I’d argue even further. The 2015 MacBook Pro was the best laptop ever. The keyboard, the screen, the power, the OS made it an amazing machine.

Nothing has come close since.

But it presumably still lacked a TrackPoint, so how could it be the best laptop ever? ;)

This. Just moved back from my 2014 rMBP Pro to a 2012 Thinkpad X220 for the trackpoint and keyboard. Shame about the display but eh there are external FHD displays when you really needs to. Retina screen and trackpoint is going to be amazing when I upgrade to a X1 sometimes I guess haha.

Do you have an IPS display for your X220? It doesn't increase the resolution, but it does make it much better. (The X220 is pretty easy to swap the screen on too.)

No I don't, but I am looking to swap the TN display with a FHD IPS screen, as mentioned in [0], but sadly there are very few aftermarket kits around these days last I've checked.

[0] https://hackaday.com/2016/08/26/making-a-thinkpad-great-agai...

I have a couple of the FHD mods from here ( https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122640 ), but they took quite a while to get to me, and by then my enthusiasm for experimental soldering had waned, but sometime I will try.

But even just swapping in an 1366x768 IPS panel for the TN panel of the same resolution makes a great difference. And those you can find fairly cheaply.

People were saying the exact same thing about the 2012 MacBook Pro after the Retina came out.

Well, the 2012 model was very nice. Also OSX of the era was bit better perceived than current ones, I think it was in some ways around the peak of OSX.

I think the point is more about people being so change-averse that it's basically impossible to take many of the "reviews" of new generations of Apple products seriously. Every time they roll out something new the universal consensus on sites like HN is that it's not just useless but actually has negative utility; it's the worst thing anyone has ever put on the market; if Apple ever does manage to sell any of this piece of crap they'll all be returned and exchanged for older models; Apple will be bankrupt within the year because they just don't understand how to make good things anymore!

And then a couple years later when the next next generation comes out, suddenly that worst-thing-ever-that-was-going-to-bankrupt-them turns out, actually to have been amazingly great and darn near perfect, so why did they go and mess it up!

Responding to you on a '15 MBP-- completely agree. Mine is still running like the wind, in great physical shape, and now sports a Big Lebowski sticker. What more could I want?

Agreeing with you on a 2015 i got new this February.

Fun comparison; for all their efforts to reduce the physical size of the device Apple has managed to shave whole 2.5 mm from the thickness. To get that, they have needed to drop ports, compromise keyboard, and reduce battery size about 15% (99.5 Wh -> 83.6 Wh).

I don't know what sort of bubble the product manager or whoever lives in that makes that a reasonable tradeoff. Sure, it might seem neat on paper that they have reduced the height 13% and total volume 18%, but in practice, well...

Compared to the Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 6th Gen they’re just one mm thinner, but much worse keyboard & ports config and 20% worse battery life. I guess it’s exactly one mm too thin. The Lenovo also weighs 1358-1126=242 grams less. And then there is also the silly TouchBar...

Indeed, I consider myself lucky that I happened to by a Macbook in 2015. Hopefully by the time I need to upgrade they'll have sorted things out again. Otherwise I may have to go for a windows pc next time.

Would you mind elaborating a bit? Why 2015, as opposed to something a bit older or newer?

I’m considering getting a MacBook but I’m thoroughly uninterested in a new(ish) one.

2015 MBP 15" retina has the older, more reliable, keyboard, magsafe power, decent CPU and adequate GPU, HDMI, 2 mini-DP, regular USB 3 ports.

You could go older but there's no need unless you want a DVD drive. And you'd sacrifice CPU performance and maybe memory capacity.

Alas, it seems the Apple official Refurb store sold the last of their 2015 MBP models earlier this year. The earliest ones I see now (in US/UK/HK stores) are 2016 models.

You could swap out the DVD drives for a second hard drive. But that era MBP was a bit underpowered IMO. I had a great 2012 before the keyboard started failing. Now enjoy a 2015.

The MacBook Pro actually had two Thunderbolt 2 ports, not Mini DisplayPort.

You are correct. But they're backward compatible with Mini DisplayPort. The only cables I've seen people plug in to them are minidp to {DVI, HDMI, DP}.

External hard drives are mostly USB3, and I don't know anyone with an external GPU.

I got a 2015 pro new from the apple canada online store in feb this year

The 2015 was the last of that body style, so it has the latest "guts" (CPU etc) with the previous keyboard and ports (USB-A, HDMI, Magsafe). Plus, with the non-mechanical touchpad, there's room for a slightly larger battery¹.

1: "The 2015 revision brought the modern Force Touch trackpad and used the space savings to increase the battery to 99.5 Wh, just under the 100 Wh carry-on limit for most commercial airlines" from Marco Arment, https://marco.org/2017/11/14/best-laptop-ever

have you ever repeated that line in an Apple store or any other tech shop?

it turns into the twilight zone with the rebuttals they come up with. mostly it is related to the sells and extrapolating that to consumer satisfaction.