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They wanted to take my 2017 MBP for a week to replace the faulty keyboard. I was forced to buy a new machine because I can’t afford to be unproductive for a wee

They wanted to take my 2017 MBP for a week to replace the faulty keyboard. I was forced to buy a new machine because I can’t afford to be unproductive for a week. Having a $3000 machine sidelined for a week by a design flaw that oringinates from Apple’s obsession with making pretty and thin devices over any practical considerations means I will be taking a very serious look at a windows laptop for the first time in over ten years when this MBP is due for replacement.

rixrax 8y ago
Exactly same story here. Second time that 2017MBP went for a repair I drove to a Best Buy and got a 2017 Razer Stealth. Life is suffering: on Razer I replaced Windows 10 with Ubuntu (which at that time wouldn’t work without long list of patches and tweaks; it’s better now with recent kernels), I hate the touch display, I would have preferred 1080p display over 4K, but at least modern Linuxes mostly do display scaling well enough. And then there is the touchpad. Which is several years behind MBP touchpad. And it’s not like it was much cheaper than the MBP. But It runs google docs and Emacs as well as the MBP did. And has the keyboard that works. So I’m just fine. I may in a year or two try MBP again. We’ll see.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  Get a 2015 MBP instead. They have a force touch touchpad yet not the larger ones, not the broken keyboard, still work decent, are cheaper (some 2nd hand in good state provided you don't search for exotic hardware combinations), don't have touchbar, still have magsafe (though you can make USB-C magnetic). I have a 15" MBP2015 and a 13" MBP2014 (the 13" MBP2015 would've been a better choice). I love them both. Only downside is the coating, and they're getting a bit aged. Apple even warn that the screen on MBP2016 and later can get damaged from debris on the keybaord, especially with keyboard protector enabled. My MBP2010 has been mistreated badly with debris and did not ever suffer from this. The MBP2014/2015 have it slightly more difficult already. If you fancy the newer series, the 2018 versions don't suffer from the keyboard getting stuck problems (cause Apple's clever hack). If you don't mind a portable trackpad the Apple Magic Trackpad 2 works native on Linux 4.20 [1] (which works on Ubuntu 18.10 at least) and the driver can be backported via DKMS. Fedora however has the module compiled into the kernel so you gotta recompile the kernel if you're running Fedora. [1] https://github.com/robotrovsky/Linux-Magic-Trackpad-2-Driver https://github.com/robotrovsky/Linux-Magic-Trackpad-2-Driver
Joeri 8y ago
If your laptop is that critical you should have a spare on hand. My advice would be to get that windows laptop now, so you can dip a toe in without the pressure of switching completely. If it’s a secondary device it also doesn’t need to be as expensive, just good enough to get the basics done. E.g. you’re probably fine with i5, 8gb ram, 256 gb ssd, which in windows land means you can get an ultrabook form factor for around $1000. If you haven’t used windows in a while, get a 2-in-1 touch screen model to get the full difference in experience windows has on offer. It’s interesting to have a machine that can switch from full windowed development environment to ipad and back again with a flip of the lid. (Note that I said interesting, not flawless.)
- cageface 8y ago
  Until very recently I was mainly an iOS developer so a Mac and Xcode were mandatory. Now that I’ve very happily gone back to web development keeping a cheaper backup machine on hand is more feasible.
- llampx 8y ago
  So basically buy a second Macbook Air or something that costs the same as a Macbook Air. Got it.
eadmund 8y ago
It may be an easier transition to switch to a Linux rather than a Windows laptop. Yes, Windows does have its Linux subsystem, but Linux … is a Linux system. I have to use Windows a fair amount, and it's a very painful UI.

rixrax 8y ago

Exactly same story here. Second time that 2017MBP went for a repair I drove to a Best Buy and got a 2017 Razer Stealth. Life is suffering: on Razer I replaced Windows 10 with Ubuntu (which at that time wouldn’t work without long list of patches and tweaks; it’s better now with recent kernels), I hate the touch display, I would have preferred 1080p display over 4K, but at least modern Linuxes mostly do display scaling well enough. And then there is the touchpad. Which is several years behind MBP touchpad. And it’s not like it was much cheaper than the MBP. But It runs google docs and Emacs as well as the MBP did. And has the keyboard that works. So I’m just fine. I may in a year or two try MBP again. We’ll see.

Fnoord 8y ago
Get a 2015 MBP instead. They have a force touch touchpad yet not the larger ones, not the broken keyboard, still work decent, are cheaper (some 2nd hand in good state provided you don't search for exotic hardware combinations), don't have touchbar, still have magsafe (though you can make USB-C magnetic). I have a 15" MBP2015 and a 13" MBP2014 (the 13" MBP2015 would've been a better choice). I love them both. Only downside is the coating, and they're getting a bit aged. Apple even warn that the screen on MBP2016 and later can get damaged from debris on the keybaord, especially with keyboard protector enabled. My MBP2010 has been mistreated badly with debris and did not ever suffer from this. The MBP2014/2015 have it slightly more difficult already. If you fancy the newer series, the 2018 versions don't suffer from the keyboard getting stuck problems (cause Apple's clever hack). If you don't mind a portable trackpad the Apple Magic Trackpad 2 works native on Linux 4.20 [1] (which works on Ubuntu 18.10 at least) and the driver can be backported via DKMS. Fedora however has the module compiled into the kernel so you gotta recompile the kernel if you're running Fedora. [1] https://github.com/robotrovsky/Linux-Magic-Trackpad-2-Driver https://github.com/robotrovsky/Linux-Magic-Trackpad-2-Driver

Joeri 8y ago

If your laptop is that critical you should have a spare on hand. My advice would be to get that windows laptop now, so you can dip a toe in without the pressure of switching completely. If it’s a secondary device it also doesn’t need to be as expensive, just good enough to get the basics done. E.g. you’re probably fine with i5, 8gb ram, 256 gb ssd, which in windows land means you can get an ultrabook form factor for around $1000. If you haven’t used windows in a while, get a 2-in-1 touch screen model to get the full difference in experience windows has on offer. It’s interesting to have a machine that can switch from full windowed development environment to ipad and back again with a flip of the lid. (Note that I said interesting, not flawless.)

cageface 8y ago
Until very recently I was mainly an iOS developer so a Mac and Xcode were mandatory. Now that I’ve very happily gone back to web development keeping a cheaper backup machine on hand is more feasible.
llampx 8y ago
So basically buy a second Macbook Air or something that costs the same as a Macbook Air. Got it.

eadmund 8y ago

It may be an easier transition to switch to a Linux rather than a Windows laptop. Yes, Windows does have its Linux subsystem, but Linux … is a Linux system. I have to use Windows a fair amount, and it's a very painful UI.