I just sold a 2011 13" MBP I got from an office clearance on eBay. Despite being 7 years old, I got the equivalent of a couple of Chromebooks for it, with the new owner extremely eager to get their hands on it. I upped the disk to an SSD before I sold it and installed High Sierra, and it ran great.
From the same clearance, I got myself a 2014 Retina. Can't deny, the screen is gorgeous, the trackpad is great and the keyboard is very usable. It was already maxxed out with RAM, but despite having an upgradeable SSD, my upgrade options are limited because Apple use a proprietary form factor. I absolutely loved my old Discrete MBP, which I used daily for 5 years and took around the world with me, but I hold the Retina at arm's length. My other laptop is a custom-built gaming machine where I can push the RAM up to 64GB if I want to, as well as fitting SATA and NVMe SSDs. The lack of upgradeability is a real limit to the range.
We also have XPS 13's, which despite copying Apple on soldering in the RAM, have standard m.2 SSDs. I got an enclosure to drop the disks into if necessary.
As best I can tell with everything in Apple's current lineup, if it breaks or is outclassed, even within months of its release, you just throw it away and buy a new one.
I can't help but remember Tim Cook commenting how he noticed Windows users switching to Mac were coming from hardware that was 5 or more years old. His comment was how 'sad' this was. This was startling because it shows how long non-Apple hardware lasts, and how fundamentally Apple does not understand this. They would much rather you renewed your computer as often as you renewed your iPhone.
Not sure if this is your issue, but (at least) the new MBP has two levels of "clicking" on the touch pad. If you just press with a little force, so that no tangible "click" occurs, you get one behavior. If you push hard enough to feel a "click", you get different behavior.
Mentioning this because it drove me a little nuts until I figured it out.
Alternatively we may try to get another mid-2012 MBP, as having a Mac around is good when I have to build and test macOS and iOS ports of my software. I can't see us buying any newer MBP, it doesn't make any sense economically.
Out of curiosity, does your gf actually need a unix based OS? If she uses Photoshop daily and otherwise doesn't do any work that benefits from Linux - why not just use Windows?
Also, if I can avoid having Windows running on our home network that's a bonus point for me ;)
Basically, for a consumer (non-business, non-gamer) who just needs a laptop that works, running software they are familiar with, I don't see a reason to avoid new Macs.
I understand that the anti-consumer builds are annoying. But, for a non-tech-geek who will likely never upgrade internals, what does it matter?
I don't see how upgradability is a geek-only matter. Sure, most people don't do it themselves - they go to the service point and have the replacement done for them. They absolutely do upgrade though - sometimes you get to the point where everything is sluggish, and money don't grow on trees. Plus of course there's a whole environmental impact to consider.
It's actually geeks that have to have the latest and greatest, from what I can see. Most people I know don't replace their phones until it's broken, while Apple geeks always sell their iPhones whenever a new one comes out.
Hilarious since it is a giant chunk of aluminium, more than eight times the size of a typical 35W NUC-type machine, and has a fan.
Unfortunately, there’s no such thing
And by fully support do the mean clone stamp overlays, smooth zoom, basically anything that requires graphic acceleration?
Which of these events do you think is more likely for the typical user?
This is actually why the fragile keyboard on the latest MacBook Pros is such a problem. It compromises durability in a part of the laptop that is actually very important.
Give me maintainable laptops, not throwaway ones, for the love of...
I spilled soda pop on my 2008 Macbook's keyboard and fried it. Fortunately, the computer still worked (I ended up carrying a USB keyboard in my bag as I was consulting on site, which was awkward, but at least I could do that without being stuck without a computer for a few days). I ordered a second hand replacement from OWC, and after watching a video, I had the keyboard replaced in less than an hour.
On a laptop I don't really think so. An extended warranty runs about 3 years and most Macs I've had have lasted about 5. At that point I would just rather get a new computer anyway than bother sprucing up an old one.
I did have one computer fry in about 3 years because of a logic board issue, which pissed me off royally. But in the grand scheme of things, the money I would have saved by having a user replaceable GPU vs. just upgrading the thing 2 years before I was ready to doesn't amount to very much. If I was very money constrained it would definitely be more of an issue, but that's never really been Apple's target market.
That depends on whether you got a laptop with a real processor or a low power processor. A 2011 15" MBP with a quad core i7 holds up pretty well even today in terms of CPU performance.
Isn’t the point here that it’s no longer so good to replace a 5-year-old Mac?
My MacBook Air is about 5 years old now, and yes, the USB ports and some keys on the keyboard are becoming unreliable, and the power cable has frayed despite a protector, but none of the current models are tempting enough to make me want to upgrade the way I used to.
There's a comic and I can't find it right now where a person is lamenting the fact that they have no backups while their computer is not booting.
Then the computer works and they exclaim that "thank god I don't need to do any of that", it's funny because it's quite relatable to a lot of people.
That's like saying that you're not sure consumers dislike the idea of falling victims to price gauging schemes or even being forced to scrap perfectly good hardware due to a minor issue with an otherwise perfectly modular component or the inability to upgrade low-performing hardware.
Anecdotally I'm aware of more than a few folks who replaced their bottom end PC/Windows laptop with a brand new machine because it was supplied with far too little memory, but hit a £399 or £499 price point, and they installed one too many bits of crap. So they spend another £499 on another too lightly specced laptop when £40 doubling memory would have fixed all their issues. PC makers have always been happy to sell machines with barely enough RAM to reach the desktop let alone run or install anything.
A lot of consumers don't know what they're buying, how much memory Windows needs, how to upgrade even when possible, or how to uninstall things they no longer need (eg iTunes after they switched to Android, Massive HP drivers remaining when now running an Epson printer and vice versa). Helpful in-store sales people don't help with this.
Most of us on HN however would prefer to buy the least standard memory/SSD possible and immediately bump it at Crucial or some such for a quarter of Dell, Lenovo or Apple's price.
Make a thin MacBook, sure. Then make a proper MacBook pro and make it about the hardware and not beauty. I believe there is actually a market for it.
As for storage, I'd be crazy not to keep all important files on a backed-up RAID array. It's a professional tool, after all.
(and I keep my music on an off-site-backed-up RAID array)
"Apple REFUSED to fix our iMac pro" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-NU7yOSElE
"The Apple Store Genius Bar broke my $5000 iMac pro" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG_NRcy5mxU
I side with Apple in the Linux Tech Tips issue, though. They're under no obligation to fix it after he broke it by intentionally violating the terms and conditions.
I really like the mil-spec ruggedized laptops. I look down a row of those, and it really strikes me how they're all the same size, they're covered in ports (behind little gasket-protected doors), and they are so unapologetic about size and weight that they have sturdy carry handles attached.
So what I really want most is a standardized form factor. Then my concern is for the closely related concepts of power, cooling, and heat dissipation. My Third choice would be 1920x1080 display resolution or better. After that, battery life. If you're designing your laptop to be too thin and light to accommodate a standard TRS audio mini-jack, you're not designing for me.
The other thing lappie makers are doing is touch screens, which are just awkward on a laptop, and usually unusable in a docking station anyway. Never mind about turning the function key row into a touchscreen.
I care about weight. A lot. Because I travel.
People on HN like to say a particular laptop is "light enough." Sure, if that's all your carrying. But if you have a bag or briefcase full of other things like documents, every ounce counts.
Even classified documents can be shipped. There's really no reason I can imagine for anyone to be hand-carrying paper documents in the passenger compartment of an airplane in 2018, outside of a diplomatic pouch. And in that case, the laptop probably has to be disposable anyway.
Um, some of us still use (gasp) paper notebooks and pens. Imagine that! (I'll stop using them when you give me something with comparable power consumption and handwriting latency).
Besides that, in my bag you'll find a Fuji X100 camera, a Polaroid Snap, a (yes, paper) passport, a wallet, a couple of chargers, a cell phone, some pens, allergy pills, etc.
All of that has weight.
As for shipping - one point of bringing something on a plane is that you can use it on the plane.
Anyway, the point is - weight matters. There are things other than the laptop that a lot of people carry when traveling - be it personal or business travel.
1. Things like the new MBP keyboard are objectively worse than the old keyboard in terms of user experience. This might have saved half a millimeter in height of a closed laptop. What's more, repair costs are _insane_. Even after a year of using this I still prefer the old keyboard.
2. They've added features that serve little more purpose than raising the ASP of MBPs. Top of that list is the touch bar. I consider the 2011-14 Macbook Air to be the pinnacle of Macbook hardware. Decent ports, good form factor, decent CPU (by comparison the 12" Macbook IMHO makes too much sacrifices to the altar of thinness) and, best of all, a great price. The fact that you could buy such a great machine for <$1500 was amazing to the point that I didn't really care what happened to it. I'd just buy another one if it died or I lost it. That made me more comfortable buying it and using it wherever.
The problem is that consumers won't see the downside of this until they've been around long enough to start failing outside of warranty and then outside of AppleCare. At that point paying $500+ (or whatever it is; I don't know the specific number) just to repair a keyboard is going to be pretty hard to swallow.
When I bought my 2011MBP, I slowly upgraded the parts as prices came down.
My advice to people buying Mac laptops today is to max everything out if you can afford to, because you're generally going to be stuck with the RAM and storage for as long as you keep the computer. (Yes, I know you can upgrade the SSDs, but it's a little more complicated than running to your local computer store to buy commodity parts).
Right now, I'm holding onto my 2015 13" MBP with both hands (also maxed it on the same principle) until Apple releases a halfway decent MBP again. I use a 2016 15" for work, and still can't type well on the damned thing after having it for a year and a half.
Fun fact: the MBA apple symbol light shows a noticeable light ring on the display after this amount of time.
I am amazed that sales staff still want MacBooks, but I put it down to the brushed metal finish.
The last piece of Apple hardware I bought was a new mid-2012 Macbook Pro. After seeing where Apple was going in 2013 / 2014, I have had zero desire to replace it. I upgraded everything in it, and replaced the optical drive with another SSD. I'll be sad the day that thing finally dies. I'm not sure if I'll go with another Apple machine or XPS with linux. I really don't want it to die lol.
Not sure what the hell is wrong at Apple. My work machine is the 2017 MB Pro and its awful, I hate it.