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Not only that, but I think the hate on the new MBP is rather unjustified. I'm writing on my work 13" 2015 MBP and I have a personal 15" 2016 MBP Touchbar. The n

Not only that, but I think the hate on the new MBP is rather unjustified. I'm writing on my work 13" 2015 MBP and I have a personal 15" 2016 MBP Touchbar. The new MBP weighs a similar amount, the screen is beautiful, and it feels much faster (thanks to the great SSD). Sure, the battery life has issues but I expect that this will be rectified in the next few months. Fact is, I can't find a single Windows laptop right now with anything close to the high quality feel of a MBP right now. I love working in Linux so the OS isn't an issue... but it's like every Windows laptop I use feels plasticy or flimsy in some way. OSX has its own fair share of issues, sure. But fact is, it's productive if you're a developer. With Windows (until WSL matures a lot) you find yourself using hacky workarounds and VMs to get stuff done.

spronkey 10y ago
Hmm, I've spent a fair bit of time with the 2016 MBPs and have owned and used many Mac laptops over the past decade. I wouldn't agree that there are no machines with "anything close" to the feel. I agree that the MBP is still at the top, but the Dell XPS, Thinkpad X1, X2x0, X4x0s are close in case, keyboard but lose in speakers and display. HP's top end models are close. Surface Book is extremely close. To be honest, the removal of MagSafe actually drops the overall "quality feel" of the 2016 Mac a step below the older Macs for me. As does the removal of certain other features over the years - such as the battery lights, pulsing sleep light, charging indicator light, tiny microphone input flowers replaced with single larger holes, inbuilt IR remote, etc. I would classify these things as "design quality" - so possibly not the build quality of what is there, but definitely contributed to the machines feeling like they are a cut above what else is out there. The fact that I can't upgrade the Mac at all is basically a deal breaker for me. I thought I could live with it, but after four years of having personal Macs (Air) that can't be upgraded, and work MBPs, seeing my spend on computer hardware literally double thanks to shorter new machine cycles, higher cost of "upgrades", and reduced resale value, I've had enough. Not only that, but my machine satisfaction drops a lot near the end of a machine's usable life (where previously it would be quite linear as I periodically upgraded things), and having to make compromises on storage etc is just too much. Whether OSX is productive as a developer depends greatly on what your particular environment is. In many cases I've observed that Linux can be more streamlined for everyday development, and the disruption that is OSX software updates has increased to the point where it's just as bad as Linux updates. If you can take advantage of Visual Studio for your dev and use some of the integrated toolchains there, you may even get superior productivity to OSX.

spronkey 10y ago

Hmm, I've spent a fair bit of time with the 2016 MBPs and have owned and used many Mac laptops over the past decade. I wouldn't agree that there are no machines with "anything close" to the feel. I agree that the MBP is still at the top, but the Dell XPS, Thinkpad X1, X2x0, X4x0s are close in case, keyboard but lose in speakers and display. HP's top end models are close. Surface Book is extremely close. To be honest, the removal of MagSafe actually drops the overall "quality feel" of the 2016 Mac a step below the older Macs for me. As does the removal of certain other features over the years - such as the battery lights, pulsing sleep light, charging indicator light, tiny microphone input flowers replaced with single larger holes, inbuilt IR remote, etc. I would classify these things as "design quality" - so possibly not the build quality of what is there, but definitely contributed to the machines feeling like they are a cut above what else is out there. The fact that I can't upgrade the Mac at all is basically a deal breaker for me. I thought I could live with it, but after four years of having personal Macs (Air) that can't be upgraded, and work MBPs, seeing my spend on computer hardware literally double thanks to shorter new machine cycles, higher cost of "upgrades", and reduced resale value, I've had enough. Not only that, but my machine satisfaction drops a lot near the end of a machine's usable life (where previously it would be quite linear as I periodically upgraded things), and having to make compromises on storage etc is just too much. Whether OSX is productive as a developer depends greatly on what your particular environment is. In many cases I've observed that Linux can be more streamlined for everyday development, and the disruption that is OSX software updates has increased to the point where it's just as bad as Linux updates. If you can take advantage of Visual Studio for your dev and use some of the integrated toolchains there, you may even get superior productivity to OSX.