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Comment by tkfu | Hacker News Reader

Interesting; I have basically the exact opposite experience. I had a T460P (running Linux) that I loved as my work computer, and then my company got acquired and I had to choose between a gigantic brick of a Dell or a Macbook, so I decided to try a mac for a while. I absolutely hate it: the keyboard needs to be blown out with compressed air all the damn time, plugging in external monitors is a total crapshoot, the touch bar thing just sucks, having only USB-C ports is a pain, and every fuse filesystem is insanely slow.

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The 2015 macbooks and earlier were great. The switch to USB-C/removal of thunderbolt AND hdmi has made using the newer macs a real pain. The older macs had much better keyboards (and better placement of the touchpad). The only nice thing about the touchbars is that they have a fingerprint reader.

Actually they replaced Thunderbolt 2 with Thunderbolt 3, and it's better.

Do you actually have any equipment that comes with Thunderbolt3/USB-C cables? My office currently buys new hires at least one dongle plus an hdmi cord because our monitors don't come with a USB-C cable (if yours do, please let me know what you're purchasing). Wireless mice and keyboards that use the USBs need dongles. If you go into a random conference room (at work, at clients etc), many places will have hdmi cords which you used to just be able to plug in. Instead of having a laptop that "just works" it's now a pain to ensure that new hires have all the equipment they need.

I'm probably a bad example because my setup is hilariously kludged together.

I use two circa 2007 30" Cinema Displays, so from the laptop it goes Thunderbolt 3 > Thunderbolt 3 Hub > Thunderbolt 3 to dual DisplayPort > 2x DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort > 2x Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI > Displays.

The upside is that my MacBook is connected to all that with a single cable that includes power. For peripherals I use bluetooth. When I travel I just carry that Apple HDMI/USB/power breakout dongle and it covers every situation I've found myself in so far.

The fingerprint reader doesn't work most of the time. Either it doesn't appear at all, or it's completely unresponsive.

Yes, it doesn't work most of the time. Thats still higher than Lenovo fingerprint readers which never work.

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