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You've made a great argument for a lighter laptop. Your 2017 laptop is a whopping 36% thinner than your 2015 laptop but only 11% lighter.

This modest difference in weight is mostly due to the reduced battery size that a more efficient chipset allows the newer laptop to have. The total weight of the 0.8mm thin ribbons of plastic and aluminium shaved off the plastic keys and edge of the aluminium case (the difference in key travel), is negligible compared to the weight of the laptop.

Apple could have made a laptop that was within 1% of the weight of your 2017 laptop, had a normal keyboard with good travel, and was just about 0.8mm thicker.

Pursuing thinness at some point even comes at the expense of higher weight, to maintain adequate rigidity.

I do feel the newest MBPs gave up too much for the sake of thinness already. (The keyboard is unpleasant to use, on top of being unreliable.)

I wish Apple would be so bold as to Think Different here and prioritize usability.

There’s the problem of feeling cheap however. If you make a laptop that’s thicker but lighter, you run the risk of having a laptop that feels weirdly light and cheap.

Also thickness does matter! If you’re gripping a laptop in one hand, a thinner body is easier to hold. And it’s just plain beautiful. It feels futuristic. Which, yes, is nonsense. But it’s also how you make a product that people want.

> If you’re gripping a laptop in one hand, a thinner body is easier to hold.

Is it though? If you're trying to hold six closed laptops in the same hand, thinner might be better, but when holding one laptop in one hand, it's weight not thickness that matters.

Has the product not been thin enough to easily hold one handed for years? We're talking about shaving millimeters off a 1.5 cm thick product. Not inches off something a foot thick

There's a difference between thin/light and holdability. My prior Asus[0] actually had a part sticking out the back (where the battery was attached) that provided an amazing grip. Flat macbooks, like my current Asus, I'm more afraid will slip out of my grip (or, held from the side, flex and damage something), especially pushing against it with the other hand while using the keyboard.

[0] https://www.asus.com/Laptops/U46E/

> a thinner body is easier to hold. And it’s just plain beautiful. It feels futuristic

IMO, a thinner body feels fragile. It feels like they've chosen aesthetics over durability to a detrimental extreme.

Thinner also means less room for cooling and a smaller battery. If I see a super-thin laptop, I'm going to assume it has low performance to compensate for inadequate cooling.

> But it’s also how you make a product that people want.

Is anybody asking for a thinner laptop? Or is Apple just creating a benchmark and advertising it?

This whole thing just re-affirms my belief that Apple isn't a tech company, they're a fashion company. They have absurdly inflated pricing and over-emphasis on aesthetics over performance.

> This whole thing just re-affirms my belief that Apple isn't a tech company, they're a fashion company. They have absurdly inflated pricing and over-emphasis on aesthetics over performance.

I don't disagree! If you don't understand fashion, you won't understand Apple. I'm always mystified at how people are seemingly disgusted at Apple's business model of selling products that look good. Well, yeah, people will want to buy products that look and feel good.

That's why people buy expensive clothes. They don't buy clothes for the features. They buy it because it looks and feels nice. You can certainly wear clothes that have more "features" like cargo shorts or pants that unzip to shorts. But don't be surprised when people eschew them for clothes that are objectively less practical but more beautiful.

It actually stuns me how other companies don't understand aesthetics at all. Windows laptops are shockingly ugly. Thinkpads are truly the cargo shorts of laptops. Sometimes they're slightly slimmer, slightly better cut cargo shorts, but they're still cargo shorts. Microsoft's laptops are probably the closest to beautiful, but they're still not that good. And when they're good, they're suspiciously close to Apple's products.

That being said, Apple's laptops aren't as bad for the money as you'd imagine. Try finding a cheaper laptop with a unibody construction that feels as durable, as well built as a Mac. Try finding a cheaper laptop where I can speak to an actual, physical person about getting it fixed. Try finding a cheaper laptop with as fast of an SSD^[1]. Try finding a cheaper laptop with as good of a touchpad. It's not as easy as you'd imagine.

[1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastes...

I would prefer the same size as 2015 with the same battery and much longer battery life from reduced power consumption.

It seems like Apple is spending the gains from better circuitry in the wrong way.

yes, weight matters much more than thinness, when it comes to portability and usability. my 15” 2008 macbook pro weighed 5 1/2 lbs and hurt my back and shoulders carrying it all day. the 2012/2015 was 4 1/2 lbs; better but not great. somewhere between 3-4 lbs seems to be where the threshold is for portability/usability.

with that said, these discussions on mbp keyboards and thinness always miss the reason apple strives for thinness in the first place: to drive the market in a direction where apple is always perceived to have the lead/the best products. thinner products are harder to design, harder to manufacture, and really lean on the supply chain and operational focus/excellence of apple. that gives them their enviable market position, and most of the industry’s profits, so that’s why they do it. it’s really that simple.

As a counterpoint, I was issued the maxed out 2018 model for work, and I do not like the design. I only used it on a laptop stand, plugged into big external monitors, and with an external keyboard and mouse.

Not having a tactile escape key is a poor decision, as is the choice to ditch the inverted-T cursor keys, just to make the keyboard look more symmetrical. Both seem like steps backwards in usability — both being harder to navigate by feel.

2018: http://cdn.iphonehacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/macboo...

Prior: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/9136/MBA_Keyboard_575px.jp...

Sounds like you have a setup that works for you. If you're not planning on using it on the move then why does the keyboard matter to you?

I carried it home with me every night, where I use my maxed out 2013 MacBook Pro without the displays or external keyboard.

While thinner, the maxed out 2018 15" model is 4.02 lbs, whereas the maxed out 2013 15" is 4.46 pounds. To me, there isn't much difference in 'heft' between the two.

The weird thing is that they could have added the touchbar and kept a full function key row and still have plenty of room for a good sized touchpad. The current Macbook's touchpad is arguably too large.

coming from the world of windows ultrabooks, it's sorta hard to imagine how a touchpad could be "too big". does the palm rejection suck, or is it just that you think the real estate could be used better for something else?

Coming from the world of tiling window managers on linux, I do not use a touchpad at all. On the Macbook I have to use it occasionally, but I still stay on the keyboard as much as possible.

So having to remap ESC to Capslock and often hitting the wrong arrow key is a much too big drawback to a bigger touchpad

As an example, both thumbs hovers the touchpad when my hands are on the keyboard. One of my thumb frequently taps and moves the cursor to another line all the while I am writing code. It's frustrating.

Imo, the touchpad on Macbook has always been its greatest strength and they managed to ruin it.

Totally agree. The loss of the arrow key space plus the no real escape key is the most pro-hostile (for coders at least) design decision. Although i guess could argue a keyboard that misses keys is worse but I haven’t had that problem.

Remap caps lock to Escape in the Keyboard settings. If you’re using vim keybindings, use HJKL for arrow keys.

I'm a hardcore vi user and even I miss-strike the arrow keys at times when I'm not using vi. Also, remapping caps lock to escape is great but for some reason I just can't get out of the habit of sending my pinkie or left ring finger up to the esc position. And for some reason, remapping caps-lock to esc has resulted in frequent esc-enter mis-type sequences, almost always when I've spent time writing long emails, thereby aborting the email with no draft to recover. Sheesh.

Good to know you're having trouble with the workarounds. I'm dreading get a newer MBP for this reason, but I mostly use a mech keyboard.

It's the opposite for me. With my personal mid-2015 MacBook Pro I love to sit down and type on it for hours, creating great software and documentation. With the newer MacBooks I try to avoid long typing sessions or I have to mess with dongles and keyboards for a good typing experience. On a train an external keyboard is not an option so the newer MacBook stays in my bag.

For portable use I'd rather throw a 12" MacBook in my bag.

Everything you describe is good but the problem is if these things come at the expense of one of the fundamental functions of the device then really it's a tradeoff that should ever have been made.

(Had to edit repeated keypresses when typing this post due to the butterfly keyboard I wrote it on)

I have a 2018 MacBook air and have never had the repeated keypresses issue, so I imagine they've probably fixed that in the newer keyboard designs. That said, I don't like typing on the keyboard. It feels awkward.

I have the 2018 MacBook Pro and I occasionally have the double typed keys issue. Though it doesn't seem to happen as often as what I've read about previous versions of the keyboard.

Honestly, I've never liked typing on any generation of Apple keyboard and much prefer the Thinkpad keyboard. In fact, that's the main thing I look for in a laptop these days, since most keyboards seem to be getting worse and worse (even the Lenovo keyboards are getting worse).

I also hate that Lenovo are trying to join the "everything should be thin" crowd, especially seeing what it has done to Apple's keyboards. If you want thin, the MacBook Air or the Lenovo X1 models are there for you. If you want a more complete experience for working on for longer periods of time, the Thinkpad TXXX and MacBook (Pro) used to be what you go for, but those are condensing to look like the ultra thin models that it's becoming increasingly hard to justify the separation.

Please Apple/Lenovo, leave the thicker models thick and focus efforts on the thinner models if you want to make something thinner. I just want a good keyboard on my laptop...

> so I imagine they've probably fixed that in the newer keyboard designs

It's not they're all in the replacement program and the mechanism condom they added to the 2018 still has holes dust can get through unfortunately.

I agree with your point, but I also agree with the parent comment.

Thinner != lighter.

It's totally legit to have a not-so-thin laptop that gets lighter every year, but preserves the most important ports.

Mmm... just 200gr of difference (over 2kg) doesn’t seem enough to me to go from “I can’t use it at all standing” to “I easily carry it open in one hand”. What I’m missing?

The musculature and size of the person holding it.

What kind of musculature and size is affected so much that goes from “impossible to use” to “perfect to use” for a difference of 10% (2 kg vs 1.8 kg)?

To be fair, their post finally made me realize that I'm outside of Apple's target demographic after all since I can do at least one pushup.

Does attacking the assumed physique of a commenter really add anything useful to the discussion?

You're just changing the goal posts of requirements. It is well known that ergonomic comfort is dependent on the actual person. Human strength in relation to weight is dependent on the square-cube law.

our rugged farming ancestors would be belly laughing at us complaining about the weight of a MacBook pro lol.

And in the opposite direction, our space-faring progeny of future physical and virtual galactic colonies squeal in delight by the notion of actually 'carrying' anything.

Not really. This is a common misconception. It is typical to go to the field with very little weight. Very light clothing, light (or often no) footwear. You typically will have a single tool for the job at hand (and whetstone where required). Maybe a woven basket with some lightweight sacks if you are collecting. Its hard enough work without carrying stuff.

Well of course they did; they were busting their butts all day. I doubt they would have been bothered much by a one pound difference in a laptop though.

People still farm this way. Carrying an extra pound absolutely makes a difference.

You can ask any athlete, or look up calorie expenditure charts for people carrying different weights if that more your thing.

>You can ask any athlete

I was a serious athlete for about fifteen years and still am casually. Of course it makes a difference; the question is how much. The answer is not much, especially when we're talking about relatively short distances (I don't think anyone commenting here is talking about carrying their laptop for a 30 mile hike), and I'd much prefer better battery life and the old keyboard.

Farmers don't move relatively short distances (I walk 5km just to cut half a hectare of grass) - and the movement is a lot more dynamic than simply moving from one place to another.

Im not saying a pound of weight is much, I'm saying that our "rugged farming ancestors" certainly wouldn't scoff at carrying a pound less weight.

I thin you missed the point... of course a farmer wouldn't want to carry additional weight. What they would scoff at is a software developer complaining about an extra pound when their most strenuous activity is walking from an Uber to the local cafe.

We're not farmers. If you are living under conditions like a farmer then yes, by all means, shed every pound you can. I don't imagine that the person who started this thread has to deal with those sort of conditions.

Actually, I am a farmer (and work with 'traditional' tools) - which is why i responded to the thread in the first place. Clearly we read differently into what was stated.

It seems I wasn't the only farmer to state this, as @lolsal said:

> When I'm walking my fields repairing my fences I absolutely wish my fencing tools were lighter, even if I'm using my truck or other vehicle to carry my tools. I don't think they'd belly laugh at someone who preferred more efficient tools.

When I'm walking my fields repairing my fences I absolutely wish my fencing tools were lighter, even if I'm using my truck or other vehicle to carry my tools. I don't think they'd belly laugh at someone who preferred more efficient tools.

Such small barriers to use suggest that the question of using your laptop or not was similar to an impulse control problem. Such as, whether or not to have another snack cracker. It's right there, so why not have another.

There used to be two options, for both use cases. Now they just turned Pro into Air.