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My experience with the new USB-C only macbook pro has been a complete and utter disaster. I had one machine fail within the first month: all usb-c ports stoppe

My experience with the new USB-C only macbook pro has been a complete and utter disaster. I had one machine fail within the first month: all usb-c ports stopped responding. You can't charge it, you can't reset the SMC because it requires the charger to be plugged in (through a usb-c port... which isn't working! hurrah!), you can't dump anything from it to external media. Basically a paperweight. Returned to Apple. The second machine is still up, but the "hub" that apple gives you the honor of paying 75 dollars for to get any subset of reasonable ports won't properly handle external displays and a usb-3.0 hub unless I plug them in in a very specific order. I have to do that every time I unplug the machine to go somewhere else. It won't accept the charger through the hub anymore, so I have to plug in multiple cords anyways. It won't handle multiple displays through the hub, so I have to plug in 3 connections. Not gonna lie, I was very excited by the usb-c push early on since it consolidates all my chargers to a single cable. On my XPS it works fine. There's only one port, but everything works as expected, it charges, it handles thunderbolt. Apple screwed the pooch in a huge way with their latest macbook models. shittiest computer I've used in a long time. I genuinely believe that apple's implementation of USB-C in their products is just crappy, since I've used other machines and docks without issue. Throw on top that the battery life while running a VM on the thing is literally 1% drain per minute (I wish I was joking...) and I'd recommend literally anything other than the new 15 inch touchbar macbooks. They're shitty machines for developers. Honestly, they're shitty machines for anyone, but they're particularly painful for anyone trying to work on them.

bb88 9y ago
> On my XPS it works fine. There's only one port, but everything works as expected, it charges, it handles thunderbolt. Yes, I was disappointed by the fact my XPS only had one USB-C port, but on the other hand, it also has a standard charger port as well, which means I'm not bound by USB-C alone.
- dangrossman 9y ago
  I recently bought the current generation XPS 13 (9370), and it now has 3 USB-C ports, two on one side and one on the other. You can charge on all 3 of them. Just being able to plug in the charging cord on either side of the device is immensely convenient, and reassuring because the single USB-C port was the first thing that failed on my last XPS 13 (9350).
  - robbyt 9y ago
    Amazing how Dell is phasing in the new port, rather than just replacing all of the old ports with the new (immature) standard.
    - bb88 9y ago
      Yeah, I was disappointed about it at first, but now, I think Yeah, it's really good they decided to do what they did. Most of my devices are still USB 3 standard, the only things I have which are usb-c are the phones.
blktiger 9y ago
Everything works great on my MacBook Pro. No issues with USB-C at all. Having used it for a bit, I'm not a fan of the keyboard, but I use an external ergonomic keyboard for my day-to-day usage so it doesn't bother me.
Mister_Snuggles 9y ago
> Throw on top that the battery life while running a VM on the thing is literally 1% drain per minute I have not seen this behaviour. I recently picked up a new MBP with the touchbar and spend a lot of my time working in a VM, I haven't see the battery drain like this. What hypervisor are you using? What guest OS are you running?
LyndsySimon 9y ago
I bought a “side dock” from my 13” MBP, and it seems to work really well. It solves the issues with dongles hanging off the side and wearing out over time, and because it connects to both ports simultaneously it significantly reduces wear on the ports. Granted it was $100, and sticks out from the side of the machine - but it’s a decent trade off so far for me. When I want to hook up to my 4K display and desktop peripherals, it’s just a matter of inserting the dock and it all works. When I go mobile, there’s only one thing to unplug and I’m on my way. My previous (mid-2015) MBP wasn’t even that nice in this regard - I had to plug/unplug a Thunderbolt cable and a MagSafe cable to use it at a desk. This is much easier and faster.
ender89 9y ago
I had a new macbook pro for a developer job and three weeks after I got it something on the motherboard shorted out and caused one speaker to make a loud popping noise and stop working. it crackled for months before we could get it looked at, and when they realized they needed to replace the whole motherboard the sent it back after certifying that the speakers now worked. Only the broken speaker still sounded noticeably different from the good speaker. I don't have that computer any more, and it still irks me that apple couldn't be bothered to replace all the broken parts.

bb88 9y ago

> On my XPS it works fine. There's only one port, but everything works as expected, it charges, it handles thunderbolt. Yes, I was disappointed by the fact my XPS only had one USB-C port, but on the other hand, it also has a standard charger port as well, which means I'm not bound by USB-C alone.

dangrossman 9y ago
I recently bought the current generation XPS 13 (9370), and it now has 3 USB-C ports, two on one side and one on the other. You can charge on all 3 of them. Just being able to plug in the charging cord on either side of the device is immensely convenient, and reassuring because the single USB-C port was the first thing that failed on my last XPS 13 (9350).
- robbyt 9y ago
  Amazing how Dell is phasing in the new port, rather than just replacing all of the old ports with the new (immature) standard.
  - bb88 9y ago
    Yeah, I was disappointed about it at first, but now, I think Yeah, it's really good they decided to do what they did. Most of my devices are still USB 3 standard, the only things I have which are usb-c are the phones.

blktiger 9y ago

Everything works great on my MacBook Pro. No issues with USB-C at all. Having used it for a bit, I'm not a fan of the keyboard, but I use an external ergonomic keyboard for my day-to-day usage so it doesn't bother me.

Mister_Snuggles 9y ago

> Throw on top that the battery life while running a VM on the thing is literally 1% drain per minute I have not seen this behaviour. I recently picked up a new MBP with the touchbar and spend a lot of my time working in a VM, I haven't see the battery drain like this. What hypervisor are you using? What guest OS are you running?

LyndsySimon 9y ago

I bought a “side dock” from my 13” MBP, and it seems to work really well. It solves the issues with dongles hanging off the side and wearing out over time, and because it connects to both ports simultaneously it significantly reduces wear on the ports. Granted it was $100, and sticks out from the side of the machine - but it’s a decent trade off so far for me. When I want to hook up to my 4K display and desktop peripherals, it’s just a matter of inserting the dock and it all works. When I go mobile, there’s only one thing to unplug and I’m on my way. My previous (mid-2015) MBP wasn’t even that nice in this regard - I had to plug/unplug a Thunderbolt cable and a MagSafe cable to use it at a desk. This is much easier and faster.

ender89 9y ago

I had a new macbook pro for a developer job and three weeks after I got it something on the motherboard shorted out and caused one speaker to make a loud popping noise and stop working. it crackled for months before we could get it looked at, and when they realized they needed to replace the whole motherboard the sent it back after certifying that the speakers now worked. Only the broken speaker still sounded noticeably different from the good speaker. I don't have that computer any more, and it still irks me that apple couldn't be bothered to replace all the broken parts.