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Comment by pibefision | Hacker News Reader

No more butterfly keyboards please

Going from an old MBP to one of the new models is shocking. The display is a bit better, but the keyboard feel is not comfortable. It doesn't feel like a keyboard to spend hours in.

It takes a while to get used to, regardless of whether you end up liking it or not. I found it kinda odd to type on for at least a week–those who really can’t stand it just never get used to it.

Although I can't type on my brother's mbp, because the keys either don't work or are stuck, I also had to adjust when going from mb->mba->mbp

Eventually, that too becomes normal. I spent a couple of months going between the new MacBook Pro and the old one daily, and you get the feel for it eventually.

Same here, it took a while but it grew on me :)

My dream but it'll never happen. Is bring back the 2015 keyboard and add the touchbar above the fn/media keys, instead of replacing them.

Also add some sort of haptic feedback to the touchbar.

Starting with the 2018 models they added a membrane around all the keys that 1) significantly reduces ingress of random crap 2) makes the keyboard quieter.

Before I got my 2018 I had a 2015 MacBook Pro and don't find the keyboard to be inferior or superior to the old gen.

I just finished 3 days of meetings with peers and the note taker was on a brand new MBP. The noise from her keyboard was extremely distracting. I couldn't believe how loud it was. We switched her to a 2015 so we could think as we were discussing things.

I was in a Starbucks 3 seats away from someone on a 2016-2018 MBP last week. I hope it was one of the 2016/2017 non-membrane models, because it really was ridiculously loud and echoing through the store. I thought the complaints about noise from those keyboards was exaggerated until I had that experience.

Have you ever tried sitting in an office full of keyboard snobs?

Thankfully I don't have to, since I'm usually working from my home office or a favorite cafe. I do have a Model M keyboard here that I use sometimes, but not very often.

(However, I do sometimes work on flights after they've dimmed the cabin lights, and a laptop keyboard as loud as the MBP I heard in that Starbucks is a dealbreaker for that use case.)

That doesn't sound like it addresses the horrible typing feel and amount of typos due to poor feedback though.

> Starting with the 2018 models they added a membrane around all the keys that 1) significantly reduces ingress of random crap 2) makes the keyboard quieter.

It still has all the issues it had previously, just that some (not the key travel or separation issues) are mitigated. The keyboard remains extremely unreliable compared to the chicklet keys, or the magic keyboard's.

While the current model has better keyboard than 2015 it's still unreliable design prone to gather dust between keys and the new protector. In contrast with the previous gen it was harder to actually make keys jam and even then you could just snap keys off and use compressed air if needed to clean it up in like five minutes.

And we already have a few cases where the membrane didn't help and keys got stuck or repeating same keys again. i.e The membrane only reduce the risk, it didn't fix a design flaw.

They have a butterfly keyboard that's actually good, the one in the magic keyboard. All they need to do is use that one in the laptops and it would be great.

I will never buy a macbook again if they keep these stupid butterfly keyboards.

The keyboard grows on you (luckilly). I love USB-C and the killing of the ports though.

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