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Comment by climb_stealth | Hacker News Reader

After using the latest Macbook Pro 13" for over a year I have recently had my 2015 Macbook Pro 13" repaired. Both are max specs. It was a $600 bill, but it has been so worth it. The keyboard just works, it doesn't run hot and the fan doesn't blast under the slightest load, the performance is much better, the battery lasts longer and the external screen + keyboard and mouse are detected every single time without having to re-plug the USB-C or open and close the computer lid. Also, no dongles required to connect USB-A or SD cards. Yes, it does look a bit clunky and not as elegant as the newer one, but seriously it actually just works.

I almost can't believe how much shit I put up with on a daily basis for over a year. If you replaced a dying 2015 Macbook Pro with a new one, I very much urge you to reconsider getting it fixed at pretty much any price. It is so very worth it.

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Ha-ha, reading this from the 2015 MPRO 13", exact same experience. I've tried to move to DELL XPS 13 2 years ago on Linux, did not work for me, however with a new line of Dell's I am starting to thinking about repeating this experiment.

Apple's 2016-2019 laptops were pretty unusable, hope they revert the touchbar too..

A question, has anybody tried System76 comparing to Dell/Apple?

Wow, this is a common theme. I have a 2015 13" macbook which wasn't max specced out and I feel like I'm hurting these days RAM wise and HardDrive wise. I bought a super specced out 2020 XPS 13 2 in 1 because of reservations about the latest macbook pro 13 and I kind of hate it.

I think this is personal taste, but I just don't love the build as much, the trackpad, and ubuntu is acting pretty flaky. The camera and wireless chipsets are not immediately working right.

There just doesn't seem to be a perfect solution.

I have both the 2020 2-in-1 XPS 13 (32GB, core I-10) and I love it because it's a beautiful 2-in-1, but yes, camera and fingerprint scanner don't work at all, but only in the 2-in-1 version -- works great in the laptop version, which seems to have a different camera. Wireless works great, though, as does the trackpad. (Kubuntu 19.10, not LTS -- LTS didn't work very well at all for me.)

I also have a lower-spec'ed 2020 XPS 13 laptop (8GB, core I-10) that works perfectly across the board (except for the fingerprint scanner, which I wouldn't use anyway.)

I love the hardware on both. Absolutely love it -- more than my Macbook Air; no sharp edge where I rest my wrists, touch screen, phenomenal screen (4k, which is higher than Retina, or 1080p, which gives better battery life) etc. The 2-in-1 has a taller screen shape, so you can fit more lines in your coding windows.

If you care about camera, get the laptop. It's also a little bit cheaper -- I got it for about $950 from Costco. The only thing I don't like about the laptop is that the screen doesn't tilt all the way back. The keyboard is better on the laptop instead of the 2-in-1 as well -- more depth of travel, and the Delete key is in the right place instead of offset by the fingerprint/power sensor as on the 2-in-1.

I love the new Dell XPS 13 and think both the 2-in-1 and the laptop are better pieces of hardware than the Macbook Air, and I prefer the new Kubuntu 19.04 over Mac OSX as well. (I don't have a MBP so can't compare to the Pro.)

I felt the same way as you about my 2015 13” so I reformatted the drive with apfs and did a fresh install of Mojave. Got a ton of storage back and it runs like a new machine. One of the best things I’ve ever done.

I think System76, Lenovo, or Tuxedo is a better choice than Dell XPS for Linux from a reliability standpoint. Additionally, if you plan to do full disk encryption, the XPS line has all sorts of issues. https://www.dell.com/community/Linux-Developer-Systems/XPS-1...

Adding Purism to this list.

Slightly more pricey, but worth it. Typing this on one.

Been wondering about those. Did you use their distro or install another one on it?

Still using PureOS, just so I know any problems are caused by me and not some strange hardware/software issue. It's a perfectly serviceable Debian-based distro, haven't had an issue with it so far.

Good to know, thank you.

Once they offer a 4-core 13" option it will be a lot more compelling.

Weird - I've got a newer Dell XPS and am making this post with WDE enabled and have had 0 problems. Anecdotal I know, but I've ran pretty much every major Linux distro (Ubuntu/Fedora/Manjaro) and am currently running Regolith linux.

I've not noticed any hiccups or problems at all around encryption.

I've run Linux on my xps 13 since 2015. Issues at first when the hardware was brand new and not supported in the latest Ubuntu kernel but excellent ever since. Fully intend to buy another if it ever dies, no worries about reliability here.

I gave up on Lenove when they sold the company, maybe that was a mistake. Dell seems to be one of the best companies considering quality and support.

On the other hand, I've never tried System76, and never heard of Tuxedo, thank you for mentioning!

Tuxedos aren't cheap, but the coolest thing about them is they have a way to preinstall Linux and setup full disk encryption with LUKS and you just set the encryption key when you first turn on the machine. Never seen anyone else offer that.

I use a MacBook and a fully loaded (with GPU) System76 laptop. I really like both, for different purposes. The System76 is much faster for large builds and is obviously much better for deep learning training. The MacBook is light and portable. I like having two laptops, at extremes of the weight/portability vs. computational power spectrum.

I had a 2014. It is a great laptop, no doubt but I recall before several patches I had issues w/ USB 2.0 port connectivity. I had the screen replaced once. So it wasn't without its own set of bugs. Working beautifully now.

My only beef is no NVME and it stutters a tad. If I could find a 2015 w/ 16gb/1 tb spec w/ NVME...

I'm hoping the glitches in the 16" can be worked out, eager to see how the 14.1 will look...

and I know Apple kremlinology is never the most accurate way to look at things, but boy were the Mansfield/Forstall years great...

I have the very first-gen Retina Macbook Pro 15-inch back in 2012. Still work almost perfectly to this date.

The only problem is battery degradation (70%) and in reality it lasts <2 hours. But since I use it at home as a desktop, not a problem at all!

Is yours the retina 2014? Those can take standard NVMe M.2s with this adapter: https://www.amazon.com/Sintech-Adapter-Upgrade-2013-2016-201...

I've done this on a '14 13" MBP so I can help if you have any questions.

I am thinking of going to Dell from an 2014 MBP, what did not work with Dell on your last experiment?

The latest XPSs look very nice.

I tried dual-booting an XPS15, which did not go well [0]. I understand the 13's are more Linux-compatible, but I got so badly annoyed by Dell Support I'm never buying Dell again.

[0] the drive management software didn't like GRUB, and would complain that there was no drive if GRUB was installed. Repeated reboots later, it would suddenly say "oh look, a hard drive!" and boot into Windows, removing GRUB in the process. Dell Support were worse than useless at diagnosing the problem, let alone fixing it (still unfixed, the machine is now a rather shitty games machine)

Typing this from Fedora 31 running on a dual-boot, 4-month old XPS 15 (LCD screen, not 4K OLED). The only configuration change that has to be made on a new XPS is switching the SATA mode to AHCI. Fedora signs the kernel correctly--you don't even have to disable secure boot.

Signing 3rd party kernel modules under secure boot isn't difficult, but documentation on it is sparse. So I've kept my notes for next time: https://lawler.io/scrivings/linux-cookbooks/

The Arch guys have a great compendium on the XPS and Linux: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_15_7590

I don't know if that changed recently. I gave up on it a year ago. I went through all this (though with Ubuntu not Fedora), switched modes, disabled secure boot, read every web page I could find. Nothing worked. I'm kinda tempted to see if I can get it working now, but honestly, also kinda traumatised by the whole experience and never want to touch it again.

I'm not familiar enough with Ubuntu's installer capabilities, but Fedora's has made huge advances in the past 5 years. I went in to the setup fearing the worst (that is, the struggle that was doing a secure boot, UEFI Windows 8 + Fedora 20 setup in 2014), but was shocked at how good Fedora 31's install routine was.

I shrank the 1TB SSD partition in Windows, disabled the proprietary fake-RAID, then booted Fedora's XFCE spin from a USB key. The installer handled everything else--no having to manually tinker with the UEFI partition. Post-install, the XPS's UEFI correctly booted to GRUB, which had successfully detected the Windows bootloader (again, no tinkering like with FC20) and can boot either OS.

Disabling hibernate in Windows and figuring out how to mount the encrypted Windows partition in Fedora was all that remained.

The Linux Kernel 5.5 has a bunch of improvements for the i7-9750H (and other Coffee Lake processors), which is another reason to consider giving Fedora 31 a spin. :)

I had this pleasant experience the same time I was trying to figure out how to dual-boot FC31 on a touch bar MacBook Pro. The short answer is: 80% of the MBP's hardware doesn't work in Linux. Broadcom won't release drivers that are compatible with Linux and blame FCC rules for their reason. Insane. https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

dammit, now I'm tempted to try again. Thanks, I think ;)

I suspect this would be due to mixing legacy and UEFI booting, where grub-legacy would interfere with whatever the disk management was doing and fixing it would involve removing grub.

For grub-uefi, it is just another file on a EFI system partition.

possibly. I couldn't get a clear answer from Dell on what their disk management system was doing, so it got really hard to work out what was going on and where the problem was. I tried everything I could think of and the internet could suggest.

oddly enough I have a system76 ibex pro and a 2015 macbook pro 13". I'm almost a year into switching over. (Everything except lightroom). The system76 is much bigger, clunkier and not as well built. But honestly its fine, the software is updated frequently and besides a couple of times where the keyboard didn't come back after sleep the systm76 has been a trooper (sleep awake cycle brought it back).

I enjoy this machine and would buy another.

I'm actually thinking of doing the same thing. Why didn't it work for you the first time around?

Meh, the camera was on the left bottom side of the screen. On every online meeting, I was looking like a parent talking to kids from the corner :D

Also, I had a windows edition which works pretty bad with linux. A friend of mine got a new Linux edition with fixed camera and I think perfect XPS is 15" 32Gb for linux. That's my alternative #1

Aren't all XPS 15 models nvidia-only? That would an extra roadblock on the way to just-works linux experence.

I'm still rocking my 2015 MBP as well, and having the luxury of working on newer models through various jobs, I'm still not convinced to upgrade 5 years later. That said, the new 16" MBP has been the best Apple laptop experience I've had in a while.

The 16" looks great! But I really don't want to lug it around every day. I'm hoping some of it will carry over to the smaller form factors.

I have had every single MacBook Pro update since the 2015 and had either been returned or sold off. It was simply crap. I cant believe they have been making that crap for 5 years. Although judging from the 7 years of Mac Pro I guess MacBook Pro already got a better treatment.

At the end I stuck to my MacBook Pro 2015. Perfect Size Trackpad with Zero false positive. Most people put up with a few false positive on the larger TrackPad. But I dont see any reason why this have to be this way. The keyboard felt way better, even the new Magic Keyboard on MBP 16 felt exactly the same as butterfly. Touch Bar is Junk, again it sometimes freeze. And some people put up with it thinking it is a non issue.

The old Apple and its users used to be perfectionist. Nowadays a lot of people settle for mediocre.

I just wish they make MacBook Pro Classic. Just throw in a new CPU will do.

I wish I got this advice! I just replaced my 2015 MBP 15" max spec with a Mid-2019 version and that touch bar is annoying the heck out of me. At least it has a physical escape key I guess (I keep hitting F1/brightness controls on the Bootcamp side of things for everything).

Fortunately so

Hah! I'm not sure what the situation is like for the current 15" MPB. The specs are quite different compared to the 13" one. It may not be as severe as my experience. I think I'd try to hold on to that 2015 model just in case.

Good luck!

You get used to it. But it's worse. But you get used to it. I would go back.

I'm in a similar position, bought a 2019 13" Pro. I've got to say, I'm really happy with my 2020 Thinkpad Carbon X1 and won't be looking to upgrade again for a long time.

Or maybe a thinkpad, depending on your budget. I normally use a maxed out macbook pro but I didn't want to bring a $5k machine on vacation. So, I bought a $600 dell laptop last summer. The wifi range/reception was dreadful. Sitting beside my wife on the couch in the hotel and she was on her $1000 macbook air getting perfect reception, me wishing I had spent the extra $400.

I'm not sure if it was the wifi chipset or the antenna design, and maybe some of the higher end Dells with better radio chipsets would perform better, but I returned the laptop to Dell and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy that was. At least they're doing something right. After that, I picked up a $700 ThinkPad T-series for travel and the reception is great on it.

I don't know specifically about your dell laptop, but Dell XPS's nowadays use the Killer wifi chip instead of Intel's like Apple and Lenovo.

Last year I upgraded my main development machine - a 2013 11" Air (yes, seriously) to a new-to-me maxx'd out 13" 2015 MBP. I do "heavyweight" local development - IntelliJ, Java, Typescript, React, Postgres, etc.

It's faster than my Air, mostly from going 8 -> 16GB of RAM, and the high-resolution screen is great. But it still feels pretty slow and IntelliJ can get sluggish at times. The MBP has a 3.1GHz i7 so at least on paper it doesn't seem materially slower from the current gen of processors. Maybe memory speed is the issue? 1867 MHz DDR3 vs 3733MHz LPDDR4X in the new Air?

I miss the 11" form factor, but I guess that's a lost cause.

The 2015 MBP bought me (cheap) a couple years while Apple sorts out their keyboard issues, but I'm already looking forward to a replacement. It's just ok.

I very much feel your pain about the form factor. Apple seems to be moving away from the smaller form factors which is a shame. I like the look of the new 16" MPB but there is no way I'm lugging that around everywhere. Hmpf.

You would benefit from a 4-core machine. Even the dual core current models are a good 20% faster than what you have now, but you'd be amazed at how much better the 4 core models feel.

So happy to hear this! I just dropped CAD~800 to have the logic board on my late-2014 MBP replaced. I figured "it still works, why spend 3k on a new one?" Plus the new ones with those stupid bar things (I have one for work I never open because I always use workstation).

I recently got a 2019 MBP for work (with the ESC key!!!), and I have to say that a lot of the things you are encountering with your 2013 I encounter quite a bit with this new one.

Overall, I found the speed of this model far exceeded my 2017 MBP from my last job, but it's kinda surprising how frequently the monitors / keyboard / mouse encounter connection issues.

That being said, I feel like I'm being a little picky, especially when I think of how nightmarish it was to get any of this shit to work with my Windows machines. It's the exception rather than the rule that anything would work the first time as expected (monitors / keyboards / mice / printers / programs).

> That being said, I feel like I'm being a little picky, especially when I think of how nightmarish it was to get any of this shit to work with my Windows machines.

It would be different if it had always been like this with Apple. The older models show that it used to work pretty much flawlessly. It is such a big step backwards and just because other manufacturers are crap at it doesn't make it okay. :)

I feel like I could live with the performance issues. But I'm doing a lot of switching between offices and having external screen/mouse/keyboard not working straight away is such a major pain. Even sometimes during the day after walking off with the laptop and coming back to the desk it doesn't work. It could be my specific setup but then Apple doesn't sell any official docking setups either AFAIK.

I'm still using my 2012 macbook pro and doubt I will buy Apple's new Impossible to repair™ "Gree[nd]™" machines when it finally dies.

If anyone's looking for a 13 inch 2015 mbp with one battery cycle count, let me know. :) Its a dual core 8GB though.

Will these new mac books support the older mac os which runs 32 bit Software? (Or does wine have a workaround)

For that price i buy a descent laptop.

Anything past 1995 can play Descent.

This. This right here. This is what matters. The only questions are: Joystick, joystick with keyboard, or keyboard with n-key rollover

Descent is my favorite game of all time. Are there any modern alternatives?

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