
on a personal note, i've randomly refreshed webpages because i've overreached on the number row with the touch bar.
I hope I didn't get permanent damage but I hurt myself badly with it. I was trying to put the volume up a bit while wearing earplugs (it was very low) so I pressed the "up" volume key. I accidentally pressed few pixels to the left from where I should have pressed and it went to FULL VOLUME without a warning, blasting audio and hurting myself badly.
This could not have happened without the touchbar. This is horrible UX and I will never trust that (work) computer again.
Definitely going from 2015 MacBook Air to this new one for my personal at-home coding laptop, as long as I like the keyboard when trying it out.
I had really been wanting to upgrade for Retina & better processor but I knew they would upgrade the processor and fix the keyboard if I waited for 2020... no reason to wait now.
I don't run any crazy fat Docker stacks for my own stuff at home, so this is perfect.
My personal laptop is an 11" Air mid-2013 and I still use and love it. I especially love the keyboard on it because the keys have height, feel closer to a mechanical keyboard, and don't capture as much dust and dirt as the flat keys on my newer touchbar 2016 pro work laptop
This is good news from Apple as I was not into any of their more recent laptops but I'll probably upgrade to this one
I only wish they had a 11" version but not a deal breaker
I can't tell if you're joking, but I have a 2018 Mac Mini with just 8GB of RAM, and I often run Eclipse, IntelliJ, and PyCharm at the same time (along with multiple browsers and other stuff), and performance is fine.
I was actually surprised by this--when I first started using this computer, I thought for sure I would need to add more RAM, which for the 2018 model is too complicated to do yourself (at least to me it seemed too risky).
Exactly. I'm deciding between 32GB or even 64Gb, just to be on the safe side. Because nowadays you're running Slack, Spotify, several messengers, Firefox, Chrome, IntelliJ, Docker and Kubernetes on your local machine.
I'm still using a 2015 MacBook Pro that I'm clinging to, despite the screen having developed an annoying flicker every few minutes. I know 4 others in my office with Apple laptops, and they're all 2015 MBPs because until now, nothing else has been acceptable.
This seems to be like an answer to the "Can we just have the 2015 MBP with updated hardware?" question. Pending benchmarks, this could be the light at the end of the tunnel for a lot of users that don't need more than 16GB RAM (I'm still scraping by with Docker on my 8GB Mac and a lot of SWAP).
I love my 16" MBP, aside from the dongles situation (though I rarely need peripherals at all). It has the same keyboard mentioned here; feels great to me. The Touch Bar doesn't really bother me.
Recently upgraded from my 2015 15 inch MBP to the new 16 inch MBP (32 gigs of ram). Overall it big upgrade - the higher resolution and bigger screen are awesome, and my XCode builds are compiling faster. That being said, I hate the touchbar for a few reasons
- Having to look at the keyboard to change volume is not an upgrade in user experience
- The touchbar freezes for me once a week or so and I have to go to the command line to kill the process
- The icons don't make any sense - (xcode dustcan anyone)?
Also, maybe its because I am a rock climber and my skin gets roughed up, but the finger print sensor has never worked for me on any apple products and its a waste of space. All and all though, the faster computer and bigger screen is worth it for me.
...and yes, it's the same layout of the arrow keys that was there 14 years ago. If they were advertising new full size arrow keys that would definitely be worth mentioning, but I'm not sure why they had to draw attention to that particular aspect... especially given that half-height arrow keys are one of the more annoying things about laptop keyboards in general.
I still mis-hit one of the arrow keys about 20% of the time with the annoying 'full size left and right' arrow key arrangement. Going back to inverted-T makes perfect sense. It was an experiment that failed.
They're drawing attention to it because so many people complained about the old layout. For me, the arrow key layout was the sole reason I did not buy a new MacBook Pro in 2016, and one of the reasons I stayed away for 4 years.
This is a close Apple gets to saying "we fucked up".
Good. I'm hoping this will hurry along Dell's new XPS 13 Developer Edition configs with 32 GB of mem, 1080 display (I prefer battery over 4K) and linux. I have been itching to throw money at Dell since that was announced in January and here we are. Granted, the pandemic obviously hit their supply chain so I can understand.
If you like the XPS 13, I also recommend to look out for their "business laptop" Latitude 7xxx series (12", 13", 14"). They tend to have more ports, physical buttons on the touchpad, and slightly better keyboards. YMMV
Be warned about the whole DisplayLink display driver drama though.
Go for one with ports doing both Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C.
Docks that use DisplayLink drivers for video are absolute junk on Windows and Linux both. Am actually switching to an older 5450 to get back the ease of having dual displays over a PRO3X dock at desk and a whole host of peripherals (keyboard, mouse etc)
Nice. Thanks. I do indeed want more ports than the current new XPS 13s. Looks like they come at a premium. 8th-Gen CPUs (vs. 10th in new XPS) with a few more ports for an extra few hundred bucks? I will keep looking though for their latest model. Thanks again.
Same thoughts, I have the MBA 2018 and the keyboard is a deal breaker, I regret buying it and this is probably the last laptop from apple I will every buy
I bought the 2018 MBP and also agree. The keyboard has been a disaster. I’ve had it replaced 4 times now and won’t be looking back at their laptops anytime soon. The resale value has completely gone away for a 3500 purchase.
I was looking at this (2017 13" mbp with 512gb) - they offered me £380 for an 18 month old machine that cost me nearly £1700!
I bought the mac because it was an investment when I got made redundant and to hopefully shift careers.
Sold it for £800 privately (worst loss I've taken on any item), and now think I'd be lucky to get £700 for it as the price plummeted further once the 16" came out as people expect a 14" with a fixed keyboard.
Currently using a mid 2015 15". Better than the 2047 in every way, other than appearance.
They should have offered a lot more than price gouging resale value for it, imo.
Yep the resale value for the current MacBooks are going to be junk, now that new ones are out with decent keyboards. I wouldn’t consider upgrading my 2017 MBP based on performance, but the keyboard literally hurts my hands so I’ll probably replace it.
There are tons of people like me who will be flooding the used market and driving down the price.
Readit News
I'm not talking about i3/i5/i7, but rather U/Y/H. This letter determines the TDP (thermal design power/point) them machine is designed to run at. The TDP will govern the setting for the base clock speed, and, just as importantly, the throttling behabior under load.
Processor series TDPs are Y: 4.5W, U: 15W, H: 45W.
The new MacBook Air appears to have a Y series processor, like the MacBook, which means it will be aggressively throttled to keep power consumption and heat generation low.
Practically, that means that the new Air will not be capable of running sustained workloads much above its base clock speed, which makes it unsuitable for many programming-related tasks.
The Pro is still a much better choice for programmers. The 13 is suitable for many things, but the 16, with the H series processor, is really preferred for computationally intensive work.
You can get away with this machine if your workflow primary involves a text editor and remote servers, but otherwise I would still opt for the pro.
OEMs can still control load performance, it's not entirely determined by TDP.
Anandtech has a good article: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13544/why-intel-processors-dr...
Depending on OEM settings and cooling capacity, it's possible for Intel CPUs to indefinitely run at greater than their base clocks and TDP.
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/24/throttling-fix-2018-mac...
Why does Intel let OEMs play with that? It's to give OEMs a knob they can play with to balance perf and price for their segment. It lets OEMs cheap out on cooling (or go with new form factors like the tiny GPD models) and go with the low minimums, or have a full system that's capable of higher TDP like Apple's tend to be.
Your post may apply if we're working with 4K+ resolution video files, rendering and other activities, but the modern programmer, even compiling binaries, will be fine on a MacBook Air.
How do I know?
I use a 2 generation old Macbook as my primary personal development machine. I write Go, Rust, Java and TypeScript using the common tool chains for all those languages.
A lot of usecases involve running a replication of the server environment locally in resource intensive containers
A typical compile for me takes about twice as long compared to colleagues with newer H-series processors, but the individual projects are pretty small so that often isn't a huge deal.
However, once you try and run nearly a dozen docker containers for local testing, things slow down quite a bit. Multitasking while those tests are running is very difficult.
Great machine, only wish I had waited for the true tone and keyboard redesign but those are minor, have grown to love the keyboard.
I'm still using a 2013 MBA as my primary machine day to day. It has an i7 and 8gb of RAM. I've been waiting for the keyboard change before I upgraded, but today I see my options are i5 and i7 (as 2013). I'd get 16gb of RAM, but literally have no clue about the chip stuff. I'm assuming we've moved on somewhat from 2013?!
Any help much appreciated! Thanks in advance!
Complicating things recently is the introduction of the Xeon W and i9 lines, but for the most part the Xeon ones have yet more a new features and i9 are higher core counts to compete with AMD.
In broad strokes in the laptop space the majority of enhancements since 2013 I would say is higher RAM capacity (that Apple as a manufacturer has not to pursue compared to Lenovo, etc.), still yet lower overall power consumption to improve battery life, DDR3 to DDR4 ram, bigger L1/L2/L3 caches, and normal improvements to embedded graphics to support bigger onboard and external displays, and PCI-E enhancements for drives as NVMe-style drives are what I would consider the new standard.
i3 - Dual Core i5 - Quad Core i7 - Quad Core and slightly higher Clock speed.
That is it. Apple has kept it fairly simple most of the time.
Worth nothing the i7 is only very very very slightly faster as you are limited by thermals. I dont think it is worth the price. If you ever need the processor power then the current ( and future ) MBA isn't for you.
And in all honestly the CPU performance between your 2013 MBA and this MBA isn't all that different if you are getting the Dual Core. After all your 2013 CPU had 15W of thermals to play with, this newer CPU only has 9W peak, ( and 7.5W average ).
But the overall package of MacBook Air still many times better. Screen Quality, Ports, SSD Speed. Speakers. Not sure if they have updated the WebCam, if not it will be worst than your 2013 MBA.
My work won't be processor intensive, just a personal machine. But given how long I kept my old one, I intend to keep this one for a long time, and I'm not sure where the best price:performance tradeoff is. I could argue going low-end and replacing it sooner, or high end, and keeping it forever.
45W will get your laptop pretty warm and noisy and will drain your battery.
Been looking at the newer gaming notebooks, and I'm waiting the "real world confrontation" of 10th generation i7s (specially those that have AVX512) vs Renoir (lots of cores, AVX2 on a single instruction and (not as much as desktop) lots of cache), since I run some numeric heavy code and it's not quite clear how they'll stand up to each other.
Why do I run this on a notebook and not a desktop? Because I'm always on the move, and I can pack the notebook and go anywhere I have to and be able to work with or without internet connection (which is sometimes the case).
So put it on a stand and plug it in? Problem solved.
HiDPI. Once I had used a HiDPI screen for a while, I can't really tolerate LoDPI displays anymore.
I bought a 2018 15 inch MBP with 6 core i9, 32 GB of ram and vega GPU with the idea that it would be my one stop development machine. The system is terrible, especially considering the outrageous price - it does have sufficient compute power but the thermals are insanely bad - it's constantly turning the fans to 100% and I can't even tune the power usage - when I run a VM/emulator along the IDE people in the office start turning their head in my direction because of the fan noise.
And the performance still isn't even close to a mid range desktop machine which would have cost 1/4 the price.
I'm seriously considering selling my MBP buying this Mac Book Air top config (I need an OSX machine to develop iOS/OSX apps, otherwise I would go for Lenovo X1 Carbon) and building a desktop which will be always on VPN for heavy lifting + it can replace my gaming console.
I'm seriously considering selling my MBP buying this Mac Book Air top config (I need an OSX machine to develop iOS/OSX apps, otherwise I would go for Lenovo X1 Carbon) and building a desktop which will be always on VPN for heavy lifting + it can replace my gaming console.
I have a MacBook Pro 2018 and Intel NUC running Linux with exactly the same CPU. In typical C/C++/Rust builds, the Linux NUC is perceptibly much faster than the MacBook.
Didn't dive much deeper, but I'd guess the difference is thermals (despite the NUC having a small enclosure) and much higher system call overhead in macOS.
That said, I still like having a Mac as well, since there are so many great applications that I use frequently. But a sweet spot (as you suggest) is a reasonably powerful MacBook for the things that macOS is good at and a powerful Linux workstation or server for compute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxocVricANg
FWIW, the Y CPU in the Air is set at 9W instead of the usual 4.5W
For example, the only ThinkPad of that generation's T-series that had one was the T470p which had a significantly different design in terms of batteries, thunderbolt features, etc. to accommodate the significantly larger cooling system. With the very next year's model, all the models got quad-core with their usual low-voltage/low-power (and low battery usage) design.
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Does that still holds when using the power adapter?
No? The base model had a i5-8210Y?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Air#Technical_specific...
I'm not totally sure I agree. I typically do a lot of programming on my MacBook Air. It's simply a box I use to ssh to something else more powerful to do the actual runs.
Yes, if you're running computationally intensive stuff on your MacBook Air you're going to be disappointed, but if what you're mostly doing is typing into a terminal screen then it's probably perfect. And probably even over-powered? :)
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This isn't progress. This is the baseline. Apple have gone from bad to OK, and they're celebrating as though they've achieved something amazing.
As far as talking about it being amazing, its called marketing spin. This is how it works. However, those two sentences do not say anything about it being amazing. It simply focuses on the positive features of the keyboard. The two sentences above clearly communicate to mac users that the company has fixed the problems that people wanted fixed. Did you really expect a bunch of public self-flaggelation? They are telling us clearly that they did what we asked for. Perfect.
They tried a new design, which was horrible to use and had a high failure rate. They continued to claim the new keyboard was amazing, and stubbornly continued to use this crappy keyboard long after the problems were apparent.
And now they are touting a "normal" keyboard mechanism as if they've invented something new and wonderful... only Apple could get away with such transparent BS.
Somehow I think Apple can handle it. Anyone wasting energy complaining is only doing so because they are waiting to buy again.
It makes as much sense defending them as it does yelling at them about a keyboard.
I think it would be amazing if the most valuable, most design-focused company in the world admitted to everyone that they made a mistake. It would do a lot towards allowing everyone else to make mistakes without beating themselves up over it. After all, if the thousands of specialist engineers, paid billions in salaries, given the best equipment in the world, in a company that really (and I mean really) values design, can make a mistake, then it's kinda OK that your home page looks a little crappy on mobile.
None of:
> MacBook Air now features the new Magic Keyboard, first seen on the 16-inch MacBook Pro. The refined scissor mechanism with 1 mm of travel delivers a responsive, comfortable, and quiet typing experience. The inverted-T arrow keys help you fly through lines of code, spreadsheets, or game environments.
says anything about "fixing problems that people wanted fixed" or "doing what people asked for." That would read:
> We used a lower-travel keyboard with a butterfly mechanism and alternative arrow key layout on recent models, and you said you didn't like it. We listened. The MacBook Air now features a proven scissor mechanism with a return to 1mm travel and classic inverted-T arrow key layout.
They're implying that they've come up with something new, which is a lie. That's not perfect.
What ? No. They are telling us they refined it, not that they fixed their mistake. It's not perfect, it's lame and cheesy.
No, we moved on and do not care. There are many companies that make laptops and keyboards. 5 years too late.
"We've gone back to where we were three years ago after a mistake, sorry."
I don't understand what the issue is with Apple trying to sell their products. It sounds like people here are upset that marketing and sales exists, and that they use language to try to make their products seem impressive, and that consumers aren't rational when it comes to buying things.
Yes. We expect adults to own up to their mistakes, so why don't we hold corporations to the same standard and instead just accept corporate bullshit from them?
Sent from my MBP 13" 2018 with sticky spacebar.
New Apple doesn't act. Refuse to listen. Even with the Repair programme they still act as if it was not their fault.
That would be refreshing, I'd respect that.
Yep this is the right move, and as someone else says, this would be worthy of respect.
I think we've all just about had it with corporate bullshit -- and to be sure that says more about this moment in time than anything else.
Apple is consistently guilty of blowing smoke up our collective asses. It would be nice if they could give it a rest and simply be honest. But here we are.
What I noticed in the image that made me excited about this device is the function keys. If the 16in MBP had function keys, I probably would have purchased one already. I do wonder if the top spec of the new MBA is going to hold up to my usage though.
>MacBook Air now features the new Magic Keyboard, first seen on the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
That saved me from having to google "hey, is the 'new magic keyboard' the thing in the 16" MBP that I've been waiting for in the Air and 13" MBP, or is it something else entirely".
Some people just seem to choose a target for life (like the Favored Enemy of a Ranger from Dungeons & Dragons) and never give it a break, no matter what.
I suspect that even if Apple comes out with the best keyboard that mankind is ever going to make, some of you are still going to be angry about how they removed optical drives 4000 years ago.
- Apple knows that at the very least, some set of vocal people don't like the previous keyboard. They also know that many of their customers had to get repairs, even if they liked the keyboard. Those customers might understand that "butterfly = bad"
- They need to tell people that they've fixed the problem but don't want to do so in a way that says "the last product was bad" (so they can't just say nothing about it)
I think we should also place some fault on other manufacturers for just blindly attempting to do what Apple does without thinking: check out the latest XPS 13. They've implemented the same arrow setup as Apple's butterfly keyboards. And yet, I haven't seen a single review online that criticizes the XPS for this choice.
Then I grew tired of the macbook fan noise when running windows 10 and debugging with the touch bar. I ordered a surface 3 laptop and immediately realized how important a nice keyboard is to me. Its tactile, its got enough travel, the keys feel nice. I type with fewer errors and I work faster. Anyone want to buy a 2018 macbook pro with 6 core and 32gb ram?
Would be seriously tempted to just buy a new one if I was confident the keyboard wasn't absolute garbage. Typing on it was fine when it worked, but it double-spaces, and a couple of the other keys are now wonky.
Never had a keyboard die on me before this -- Mac or otherwise.
I also tried out the new version of that keyboard on the recently-released MBP. It feels almost the exact same as the old one, just a slightly more shallow depth.
Hopefully that's helpful.
1. Get your keyboard repaired (free, I assume)
2. Sell that thing online
3. Get this one.
I mean, this has a quad-core option, too. It's a no-brainer better machine.
I have the 16-inch that has the same keyboard mechanism as this. It's 100% an evolution on the previous design. While it is early, it's a proven design and there's no chance of it having any of the issues that the butterfly keyboard did.
I feel like my 16-inch is the computer I intended to buy in 2016.
If you can afford the upgrade cost after you sell your current one, you won't regret it.
"This is the baseline. Apple have gone from bad to OK"
Apple's scissor keyboard is pretty broadly considered the best in the industry by a country mile. Their butterfly mechanism was a bad misstep (I mean...almost indistinguishable from my Yoga 720, but compared to prior Apple keyboards), but saying that they went from "bad" to "OK" is just nonsense.
"and they're celebrating"
Advertising doing what advertising does. So brave on HN to point out that marketing is marketing-ee. Are you also telling me that the new car isn't going to make me an adventure seeking extrovert?
Why is that acceptable? If you lie or misrepresent the truth in almost any other field, you get criticised. But when marketers do it, they're immune. That's just weird.
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Even I who gave up on Apple thought, hey what a nice machine.
I almost can't believe how much shit I put up with on a daily basis for over a year. If you replaced a dying 2015 Macbook Pro with a new one, I very much urge you to reconsider getting it fixed at pretty much any price. It is so very worth it.
Apple's 2016-2019 laptops were pretty unusable, hope they revert the touchbar too..
A question, has anybody tried System76 comparing to Dell/Apple?
I think this is personal taste, but I just don't love the build as much, the trackpad, and ubuntu is acting pretty flaky. The camera and wireless chipsets are not immediately working right.
There just doesn't seem to be a perfect solution.
My only beef is no NVME and it stutters a tad. If I could find a 2015 w/ 16gb/1 tb spec w/ NVME...
I'm hoping the glitches in the 16" can be worked out, eager to see how the 14.1 will look...
and I know Apple kremlinology is never the most accurate way to look at things, but boy were the Mansfield/Forstall years great...
The latest XPSs look very nice.
I enjoy this machine and would buy another.
At the end I stuck to my MacBook Pro 2015. Perfect Size Trackpad with Zero false positive. Most people put up with a few false positive on the larger TrackPad. But I dont see any reason why this have to be this way. The keyboard felt way better, even the new Magic Keyboard on MBP 16 felt exactly the same as butterfly. Touch Bar is Junk, again it sometimes freeze. And some people put up with it thinking it is a non issue.
The old Apple and its users used to be perfectionist. Nowadays a lot of people settle for mediocre.
I just wish they make MacBook Pro Classic. Just throw in a new CPU will do.
Fortunately so
Good luck!
I'm not sure if it was the wifi chipset or the antenna design, and maybe some of the higher end Dells with better radio chipsets would perform better, but I returned the laptop to Dell and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy that was. At least they're doing something right. After that, I picked up a $700 ThinkPad T-series for travel and the reception is great on it.
It's faster than my Air, mostly from going 8 -> 16GB of RAM, and the high-resolution screen is great. But it still feels pretty slow and IntelliJ can get sluggish at times. The MBP has a 3.1GHz i7 so at least on paper it doesn't seem materially slower from the current gen of processors. Maybe memory speed is the issue? 1867 MHz DDR3 vs 3733MHz LPDDR4X in the new Air?
I miss the 11" form factor, but I guess that's a lost cause.
The 2015 MBP bought me (cheap) a couple years while Apple sorts out their keyboard issues, but I'm already looking forward to a replacement. It's just ok.
Overall, I found the speed of this model far exceeded my 2017 MBP from my last job, but it's kinda surprising how frequently the monitors / keyboard / mouse encounter connection issues.
That being said, I feel like I'm being a little picky, especially when I think of how nightmarish it was to get any of this shit to work with my Windows machines. It's the exception rather than the rule that anything would work the first time as expected (monitors / keyboards / mice / printers / programs).
It would be different if it had always been like this with Apple. The older models show that it used to work pretty much flawlessly. It is such a big step backwards and just because other manufacturers are crap at it doesn't make it okay. :)
I feel like I could live with the performance issues. But I'm doing a lot of switching between offices and having external screen/mouse/keyboard not working straight away is such a major pain. Even sometimes during the day after walking off with the laptop and coming back to the desk it doesn't work. It could be my specific setup but then Apple doesn't sell any official docking setups either AFAIK.
- I can't adjust the volume without looking at it. Because the touchbar is flat with no haptic feedback when I land on a button, it's hard to remember the exact position of the volume 'button' without looking. Sounds trivial - but combined with point 2....
- The way the volume control expands - it actually moves the 'volume down' button AWAY from your finger, which again requires me to keep looking at the control.
This means that when a loud song comes on, it can take 2-3 seconds to quickly turn the volume down in total. I could do that with one single keypress in half a second or less on a keyboard, without needing to look at the keyboard.
That can also be the difference between missing a key detail from a quiet speaker on a Hangout.
Flashy, but it's a terrible user experience by every metric other than looks, I guess.
Also, where on earth is the escape key??
Supporting more options is expensive, so it's understandable that Apple didn't want to give their customers a choice. Still, it seems like a gimick. And it appeared at the same time as the butterfly keyboard, cementing the notion that Apple had lost its way.
Using Terminal, I use the Esc key a lot for navigating and having a touch bar Esc key is not a great experience since you also don't feel feedback that you're touching the right key.
I've also accidentally hit the touch bar a few times while hovering one of my fingers above it as I press down on one of the number keys.
on a personal note, i've randomly refreshed webpages because i've overreached on the number row with the touch bar.
This could not have happened without the touchbar. This is horrible UX and I will never trust that (work) computer again.
I press the physical button a few more times? I find that 10 times easier.
Does that statement strike you as reasonable at all?
I had really been wanting to upgrade for Retina & better processor but I knew they would upgrade the processor and fix the keyboard if I waited for 2020... no reason to wait now.
I don't run any crazy fat Docker stacks for my own stuff at home, so this is perfect.
This is good news from Apple as I was not into any of their more recent laptops but I'll probably upgrade to this one
I only wish they had a 11" version but not a deal breaker
Still just waiting on a new 14" MBP.
I was actually surprised by this--when I first started using this computer, I thought for sure I would need to add more RAM, which for the 2018 model is too complicated to do yourself (at least to me it seemed too risky).
This seems to be like an answer to the "Can we just have the 2015 MBP with updated hardware?" question. Pending benchmarks, this could be the light at the end of the tunnel for a lot of users that don't need more than 16GB RAM (I'm still scraping by with Docker on my 8GB Mac and a lot of SWAP).
Also, maybe its because I am a rock climber and my skin gets roughed up, but the finger print sensor has never worked for me on any apple products and its a waste of space. All and all though, the faster computer and bigger screen is worth it for me.
That sentence made me check again...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Macbook_white_redjar_2006...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MacBook_Air_1b.jpg
...and yes, it's the same layout of the arrow keys that was there 14 years ago. If they were advertising new full size arrow keys that would definitely be worth mentioning, but I'm not sure why they had to draw attention to that particular aspect... especially given that half-height arrow keys are one of the more annoying things about laptop keyboards in general.
They are advertising the switch back to the old style that people actually liked.
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wpje8JydZq3y_R5C-LMe3N-fiMk=...
This is a close Apple gets to saying "we fucked up".
Go for one with ports doing both Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C.
Docks that use DisplayLink drivers for video are absolute junk on Windows and Linux both. Am actually switching to an older 5450 to get back the ease of having dual displays over a PRO3X dock at desk and a whole host of peripherals (keyboard, mouse etc)
No chance I’m buying another one any time soon.
Shame.
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Or do you mean partial refund when you say coupon?
I bought the mac because it was an investment when I got made redundant and to hopefully shift careers.
Sold it for £800 privately (worst loss I've taken on any item), and now think I'd be lucky to get £700 for it as the price plummeted further once the 16" came out as people expect a 14" with a fixed keyboard.
Currently using a mid 2015 15". Better than the 2047 in every way, other than appearance.
They should have offered a lot more than price gouging resale value for it, imo.
I do not mean partial refund I mean a coupon for a significant discount so I can try to sell this one on eBay or similar.
There are tons of people like me who will be flooding the used market and driving down the price.