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I recently was forced to upgrade by 2015 laptop at work because the battery life was finally short enough that I couldn't stand it. I hate dongles. The 2015 Mac

I recently was forced to upgrade by 2015 laptop at work because the battery life was finally short enough that I couldn't stand it. I hate dongles. The 2015 Macbook will stand as their last best laptop. Nothing about the 2018 laptop is better, it's only worse. I don't understand why they don't see this. There should really be a huge multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit for their keyboards and fixability to wake them up. I'm so angry.

mason55 7y ago
Why didn't you just replace the battery?
EForEndeavour 7y ago
Obligatory "Benjamin Button Reviews the New MacBook Pro" link (late 2016): https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the_new_macbook_pro/ https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the... > Gone is the gimmicky TouchBar, gone are the four USB-C ports that forced power users to carry a suitcase full of dongles. In their place we get a cornucopia of developer-friendly ports: two USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2 ports, a redesigned power connector, and a long-awaited HDMI port.
- adrianhel 7y ago
  Can I have one of those please?
snowwolf 7y ago
Agreed. But you can hack their replacement programs to extend the life of the newer (post 2015) models. There are a few battery replacement programs on MacBook Pro’s (e.g. https://www.apple.com/support/13inch-macbookpro-battery-replacement/ https://www.apple.com/support/13inch-macbookpro-battery-repl...) and there is also a keyboard replacement program (https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks/ https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...). Replacing either practically gives you all new internals because of they way everything is soldered on. I just did that on my 2016 model and it should hopefully last me now a few more years.
asenna 7y ago
I am still rocking the MBP 2015 and recently changed the battery. Did you consider doing the same? That is, updating batteries instead of getting the new ones?
golfer 7y ago
100% agree. I'm typing this on a 2015 Macbook Pro, and holding on for dear life, even as it has started alerting me about servicing the battery. It's a great machine. I tried using the touchbar on my son's newer MBP. It's awful, and not meant for serious use. His laptop has been replaced once already due to keyboard issue, and starting to show defects again.
- TomVDB 7y ago
  Replace the battery. I did it last year on my 2012 rMBpro after it have been complaining about servicing the battery for about a year, and while it wasn't a walk in the park, it all worked out great. Tip: there are 2 ways to replace the battery. One is by following the official iFixit etc instructions where you remove absolutely everything before you peel off the battery with acetone. The other is by immediately peeling off the battery right away. In that case, you have to be careful that the acetone doesn't flow onto the speakers (because they'd melt.) That's the way I, and many other with me, did it. It still only took me about 1 hour to get everything back up and running.
  - Symbiote 7y ago
    Round here (which I can probably generalize as Europe) there are lots of small shops who repair mobile phones and computers. Replacing a Macbook battery should be a routine task for any of them.
  - rauar 7y ago
    Mid 2012 MBP here. Replaced battery with new one from iFixit 4 weeks ago. There was zero glue so no peeling necessary.
    - TomVDB 7y ago
      You were lucky! Putting so much force on those batteries, I was afraid they'd crack and catch fire.
      - kochthesecond 7y ago
aczerepinski 7y ago
I upgraded from 2015 to 2018 at work recently and then went back to IT and asked if I could change my mind and trade back. The 2015 is nicer.
- copperx 7y ago
  The 2018 model shouldn't be called an upgrade in any way.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    It's faster…
    - aczerepinski 7y ago
      Not in a way that I could perceive at work. I guess both the 2015 and 2018 are "plenty fast" for the web development work that I do.
  - lightbulbjim 7y ago
    I much prefer the touchpad. It's so nice being able to click the top part easily.
    - spronkey 7y ago
      Turn off haptics and use tap to click. Once you go tap you'll never go back?
    - vanilla_nut 7y ago
      The 2015 Macbook Pro has the Force Touch trackpad as well (so no physical movement), so it has the exact same feel when you click at the top of the trackpad. Everything before the 2015 did have that issue though, you're correct. Never really bothered me though to be honest. The nicest part of the FT trackpad if you ask me is the ability to make trackpad clicks almost silent, and the fact that it's (supposedly) less likely to break.
gumby 7y ago
I have no dongle issue (I rarely plug anything into my laptop), but the Touch Bar was terrible for me. I was finally able to use Karabiner to suppress escape (I mapped caps lock to esc which is more convenient anyway). I can see the Touch Bar probably makes sense for people who look at the keyboard while they type, which might be a majority for all I know, but for touch typists it's at best worthless, and the accidentally triggering is terrible.
cbm-vic-20 7y ago
I'm disappointed that Apple didn't either kill the Touchbar, or commit to it fully: why is there no desktop keyboard (wireless or wired) with the Touchbar? Presumably a huge amount of Pro users (this is a Macbook "Pro", right?) plug into keyboard, pointing device, and monitor frequently...
- dwaite 7y ago
  Agreed that I wish they had embraced, extended, or extinguished the Touch Bar. A larger offset from the top row of physical keys, a physical escape key, some form of accidental touch elimination, and/or a taller display surface would all be useful changes. WRT to an external keyboard with it - in addition to making keyboards more expensive and proprietary, the Touch Bar is powered by the T2 chip, which is not just used to power the Touch Bar and TouchID, but for system functions like boot-up. Even with these features removed, dynamically paired TouchID sensors would be a change to Apple's security model (which requires a hardware/data reset to pair a new TouchID sensor for security reasons).
  - m463 7y ago
    I suspect it's probably hard to get the keyboard to straddle the touch bar, but I couldn't help think: Why not physical escape and power keys at the ends?
    - Yhippa 7y ago
      The lack of a physical escape key galls me the most.
      - adrianhel 7y ago
        I remapped caps lock to esc.
        tdfx 7y ago
        I remapped esc to caps lock (physically) on day one. 6 months later, I'm still mentally re-mapping it occasionally.
breck 7y ago
I think the maxed out 2017 Air (before the retina display) is their best, if you're not doing much video or too much ML.
- js2 7y ago
  This is my personal laptop but the screen is really crap. My work laptop is a 2015 13” MBP. Work recently offered to upgrade me to a new MBP. I declined.
  - spronkey 7y ago
    The Air's display isn't that bad. It's a good TN panel with a good non-retina resolution (1440x900 on the 13"), decent contrast, and good (for TN) viewing angles. It's certainly a big step up from the frankly abysmal base WXGA TN displays of many Lenovo/HP/Dell machines. But yes, it's not even close to the retina IPS displays.
    - js2 7y ago
      I own two of them. And a 2015 13” MBP with a Retina display. And a current iPad mini and an iPhone XS. And a BenQ 32” 4K display. And before that I had a 2009 13” MBP. All of the non-iOS displays are calibrated via a munki. The MBA display from this generation (my kids have the 11” MBAs with basically the same crap display) is the worst I’ve used by far. So bad it’s basically useless for photo editing. The contrast stinks. The color gamut stinks. You can’t look at it off-axis at all. No no, I’ve looked at a lot of displays in my life. It’s my least favorite. The 2009 13” MBP display was better. That there are non-Apple laptop displays that are even worse is cold comfort.
      - spronkey 7y ago
        Haha, never pick up a base model ThinkPad then. Some of those displays are just ridiculously bad. I measured the contrast of my 2013 MBA at ~800:1 with my Spyder3 back in the day, which is pretty OK for TN. It got somewhat close to 60% sRGB coverage. For reference, my ThinkPad X230's TN display measured ~180:1 and couldn't even get to 50% sRGB. No it isn't suitable for photo editing, but then no TN display really is due to the viewing angle colour and contrast shift. I haven't measured the 2015+ models but understand that the actual panel panel is meant to be the same. It's not what I would personally choose, but I thought it was acceptable at the time, even next to the TN MBP displays.
biztos 7y ago
If it’s any consolation (probably the opposite) my 2017 MBP, without Touch Bar, has gotten about 2h battery when running a now-typical corporate “pro” stack (docker, slack, Outlook, etc) sind day one. If only running UNIx stuff plus maybe a browser I can push it to 6. Every time I get out my 2013 MBP (not for the day job) I remember what a computer could be.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Slack and Outlook - I either use the web versions or just use my phone. They are both cross platform battery killers. Docker - I don’t use it, but if it’s anything like the VMs I use to run, it also kill batteries. I’m better off provisioning all of that on our DEV AWS Account and just connecting via my phone’s hotspot if I don’t have a reliable network connection and running very few things locally.
  - biztos 7y ago
    I recently discovered the web Slack and am trying to use it more. Seems to help, which ought to be a huge embarrassment to $WORK or whatever they call it. I used to use Outlook Web and might go back. The native client is a nightmare but does some useful things the web one doesn’t. Docker has been a huge boon to my dev efforts, usually much lighter weight than an old school VM, so I’m no hater but if I had to work on battery more often I’d probably do the same thing, spend a few bucks on AWS and only work online but with better battery life. All that still won’t get me more than 6h though.... :-(
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > I used to use Outlook Web and might go back. The native client is a nightmare but does some useful things the web one doesn’t. Is Mail.app, or some other mail client, an option for you?
DonHopkins 7y ago
I still think the PowerBook 540c was the best Apple laptop that I ever used. Although I had switched over to Windows by the time of the Pismo G3/500 (voted the best ever), I had my 540c upgraded with a PowerPC, and got many years of delightful service out of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_500_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_500_series I had a 5300 for a while and it was a piece of crap compared to the sturdy souped-up 540c. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_5300 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_5300 It had two big symmetrical removable battery compartments, so you could switch out one at a time and keep running on as many batteries as you have pre-charged without interruption! Plus there was an external dual battery charger. And you could swap a hard disk drive or CDROM into one of those bays. Plus it was fat enough that it was able to cool so it didn't overheat all the time like an MBP. Anorexic thinness isn't a thing for me: I'd trade a lot of thinness for huge removable batteries and great ventilation. https://web.archive.org/web/20060324140419/http://www.insanely-great.com/features/112900.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060324140419/http://www.insane...
- spronkey 7y ago
  I never really liked the 500 series - I preferred the 1400 (I know, weirdo). The Intel MacBooks have had their moments (glass trackpads, SD card readers, quad core in the 2011 15"), but almost all of them had design defects of some kind: * Original white and black MacBooks had sharp edges and cracking wrist rests * 2nd Gen MBP had 8600GT chip death issues * First Unibody MB/MBP had glossy screen not suitable for indoor lighting * First Polycarbonate Unibody had chassis cracking and rubber base warping issues (but was otherwise an excellent machine, too bad they didn't resolve those issues and keep selling it...) * 2011 15" will all eventually fail due to faulty GPUs * 2012 Retina MBs had underpowered GPUs * Retina MBPs had soldered RAM and proprietary SSDs (10.13's NVMe support for those older machines with a simple adaptor has made a complete mockery of anyone defending Apple's stupid proprietary pinout, too), glued batteries and display coating problems In saying that, the original aluminium unibody was a spectacular design. It felt so much more premium than any other machine of the time it was absurd. I personally think absolute peak Apple notebook was the 2012 MacBook Pro 15" with the Anti-Glare display. All the best things about the pre-retina Unibody design, but serviceable, with USB3, no known serious GPU or CPU flaws, and none of the retina issues such as staingate or glued battery. Had they made a Haswell revision of that to get the better battery life I'm reasonably convinced it would still be a seriously popular machine today.
lancesells 7y ago
Battery replacements are fairly cheap. I did that with my 2014 air and it's now good for another three or four years.
ddingus 7y ago
Was it not possible to replace the battery? I do not mean officially, just get one in there, unofficially.
daslicious 7y ago
I got my 2015 mpb battery replaced. I'm back to smooth sailing. Always plugged in so it'll last as long as possible. It had bad battery bloat but when I got it back from apple care everything looked new.
- wyclif 7y ago
  What does Apple recommend wrt keeping a MBP always plugged in? That's what I do almost all the time, but I'm curious what they say about it.
  - spronkey 7y ago
    Battery will last its longest if it's reasonably frequently used. Ultimately if you want the longest battery longevity, keep it between 50% and 85% charged, and keep the machine cool.
    - wyclif 7y ago
      Right, obviously heat is an enemy of li-ion batteries. My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that if a MBP is plugged in the power bypasses the battery once it reaches 100% charge, correct?
      - vanilla_nut 7y ago
        That is my understanding as well. Most of my macbooks (I've owned 3) have been plugged in the majority of the time, with at least some time every few days spent on battery power unplugged. I'd say you're fine as long as you're using the battery at least once every 2-3 weeks -- longer than that might not be good for the battery over long periods of time.
kabdib 7y ago
Just walk away from the Mac. Windows is perfectly viable for doing development, so is Linux. You can easily get a laptop that is cheaper and more reliable than a Macbook. About the only thing you'll be missing is a cool Apple sticker, but you can get those on eBay. Your wallet will thank you, and so will your fingers. A Macbook was a reasonable, even logical choice in 2012. Now, not so much. Apple can have me back if they want -- hey, take my money! -- but they have to stop fucking up. I don't know why the Apple board isn't simply pounding the hell out of the management that's been allowing the poor quality and user-hostile decisions of the past several years. [Hmmm, I just looked at their board members. That would explain a lot...]
- jordache 7y ago
  the touchpad performance on the mac is second to none. Can modern windows or linux come even close?
  - xenospn 7y ago
    No.
  - nbevans 7y ago
    I tested them all (well, the main contenders) and even the flagship Surface Book trackpad is not comparable to a current MacBook. The Surface Book trackpad is like almost identical to a MacBook from around 2012-2013 era. Admittedly the current MacBook trackpad is too big - but is otherwise functionally perfect in terms of its multi-touch and haptic feedback.
  - copperx 7y ago
    Absolutely not. The good thing is that any extended development session calls for an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse/trackpad. Also, you can use the external Apple trackpad they sell with any OS.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > The good thing is that any extended development session calls for an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse/trackpad. For you. I do all my development on a 13" laptop.
mgkimsal 7y ago
Just spent $200 on new battery and install for my 2015 MBP. I wish I'd opted for the 1t model vs 512g drive, but was getting refurb and at the time they had no 1t left - wasn't sure they'd have any more (friend of mine snagged one a few weeks later!)
- random_comment 7y ago
  > I wish I'd opted for the 1t model vs 512g drive Hi there. You can buy a sintech adapter on amazon that will let you put a standard NVME SSD into a macbook air/retina 2013-2015 model (and maybe some others). It costs about $20. With that, you can choose some of the cheap, new, fast, 2TB disks and get a massive improvement in speed and storage capacity for relatively little money. Google around; there are some recommended drives. From what I've read the 'long' version of the sintech is the best one to buy. The upgrade process is on ifixit; it's super easy. You will also need a torx screwdriver; again you can buy a 'mac fixing kit' for $5-10 on amazon etc.
  - mgkimsal 7y ago
    thanks!

mason55 7y ago

Why didn't you just replace the battery?

EForEndeavour 7y ago

Obligatory "Benjamin Button Reviews the New MacBook Pro" link (late 2016): https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the_new_macbook_pro/ https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the... > Gone is the gimmicky TouchBar, gone are the four USB-C ports that forced power users to carry a suitcase full of dongles. In their place we get a cornucopia of developer-friendly ports: two USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2 ports, a redesigned power connector, and a long-awaited HDMI port.

adrianhel 7y ago
Can I have one of those please?

snowwolf 7y ago

Agreed. But you can hack their replacement programs to extend the life of the newer (post 2015) models. There are a few battery replacement programs on MacBook Pro’s (e.g. https://www.apple.com/support/13inch-macbookpro-battery-replacement/ https://www.apple.com/support/13inch-macbookpro-battery-repl...) and there is also a keyboard replacement program (https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks/ https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...). Replacing either practically gives you all new internals because of they way everything is soldered on. I just did that on my 2016 model and it should hopefully last me now a few more years.

asenna 7y ago

I am still rocking the MBP 2015 and recently changed the battery. Did you consider doing the same? That is, updating batteries instead of getting the new ones?

golfer 7y ago

100% agree. I'm typing this on a 2015 Macbook Pro, and holding on for dear life, even as it has started alerting me about servicing the battery. It's a great machine. I tried using the touchbar on my son's newer MBP. It's awful, and not meant for serious use. His laptop has been replaced once already due to keyboard issue, and starting to show defects again.

TomVDB 7y ago
Replace the battery. I did it last year on my 2012 rMBpro after it have been complaining about servicing the battery for about a year, and while it wasn't a walk in the park, it all worked out great. Tip: there are 2 ways to replace the battery. One is by following the official iFixit etc instructions where you remove absolutely everything before you peel off the battery with acetone. The other is by immediately peeling off the battery right away. In that case, you have to be careful that the acetone doesn't flow onto the speakers (because they'd melt.) That's the way I, and many other with me, did it. It still only took me about 1 hour to get everything back up and running.
- Symbiote 7y ago
  Round here (which I can probably generalize as Europe) there are lots of small shops who repair mobile phones and computers. Replacing a Macbook battery should be a routine task for any of them.
- rauar 7y ago
  Mid 2012 MBP here. Replaced battery with new one from iFixit 4 weeks ago. There was zero glue so no peeling necessary.
  - TomVDB 7y ago
    You were lucky! Putting so much force on those batteries, I was afraid they'd crack and catch fire.
    - kochthesecond 7y ago

aczerepinski 7y ago

I upgraded from 2015 to 2018 at work recently and then went back to IT and asked if I could change my mind and trade back. The 2015 is nicer.

copperx 7y ago
The 2018 model shouldn't be called an upgrade in any way.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  It's faster…
  - aczerepinski 7y ago
    Not in a way that I could perceive at work. I guess both the 2015 and 2018 are "plenty fast" for the web development work that I do.
- lightbulbjim 7y ago
  I much prefer the touchpad. It's so nice being able to click the top part easily.
  - spronkey 7y ago
    Turn off haptics and use tap to click. Once you go tap you'll never go back?
  - vanilla_nut 7y ago
    The 2015 Macbook Pro has the Force Touch trackpad as well (so no physical movement), so it has the exact same feel when you click at the top of the trackpad. Everything before the 2015 did have that issue though, you're correct. Never really bothered me though to be honest. The nicest part of the FT trackpad if you ask me is the ability to make trackpad clicks almost silent, and the fact that it's (supposedly) less likely to break.

gumby 7y ago

I have no dongle issue (I rarely plug anything into my laptop), but the Touch Bar was terrible for me. I was finally able to use Karabiner to suppress escape (I mapped caps lock to esc which is more convenient anyway). I can see the Touch Bar probably makes sense for people who look at the keyboard while they type, which might be a majority for all I know, but for touch typists it's at best worthless, and the accidentally triggering is terrible.

cbm-vic-20 7y ago

I'm disappointed that Apple didn't either kill the Touchbar, or commit to it fully: why is there no desktop keyboard (wireless or wired) with the Touchbar? Presumably a huge amount of Pro users (this is a Macbook "Pro", right?) plug into keyboard, pointing device, and monitor frequently...

dwaite 7y ago
Agreed that I wish they had embraced, extended, or extinguished the Touch Bar. A larger offset from the top row of physical keys, a physical escape key, some form of accidental touch elimination, and/or a taller display surface would all be useful changes. WRT to an external keyboard with it - in addition to making keyboards more expensive and proprietary, the Touch Bar is powered by the T2 chip, which is not just used to power the Touch Bar and TouchID, but for system functions like boot-up. Even with these features removed, dynamically paired TouchID sensors would be a change to Apple's security model (which requires a hardware/data reset to pair a new TouchID sensor for security reasons).
- m463 7y ago
  I suspect it's probably hard to get the keyboard to straddle the touch bar, but I couldn't help think: Why not physical escape and power keys at the ends?
  - Yhippa 7y ago
    The lack of a physical escape key galls me the most.
    - adrianhel 7y ago
      I remapped caps lock to esc.
      - tdfx 7y ago
        I remapped esc to caps lock (physically) on day one. 6 months later, I'm still mentally re-mapping it occasionally.

breck 7y ago

I think the maxed out 2017 Air (before the retina display) is their best, if you're not doing much video or too much ML.

js2 7y ago
This is my personal laptop but the screen is really crap. My work laptop is a 2015 13” MBP. Work recently offered to upgrade me to a new MBP. I declined.
- spronkey 7y ago
  The Air's display isn't that bad. It's a good TN panel with a good non-retina resolution (1440x900 on the 13"), decent contrast, and good (for TN) viewing angles. It's certainly a big step up from the frankly abysmal base WXGA TN displays of many Lenovo/HP/Dell machines. But yes, it's not even close to the retina IPS displays.
  - js2 7y ago
    I own two of them. And a 2015 13” MBP with a Retina display. And a current iPad mini and an iPhone XS. And a BenQ 32” 4K display. And before that I had a 2009 13” MBP. All of the non-iOS displays are calibrated via a munki. The MBA display from this generation (my kids have the 11” MBAs with basically the same crap display) is the worst I’ve used by far. So bad it’s basically useless for photo editing. The contrast stinks. The color gamut stinks. You can’t look at it off-axis at all. No no, I’ve looked at a lot of displays in my life. It’s my least favorite. The 2009 13” MBP display was better. That there are non-Apple laptop displays that are even worse is cold comfort.
    - spronkey 7y ago
      Haha, never pick up a base model ThinkPad then. Some of those displays are just ridiculously bad. I measured the contrast of my 2013 MBA at ~800:1 with my Spyder3 back in the day, which is pretty OK for TN. It got somewhat close to 60% sRGB coverage. For reference, my ThinkPad X230's TN display measured ~180:1 and couldn't even get to 50% sRGB. No it isn't suitable for photo editing, but then no TN display really is due to the viewing angle colour and contrast shift. I haven't measured the 2015+ models but understand that the actual panel panel is meant to be the same. It's not what I would personally choose, but I thought it was acceptable at the time, even next to the TN MBP displays.

biztos 7y ago

If it’s any consolation (probably the opposite) my 2017 MBP, without Touch Bar, has gotten about 2h battery when running a now-typical corporate “pro” stack (docker, slack, Outlook, etc) sind day one. If only running UNIx stuff plus maybe a browser I can push it to 6. Every time I get out my 2013 MBP (not for the day job) I remember what a computer could be.

scarface74 7y ago
Slack and Outlook - I either use the web versions or just use my phone. They are both cross platform battery killers. Docker - I don’t use it, but if it’s anything like the VMs I use to run, it also kill batteries. I’m better off provisioning all of that on our DEV AWS Account and just connecting via my phone’s hotspot if I don’t have a reliable network connection and running very few things locally.
- biztos 7y ago
  I recently discovered the web Slack and am trying to use it more. Seems to help, which ought to be a huge embarrassment to $WORK or whatever they call it. I used to use Outlook Web and might go back. The native client is a nightmare but does some useful things the web one doesn’t. Docker has been a huge boon to my dev efforts, usually much lighter weight than an old school VM, so I’m no hater but if I had to work on battery more often I’d probably do the same thing, spend a few bucks on AWS and only work online but with better battery life. All that still won’t get me more than 6h though.... :-(
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    > I used to use Outlook Web and might go back. The native client is a nightmare but does some useful things the web one doesn’t. Is Mail.app, or some other mail client, an option for you?

DonHopkins 7y ago

I still think the PowerBook 540c was the best Apple laptop that I ever used. Although I had switched over to Windows by the time of the Pismo G3/500 (voted the best ever), I had my 540c upgraded with a PowerPC, and got many years of delightful service out of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_500_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_500_series I had a 5300 for a while and it was a piece of crap compared to the sturdy souped-up 540c. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_5300 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_5300 It had two big symmetrical removable battery compartments, so you could switch out one at a time and keep running on as many batteries as you have pre-charged without interruption! Plus there was an external dual battery charger. And you could swap a hard disk drive or CDROM into one of those bays. Plus it was fat enough that it was able to cool so it didn't overheat all the time like an MBP. Anorexic thinness isn't a thing for me: I'd trade a lot of thinness for huge removable batteries and great ventilation. https://web.archive.org/web/20060324140419/http://www.insanely-great.com/features/112900.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060324140419/http://www.insane...

spronkey 7y ago
I never really liked the 500 series - I preferred the 1400 (I know, weirdo). The Intel MacBooks have had their moments (glass trackpads, SD card readers, quad core in the 2011 15"), but almost all of them had design defects of some kind: * Original white and black MacBooks had sharp edges and cracking wrist rests * 2nd Gen MBP had 8600GT chip death issues * First Unibody MB/MBP had glossy screen not suitable for indoor lighting * First Polycarbonate Unibody had chassis cracking and rubber base warping issues (but was otherwise an excellent machine, too bad they didn't resolve those issues and keep selling it...) * 2011 15" will all eventually fail due to faulty GPUs * 2012 Retina MBs had underpowered GPUs * Retina MBPs had soldered RAM and proprietary SSDs (10.13's NVMe support for those older machines with a simple adaptor has made a complete mockery of anyone defending Apple's stupid proprietary pinout, too), glued batteries and display coating problems In saying that, the original aluminium unibody was a spectacular design. It felt so much more premium than any other machine of the time it was absurd. I personally think absolute peak Apple notebook was the 2012 MacBook Pro 15" with the Anti-Glare display. All the best things about the pre-retina Unibody design, but serviceable, with USB3, no known serious GPU or CPU flaws, and none of the retina issues such as staingate or glued battery. Had they made a Haswell revision of that to get the better battery life I'm reasonably convinced it would still be a seriously popular machine today.

lancesells 7y ago

Battery replacements are fairly cheap. I did that with my 2014 air and it's now good for another three or four years.

ddingus 7y ago

Was it not possible to replace the battery? I do not mean officially, just get one in there, unofficially.

daslicious 7y ago

I got my 2015 mpb battery replaced. I'm back to smooth sailing. Always plugged in so it'll last as long as possible. It had bad battery bloat but when I got it back from apple care everything looked new.

wyclif 7y ago
What does Apple recommend wrt keeping a MBP always plugged in? That's what I do almost all the time, but I'm curious what they say about it.
- spronkey 7y ago
  Battery will last its longest if it's reasonably frequently used. Ultimately if you want the longest battery longevity, keep it between 50% and 85% charged, and keep the machine cool.
  - wyclif 7y ago
    Right, obviously heat is an enemy of li-ion batteries. My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that if a MBP is plugged in the power bypasses the battery once it reaches 100% charge, correct?
    - vanilla_nut 7y ago
      That is my understanding as well. Most of my macbooks (I've owned 3) have been plugged in the majority of the time, with at least some time every few days spent on battery power unplugged. I'd say you're fine as long as you're using the battery at least once every 2-3 weeks -- longer than that might not be good for the battery over long periods of time.

kabdib 7y ago

Just walk away from the Mac. Windows is perfectly viable for doing development, so is Linux. You can easily get a laptop that is cheaper and more reliable than a Macbook. About the only thing you'll be missing is a cool Apple sticker, but you can get those on eBay. Your wallet will thank you, and so will your fingers. A Macbook was a reasonable, even logical choice in 2012. Now, not so much. Apple can have me back if they want -- hey, take my money! -- but they have to stop fucking up. I don't know why the Apple board isn't simply pounding the hell out of the management that's been allowing the poor quality and user-hostile decisions of the past several years. [Hmmm, I just looked at their board members. That would explain a lot...]

jordache 7y ago
the touchpad performance on the mac is second to none. Can modern windows or linux come even close?
- xenospn 7y ago
  No.
- nbevans 7y ago
  I tested them all (well, the main contenders) and even the flagship Surface Book trackpad is not comparable to a current MacBook. The Surface Book trackpad is like almost identical to a MacBook from around 2012-2013 era. Admittedly the current MacBook trackpad is too big - but is otherwise functionally perfect in terms of its multi-touch and haptic feedback.
- copperx 7y ago
  Absolutely not. The good thing is that any extended development session calls for an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse/trackpad. Also, you can use the external Apple trackpad they sell with any OS.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    > The good thing is that any extended development session calls for an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse/trackpad. For you. I do all my development on a 13" laptop.

mgkimsal 7y ago

Just spent $200 on new battery and install for my 2015 MBP. I wish I'd opted for the 1t model vs 512g drive, but was getting refurb and at the time they had no 1t left - wasn't sure they'd have any more (friend of mine snagged one a few weeks later!)

random_comment 7y ago
> I wish I'd opted for the 1t model vs 512g drive Hi there. You can buy a sintech adapter on amazon that will let you put a standard NVME SSD into a macbook air/retina 2013-2015 model (and maybe some others). It costs about $20. With that, you can choose some of the cheap, new, fast, 2TB disks and get a massive improvement in speed and storage capacity for relatively little money. Google around; there are some recommended drives. From what I've read the 'long' version of the sintech is the best one to buy. The upgrade process is on ifixit; it's super easy. You will also need a torx screwdriver; again you can buy a 'mac fixing kit' for $5-10 on amazon etc.
- mgkimsal 7y ago
  thanks!