3 ms·

I assume people who have a macbook pro that they dock and connect to a big display, and don't really own a desktop. You can plow a field with a honda civic, bu

I assume people who have a macbook pro that they dock and connect to a big display, and don't really own a desktop. You can plow a field with a honda civic, but it's not really the "right" tool for the job. The same applies to insisting on a 64GB laptop as your main workstation.

rayiner 10y ago
If you spend all your time docked, why do you care about a 15" screen? I've got a 15" MBP precisely because I do a lot of work out of conference rooms, hotel rooms, etc. Traditional "road warrior" stuff. Battery life is a huge premium there.
- hibikir 10y ago
  I do a lot of work outside of an office too, but I don't care about the battery life advantages. For my workloads, battery life is already terrible in a modern MBP, because all those great battery gains from the last 10 years are really about idle performance, not flattening the processor. My MBP is rarely quiet: Too often it has to do enough processing to sound like an airplane about to take off. If you actually tax it, it lasts about two hours before it runs out of juice. I'd much rather have more power and less battery life than to just give up, buy a tablet with a keyboard, since then the computer is nothing more than a modernized VT100 terminal, and do all real computing in the cloud.
pcurve 10y ago
I see. I guess time will tell if apple made the right call to sacrifice ports and memory in exchange for thin and light. I have a feeling that Apple's bigger screw up is the new pricing. Cost of getting 15" laptop is now $2,400, which is colossally more expensive than before. Some people just need bigger screen, and not high end specs.
- RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 10y ago
  For me the trade-offs don't bother me, aside from the RAM, but that's not a deal breaker. My preference sees to run contrary to the HN crowd, however. Having only USB-C is great; I can't wait to ditch Schrödinger's^WUSB-A soon enough. The butterfly key switch don't bother me, either. I bought a mechanical keyboard a few years ago, which I still use, but it doesn't feel that much better than the "free" bundled keyboards. Guess I'm just not picky. As for the price, yes I wouldn't mind if it were lower, but I do well enough that I can afford it (and I'm far from being a "10x" engineer, at least income wise). Besides, I hang on to them practically forever. I have both a 15" 2011 MBP and a 2016 12" MB, and prior to acquiring the latter I'd also thought thin & light didn't matter to me. Yet I find myself using the latter more and more, for seemingly trivial reasons like being able to comfortably hold the MB, open or closed, with one hand, freeing my other hand to e.g. open or close doors. Having a free hand means I don't have to carry it with my carrying case--I could just grab & go--so I take it with me more often. Of course, the MB is significantly slower, so I'm less productive in some cases even when I have it. The lower (logical) screen resolution is quite annoying, too. I occasionally run it in 1:1 mode until my eyes couldn't take it anymore. I'll probably get the new 15", but I'm hoping that the 13" is fast enough for me, because now I don't want to give up the portability.

rayiner 10y ago

If you spend all your time docked, why do you care about a 15" screen? I've got a 15" MBP precisely because I do a lot of work out of conference rooms, hotel rooms, etc. Traditional "road warrior" stuff. Battery life is a huge premium there.

hibikir 10y ago
I do a lot of work outside of an office too, but I don't care about the battery life advantages. For my workloads, battery life is already terrible in a modern MBP, because all those great battery gains from the last 10 years are really about idle performance, not flattening the processor. My MBP is rarely quiet: Too often it has to do enough processing to sound like an airplane about to take off. If you actually tax it, it lasts about two hours before it runs out of juice. I'd much rather have more power and less battery life than to just give up, buy a tablet with a keyboard, since then the computer is nothing more than a modernized VT100 terminal, and do all real computing in the cloud.

pcurve 10y ago

I see. I guess time will tell if apple made the right call to sacrifice ports and memory in exchange for thin and light. I have a feeling that Apple's bigger screw up is the new pricing. Cost of getting 15" laptop is now $2,400, which is colossally more expensive than before. Some people just need bigger screen, and not high end specs.

RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 10y ago
For me the trade-offs don't bother me, aside from the RAM, but that's not a deal breaker. My preference sees to run contrary to the HN crowd, however. Having only USB-C is great; I can't wait to ditch Schrödinger's^WUSB-A soon enough. The butterfly key switch don't bother me, either. I bought a mechanical keyboard a few years ago, which I still use, but it doesn't feel that much better than the "free" bundled keyboards. Guess I'm just not picky. As for the price, yes I wouldn't mind if it were lower, but I do well enough that I can afford it (and I'm far from being a "10x" engineer, at least income wise). Besides, I hang on to them practically forever. I have both a 15" 2011 MBP and a 2016 12" MB, and prior to acquiring the latter I'd also thought thin & light didn't matter to me. Yet I find myself using the latter more and more, for seemingly trivial reasons like being able to comfortably hold the MB, open or closed, with one hand, freeing my other hand to e.g. open or close doors. Having a free hand means I don't have to carry it with my carrying case--I could just grab & go--so I take it with me more often. Of course, the MB is significantly slower, so I'm less productive in some cases even when I have it. The lower (logical) screen resolution is quite annoying, too. I occasionally run it in 1:1 mode until my eyes couldn't take it anymore. I'll probably get the new 15", but I'm hoping that the 13" is fast enough for me, because now I don't want to give up the portability.