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Comment by franze | Hacker News Reader

I'm writing this post form an late 2015 Mac Book Retina (not air, not pro). The mac book stands on a book, a small fan points to it's back so that I can write this. Without this the machine would get to hot, which results into a slower user interaction (think: write a letter, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, letter appears on the screen). On the left hand side a huge adapter (99EUR) is plugged in. It enables me to plug into an USB device and the charger. I do a lot of presentations. so basically the adapter is part of the machine. The color of the keyboard begins slowly to fade. Especially the "S" is now more grey than black. The Max Book is advertised to have a battery lifetime of 8 to 10 hours, I normally get up to 4, sometimes less.

It's garbage!

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Sounds like you simply bought a machine not powerful enough for your needs. I'm using a 2015 MacBook Pro. It's been pretty hot here for the last week (30-33c) and my performance has been good. The MacBook sits flat on a table and hasn't got hot once. Battery lasts about 8 hours for me. I'm typing all day (iOS dev) and none of my keys are fading. I have two USB ports which are in use and all I need. If the machine you're talking about is the new super thin MacBook you just made a bad purchase decision as that machine almost costs as much as mine.

My general rule of thumb for Macbooks: If you want to do anything other thank browse facebook and write word docs, and want the machine to last you for more than 3 years - get a Pro.

Vote with your wallet, if you can replace the Macbook experiment* with a Pro or some other computer, go for it. As it stands, Apple has no incentive to make it better since they have your money anyway unless enough users skip the product

* I'm convinced "the new Macbook" was born because someone lost a bet and had to answer "how bad can we make a computer and still make people buy it?"

My wife wants a Mac. She's a teacher and uses it mostly to write documents, watch movies, and read PDFs. Would an Air be good enough for her?

It sounds like an Air would be fine, but she might want to also consider a Chromebook.

Thanks, hadn't thought of that. She actually has a Nexus and isn't really tied into the Apple ecosystem so this might actually be a good idea

If she has favourite or familiar Android apps, the list of Chromebooks that can run them may be valuable: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chrome-os-systems-suppo...

(disclaimer: I used to work on chromebook software)

https://www.neverware.com

You could (both) try out ChromeOS on a Windows laptop before traipsing down to the shop to test keyboards. Needs an 8Gb USB stick that you can erase.

This is great. Thanks for sharing.

I'm downloading it right now and taking it out for a spin on my computer first. Never used ChromeOS before!

You can dd the bin file to a USB stick (bin file is 5Gb so 8Gb stick needed) and just run a 'live' session without installing. Watch out for the installer screens when you boot from the stick!!

I used the product for the same reason: to see what ChromeOS was like.

I second this. I'm writing this on a late 2011 MBP w/8GB RAM and an after-market 1TB SSD. I use it primarily for developing and testing data-driven applications (big data, medium data, small data). I occasionally run Windows and Linux VMs when my development work demands it. This "old" MBP is my primary machine.

I don't have any major performance issues to this date, at least not for my primary use of this machine. I typically run Netflix, Hulu, or some other media while I code, and I actually have more issues with Flash video running in the browser than anything else. This is generally tied to Spotlight reindexing. Killing the index and allowing the machine to rebuild it from scratch usually resolves my issue. But, I digress...

Take the time to understand how your work utilizes machine resources and buy the best machine to get the work done. It might not even be a MBP.

Why on Earth did you buy it knowing it only had one port if you do presentations often?

There is something wrong with your machine (or you are doing more than it is spec'd for). It is potentially still within the standard warranty period, so bring it back. If you have been experiencing these issues and have intentionally let it run past the warranty date, that's on you.

Sounds like you picked the wrong tool tbh

I'm not a fan of the 12 inch Macbook but you knew it only had one port and no active cooling when you bought it.

It's not like it suddenly lost a bunch of ports and throttling under load is not really unexpected either.

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