The constant crashing, touchbar bugs (a few times it didn't even turn on!), graphical corruption, obvious cheapskating (no extension cable, non-data charging USB cable, bad keyboard backlight, no more cable holders on power brick and more) are the larger disappointments with this machine :/
Re:Linux on the Mac – state of the union
by qubitcoder on Monday December 12, 2016 @10:55AM
(#13158926)
Given those issues, I'm wondering if returning the laptop for a new one might be in order? For what it's worth, I've been using the new MacBook Pro with the touch bar for a few weeks now, and have only experienced one hard freeze.
Contrast that with the steady stream of issues I experienced with a similarly specced high-end Dell XPS 15"--power cord whine, wobbly and noisy fan on the graphics card, severe overheating to the point that the BIOS trigged shutdowns, repeated keys (an ongoing issue affecting multiple Dell models based on support forums), suspend/resume failures, laggy touchpad, and numerous issues with Wifi & sound across several distributions of linux--the new MacBook Pro has been a delight. To Dell's credit, they've released BIOS updates on a regular basis, but the laptop is still plagued with annoying issues, even on Windows.
Apple said it was their best laptop launch by sales volume ever. (Although that is partially due to such a long wait from their previous model.) Honestly I'm not that surprised - despite all the hate online I know 2-3 developers who bought them on or near launch day and several others who started salivating when mine arrived. The public internet opinion seems shockingly disconnected from that of everyone I've spoken to in person about it. Although, doing mostly web development more than 16 gigs just isn't important for me or my coworkers. My last laptop had 8 and it was more than fine.
Most people are much more curious about the touchbar (its a bit gimmicky), the screen (gorgeous but no touch-based scroll in browsers sucks) and the price (yowch!). I get a few comments both ways about the new charger (oh cool no more proprietary connecters!) (whaaat no magsafe? Boo!).
Oh, and being a Gen1 apple product there's all sorts of dumb stability problems - which is a much bigger problem than the ram! My touchbar has been glitching out sometimes and the whole system has hard-crashed a half a dozen times since getting it from connecting and disconnecting my 4k monitor. I'll be very disappointed if the software doesn't improve over the next few months.