I was very skeptical of Windows as a development environment so bought the 8GB version as mainly a secondary computer/screen and notepad when doing work in cafes alongside my Macbook. I'll probably end up selling it and getting a the 15inch 16gb version. My Surface has only recently dethroned my MacBook as my daily driver after spending time to set it up properly. Also once you get used to a touchscreen it feels unnatural to not have one.

Also, the FN MBP hardware hasn't been upgraded at all like the TB ones were, so the CPU is one gen earlier and thus dual core, while keyboard flaws remain since it's a non-fixed keyboard (the one without the rubber thingies)

https://twitter.com/ismh/status/1030260782699892739?s=20

https://twitter.com/gruber/status/1030523625726779394?s=20

Here is a link from Apple that says all of their Macbook Pro models have T2 chips from 2018 onward.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208862

But I still may be wrong though where did you read that the MBP without a touch bar doesn't have a T2 chip?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/future-13-macbook-pro-w...

For example, the only way to get a slider to adjust display brightness was opening the OS display settings. At least that was the case the last time I tried it.

It's not a slider but it does the job well.

That said overall the tablet experience on Windows 10 is not ready for prime time. I get weirdness with the on-screen keyboard as well as quirks with Explorer and so on.

Yeah, you aren't the only one. They are seriously throwing away all the goodwill and reputation they'd built up over the past 20 years, over features no one is asking for like the touch bar and a ridiculously short key throw.

I have a 2017 and use it mostly with an eternal keyboard and monitors but I am shocked when I use the built in keyboard. It is really bad to type on -- all for what? A few fractions of an inch in thickness?

I had a first gen MacBook 12 and was ok with the horrible keyboard given its purpose of maximum portability. But on a desktop replacement / primary machine? What the hell were they thinking?

On this keyboard, 50% of the time when I type a single quote I hit the return key. Makes programming comically bad. It's just a couple of steps off typing on a touch screen at this point. (Which, I fear, is their endgame.)

Other joys of my 2017 (15, maxed out except for the absurdly expensive second TB of SSD):

1. (Un)plugging external monitors will crash the window server

2. Kernel panics -- usually related to IB in Xcode.

3. Unresponsive power key

4. Fingerprint reader that fails without any feedback

5. Serious hacking required to run external monitors in HiDPI mode

6. No more touch typing for the media keys, escape key

I'm professionally tied into the Apple ecosystem to a degree that it would be hard for me to leave, but I'm really unhappy with Apple these days. They seem to live in a fantasy world of unnecessary aesthetic goals and are alienating the small but extremely vocal community that have championed their products.

- Rock solid stability, uptimes of months (until I reboot to upgrade the kernel). I've never had a kernel panic in over a decade of use.

- No problems with WiFi, sleep, printing or monitor hotplugging (dual wide-screen, displayport MST).

Linux is tweaked, optimised and hardened by so many people and organisations, it is seriously fast and robust. The various desktop GUIs available have also matured a lot over the last ten years.

For any developer of server-side software (which likely runs on Linux), it simply makes more sense to develop on a Linux desktop.

You need to give Linux distros a few months to become mature enough to run flawlessly on newer hardware. I recall having displayport issues when I installed Fedora 22. Aside from that case, I can't remember the last time I've had issues.

I’ll even go so far as to say that I don’t mind the Touch Bar. But I rarely used media / fn keys to begin with and use C-[ for ESC where I can (e.g, vim). Often when I do use the Touch Bar it is to perform an action that replaces mouse / keyboard gestures (a plus, for me). Do not get me wrong though, the Touch Bar also displays a lot of useless information.

I’m not sure if I’d want fn keys on my next laptop (a fair number of my desktop keyboards don’t even have them), but realize other people’s workflows likely utilize them more.

What I would love is a modern, low profile, programmable mechanical keyboard though!

As a graphic designer, I used to be 100% windows -- and even somewhat against the hype of apple products. A friend had an old 2008 macbook pro collecting dust. I figured I'd try out OSX for a time, purely in an effort to fix her laptop. I fell in love with it and picked up the 2013 a few months later.

As time goes on, I don't doubt that we'll see the 2015 maintain its resale value.

You won’t regret Surface, fantastic hardware and W10 is not nearly as bad as the haters say, esp. with WSL now. I’m a switcher from MBP myself and I am very happy with the decision.

My MBP is luckily the last decent one (MBP 2015) and it has 16 GB DDR3 and 256 GB SSD. However it does have an Intel GPU, and only 2,2 GHz quad core i7.

Since I'm on 400 cycles at about 5% battery loss and a few minor but annoying damages on the screen I'm gonna get the latter repaired. Problem is I'm not sure how they got there in the first place. So I'm not sure how to prevent it. And the time to get such fixed is withering away. Tick tock, 2015 was 3 years ago.

https://techcrunch.com/2010/06/24/iphone-4-antenna-issue/

We have been suffering from the same MacBook Pro keyboard issues for 3 years, and the latest 2018 just released still has that keyboard problem. And to add insult to injury T2 now causes panic every now and then.

Each period was very unique.

Best desktop environment for people who want a very good looking desktop is Deepin, and the Manjaro Community Edition with Deepin has been rock stable, very fast and very beautiful for me during the last few months I've been using it. Highly recommended.

You don't need a MacBook anymore for things to just work and be great looking.

I currently own a maxed out 2017 15" model. The control and "H" buttons don't work. So I am using an external keyboard.

I could get them replaced, but service will take three weeks (due to high demand) and they have to have the actual laptop the entire time.

I returned to the States 2 weeks ago and took my MBP into an Apple store. The one nice thing I can say was that I was able to book an appointment online, drop my MBP off at the store, and 2 days later my repaired laptop arrived at my front door. That experience was at least more pleasant than I expected.

The high resale value of macbooks doesn’t do you any good when you realize you should keep your previous laptop around because your new one will likely break.

I will definitely be using an external keyboard when possible from now on. Sheesh.

Hell, my Thinkpad T420 had complete manufacturer created instructions on how to replace the display and keyboard so I could to it myself after the warranty runs out.

I’ve had friends with HP, Dell, etc, laptops ship them off and wait a week to hear what is wrong and give them an estimate. And they usually had to ship it themselves. I had an Apple repair and it took less than a week with virtual no wait right by my house.

Say what you will about their keyboard problems but people were envious of my repair experience.

At least Lenovo offers that in some of their models, you may be charged extra, though, if you want onsite warranty, may depend on market. This summer my space bar started to misbehave, created a ticket on Lenovo site, next day a guy arrived to my home and spend about half an hour to disassemble my laptop and replace the keyboard.

No, I am not envious on your repair experience.

Lenovo refused to replace it.

And these laptops are still cheaper than Apples.

Prior to this, I haven't seriously used an MBP since my '07-ish MBP died, but I can say there were no such issues with that.

In any cases sometimes they put you through to Australia or Singapore representative, but my god they treat you like dirt.

And the funny thing is? They continue to buy from Apple because they cant be bothered to leave the ecosystem and their work depends on it.

Last year the touch bar debacle started and I also wasn't happy with the 16GB memory limitation when others were offering 32GB. Also I need to do a lot of Windows and boot camp isn't very good on MBPs; the trackpad doesn't work much better than a normal trackpad and the fans go wild.

So I made a deal with the devil and switched to a 1080p 32GB Xeon ThinkPad and it's about twice as thick but works fine and has a really decent keyboard. I also read a book by the ThinkPad design team and I feel that they really care about doing the right thing. So that's who I identify with now more than Apple.

I'm watching Apple slowly (and presumably deliberately) further alienate their user base year over year with the touch bar, worse keys, refusal to implement touch, and awful Windows drivers, so that one day they can say, "Well it's not worth it anymore" and stop producing it and focus in iPad/iPhone where all the money is.

It's pretty sad stuff.

My 2012 is decent, but 2013 - 1015 MBPs are the best.

At least the last time I took it in, the guy replaced it on the spot in 15 minutes while I waited. Every other time they've needed to keep the device for a week to replace the cable... I've had a lot of downtime with this machine.

MacBook Pro Hard Drive Cable Failure - Free fix and preventative maintenance - Question mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amg5w0rlwDo

I've still got a month left on my AppleCare, but once that expires I'll give it a try. Thank you!

I think the only issue will be if I need to use XCode, which tends to be bound to the latest OS.

What precedent do you have for believing that to be true? The only time Apple has done that in the past is major platform changes (aka PowerPC and later 32bit CoreDuos). Unless Apple shifts to ARM (which is easily a couple years out at best) or Intel comes out with a 128bit processor (which isn’t even remotely on the roadmap), I’d say you are safe for at least another five years, even if those shifts do happen.

There are aftermarket GPUs available, but it’s becoming an ongoing chore to keep the machine running the latest macOS features (needed new wifi card to support handoff and watch unlock etc).

New wifi, SSD, usb3 etc are relatively cheap. The new GPU is getting more expensive and is now actually blocking keeping up to date with major OS releases.

There is no other Mac I currently want to buy (desktop, my own display). MacMini is too underspecced, MacProvis about to be updated and aside from GPU isn’t really any better than my current MacPro - feels end of life and outdated from day 1, a non-starter for me.

So I’ll probably get a new GPU and hope that buys me another couple of years.

I've put in USB3, replaced the spinning disk with SSD, upgraded the WiFi and RAM, but haven't done the CPUs yet (already got dual 6 cores, so aside from a slight clock bump not much point).

My only concern is that the CPUs don't support something that the next major version will require, forcing a move off the MacPro 5,2 platform.

I also share your concern too. :(

I got the kit from OSX wifi:

http://osxwifi.com/apple-broadcom-bcm94360cd-802-11-a-b-g-n-...

Works well, had a bit of trouble getting unlock with watch working, but then all of a sudden started, so not sure what that was about, but been good since then.

Although I'm actually typing this on that very model.

It took some getting used to because I hadn't used Windows in a while, but overall it is working quite well.

With the 2016+ you got the option of colors, and it continued on its trajectory of slimming and losing ports.

I guess it's just me, but one thing I don't like about the 2015 is the Force Touch haptic trackpad. I think the 2014 might have actually been better because it had a real clickable trackpad (like the MacBook Air still has) with a really satisfying, snappy click. The Force Touch has such a weak click response that I find it hard to use accurately, even when you dial the click intensity to maximum.

The Surface Book 2 and Surface Laptop seem to get that right, they've still got snappy clickable trackpads & the key travel is like the old MacBook Pros before the new keyboards.

While using the 2015 model, I couldn't even imagine a laptop that would make it look and feel old-fashioned, but the 2017 one did it. After using it for a couple of weeks the 2015 mac feels bulky and its keyboard – kind of tight. The 2017 keyboard is so light that it takes just a little push by a finger to press, and I really feel that it allows me typing even faster.

I do agree that the keyboard is very easy to contaminate and a little crumb can make a key hardly usable, but it's easily fixed with a bottle of compressed air. Hopefully the measures Apple took in the latest revisions, utilising a kind of a rubber cushion for the keys, will improve the situation.

Now that said - I haven't experienced any kernel crashes yet, and I expect Apple to fix this in software, so I don't worry too much about it.

I don't have a use for the touch strip (in fact it gets in the way, as it can get accidentally touched), hate how easily the keyboard can gather detritus and get stuck, and dislike the bigger trackpad.

On the other hand, I dig the enhanced display (brightness, color), better speakers, and am excited about the powerful i9/32GB/2TB options in this years model.

Not sure what they'll do with the strip, but the keyboard has to be fixed.

If it was up to me, I'd replace the touch strip with actual buttons that have tiny OLED screens and can show pictures on them, and try to come up with a 100% water/dust proof keyboard system that still has proper travel.

>My next laptop will probably not be a mac.

That's not an option for me. Linux of all varieties still sucks on laptops (and for creative use, e.g. video and music), and Windows doesn't have the Unix underpinnings that I rely on, plus the OS and ecosystem is even worse (I've used Windows for 20+ years, and use Linux for work every day since 1998).

Sweeping statements like that are not helpful. The argument is far more nuanced. My wife's MacBookPro sometimes fails to wake from sleep, gets incredibly hot under load and doesn't support my displayport MST monitors, but I wouldn't claim that Mac laptops universally "sucked".

That's because some Mac laptops do those things and others don't (it's a combo of OS version, graphics card, chipset, model, and so on).

Whereas the problems I'm talking about regarding Linux are integral to the OS and ecosystem (and occur for everybody, regardless of setup).

Now, some of those problems might be non-issues for others since they never do X or Y things with their Linux laptops. But for me, that need to do X and Y those are problems. X and Y being for example heavy professional video and music editing.

But there are also lotsa things that are genuine problems in desktop Linux use, regardless of use cases. Having problem with a laptop sleep or getting the 3D acceleration / compositor to play properly etc, for example is not just some rare case on the wrong production run / OS combo, but a constant across distros and laptop brands, and usually the solution is to just carefully research and get a support combo (or just be lucky).

The same is true for Linux, which was my point.

> Having problem with a laptop sleep or getting the 3D acceleration / compositor to play properly etc,

I have absolutely no problems with sleep or 3D acceleration (e.g. Steam works fine), my hardware is very well known (ThinkPad). So I don't agree that these are examples of constant issues.

> Heavy professional video and music editing.

Granted Linux is weak here. But is a MacBookPro really that strong? I would use a Windows 10 ThinkPad P-series Xeon, 64GB RAM and a 4K display.

The Lenovo P1 looks good. 6 core, 64gb ram, 13 hours battery.

What will it be? To be fair, I am not a fan of Macs but I haven't seen any good GNU/Linux laptops which have proper Wi-Fi, sleep, and battery usage out of the box. Do you have any recommendations?

Best laptop I've ever owned. Starting to roll them out at work too as Linux machines replacing new Macbook Pro's.

Exactly. These things add up. Fingerprint scanner won't work, battery life goes down. Occasionally, the device won't come out of sleep. I have used self-managed GNU/Linux on my laptop before and these issues bother you unless GNU/Linux development is your main job.

This is the issue that Apple is solving: if your laptop still works, Apple can't milk you for more money.

maybe it shouldn't even be a laptop

Laptops are portable. If you want something portable, it's gotta be a laptop.