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What I find a bit wild is that the author was using a laptop newer than my late 2013 MacBook Pro, and said everything was sluggish. My maxed 2013 pro is still

What I find a bit wild is that the author was using a laptop newer than my late 2013 MacBook Pro, and said everything was sluggish. My maxed 2013 pro is still super fast, but it seems like all the USB-C MacBooks that came afterwards sacrificed performance for.. what, thickness?

lmedinas 6y ago
i guess it depends on what you call slow and what you get used to it. I have an iMac 27" 2012 and i barely can do anything with it.
LockAndLol 6y ago
I had a laptop running Linux from 2013 too and it was always snappy. The only reason I switched was because of how noisy the fans are. Work also gave me a 2015 Mac and now Linux is running on it. It's pretty fine and far from sluggish. No idea what the author is doing to have problems.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  They had a 2015 12" MacBook (the one with no fan). This was essentially an Atom; they very much sacrificed speed for slowness. A contemporary Air would have been much faster.
ogre_codes 6y ago
The 12" MacBook was a largely failed experiment at going finless. A cute concept, but pretty slow out the gate, let alone after 5 years.
buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
I have learned to stop trusting people who say their old computer is “super fast”. No, your computer from 2013 isn’t super fast. You’ve gotten used to the slowness.
- wasdfff 6y ago
  I think there is something to be said about snappiness during basic tasks like web browsing. I had a 2012 macbook pro that had an ssd and memory upgrades, and functionally tooling around Mojave felt no different than a new computer; just as snappy and performant. You don’t always hit a point of strain with your device just doing basic tasks. Now if that 2012 macbook of mine connected to a zoom call on the other hand, then the computer would overheat to the point where the battery would swell and disable the keyboard until it cooled down.
- Klonoar 6y ago
  What? I daily a 2015 MBP. I own other newer hardware as well (dev kit; Linux box; wife has a modern MacBook I’ve used extensively). It’s not slow. I just don’t run any Chrome junk at all. I still hit 8 hours of battery life and never experience slowdowns - even with Xcode running 24/7. If you avoid modern bloat, we’ve had fast computers for quite some time. I’m sure the M1 is still another league, and I’ll likely buy one just to come forward a few years, but otherwise any Mac from the past 5-7 years is still very, very usable IME. Short of that keyboard issue, that is.
- tekstar 6y ago
  Nah. I mean, part of it is that I don't work at a big company that requires I transpile 100k LOC every time I want to see my work on screen any more while attending to 100 slack channels at the same time, but I'm typically running Goland, VSCode, Safari (what I use personally), and Firefox (better for testing my web code) at the same time and it's snappy. Maybe 2-second compile typescript or go compile times, no noticeable slowdowns switching apps etc. My laptop: MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) 2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 From what I understand, USB-C Macbooks that came after this magsafe generation had to CPU throttle earlier to deal with thermal issues, so despite better specs they couldn't get pushed without overheating. As well as heat/throttle issues if you try to charge it from the wrong USB-C port.
honzajavorek 6y ago
Hi, I'm the author. My old machine is Macbook 12". Not Macbook Air, neither Macbook Pro. It's the small, portable Macbook 12" with low performance, low memory, and no fan. In other words, the machine was kind of underpowered already when released, for the trade-off of getting excellent portability and silence.
Technically 6y ago
The screens are nicer, too. Honestly that's the only improvement I've really noticed and appreciated. They keyboard is noticeably far less usable (for me), I don't use Touch ID, and I would much prefer MagSafe, usb-a, and hdmi ports over usb-c. At least until I can throw out all these dongles and use usb-c directly with my iPhone.

lmedinas 6y ago

i guess it depends on what you call slow and what you get used to it. I have an iMac 27" 2012 and i barely can do anything with it.

LockAndLol 6y ago

I had a laptop running Linux from 2013 too and it was always snappy. The only reason I switched was because of how noisy the fans are. Work also gave me a 2015 Mac and now Linux is running on it. It's pretty fine and far from sluggish. No idea what the author is doing to have problems.

rsynnott 6y ago
They had a 2015 12" MacBook (the one with no fan). This was essentially an Atom; they very much sacrificed speed for slowness. A contemporary Air would have been much faster.

ogre_codes 6y ago

The 12" MacBook was a largely failed experiment at going finless. A cute concept, but pretty slow out the gate, let alone after 5 years.

buzzerbetrayed 6y ago

I have learned to stop trusting people who say their old computer is “super fast”. No, your computer from 2013 isn’t super fast. You’ve gotten used to the slowness.

wasdfff 6y ago
I think there is something to be said about snappiness during basic tasks like web browsing. I had a 2012 macbook pro that had an ssd and memory upgrades, and functionally tooling around Mojave felt no different than a new computer; just as snappy and performant. You don’t always hit a point of strain with your device just doing basic tasks. Now if that 2012 macbook of mine connected to a zoom call on the other hand, then the computer would overheat to the point where the battery would swell and disable the keyboard until it cooled down.
Klonoar 6y ago
What? I daily a 2015 MBP. I own other newer hardware as well (dev kit; Linux box; wife has a modern MacBook I’ve used extensively). It’s not slow. I just don’t run any Chrome junk at all. I still hit 8 hours of battery life and never experience slowdowns - even with Xcode running 24/7. If you avoid modern bloat, we’ve had fast computers for quite some time. I’m sure the M1 is still another league, and I’ll likely buy one just to come forward a few years, but otherwise any Mac from the past 5-7 years is still very, very usable IME. Short of that keyboard issue, that is.
tekstar 6y ago
Nah. I mean, part of it is that I don't work at a big company that requires I transpile 100k LOC every time I want to see my work on screen any more while attending to 100 slack channels at the same time, but I'm typically running Goland, VSCode, Safari (what I use personally), and Firefox (better for testing my web code) at the same time and it's snappy. Maybe 2-second compile typescript or go compile times, no noticeable slowdowns switching apps etc. My laptop: MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) 2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 From what I understand, USB-C Macbooks that came after this magsafe generation had to CPU throttle earlier to deal with thermal issues, so despite better specs they couldn't get pushed without overheating. As well as heat/throttle issues if you try to charge it from the wrong USB-C port.

honzajavorek 6y ago

Hi, I'm the author. My old machine is Macbook 12". Not Macbook Air, neither Macbook Pro. It's the small, portable Macbook 12" with low performance, low memory, and no fan. In other words, the machine was kind of underpowered already when released, for the trade-off of getting excellent portability and silence.

Technically 6y ago

The screens are nicer, too. Honestly that's the only improvement I've really noticed and appreciated. They keyboard is noticeably far less usable (for me), I don't use Touch ID, and I would much prefer MagSafe, usb-a, and hdmi ports over usb-c. At least until I can throw out all these dongles and use usb-c directly with my iPhone.