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Comment by danielbln | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I thought the 2016-2019 keyboards were absolute ass, but they fixed it with from the M1 laptops onwards.

Actually, the keyboard mechanism that the M1 MacBook Pros got was from the 2019 16-inch Intel MacBook Pro (which was the first 16-inch MacBook Pro).

So the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro and the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pros got non-butterfly keyboards.

The early 2020 MacBook Air also had scissor switches. (Yeah, they released an overheating Intel model in 2020 just before the M1 Air came out.)

The 2016 to? keyboard was actually defective. (But Apple had a great silent warranty on it, which is what you really are paying for.) But I actually really liked the feel otherwise.

>(But Apple had a great silent warranty on it, which is what you really are paying for.)

After we fought very hard for it. Otherwise it cost you $300 or something just for keyboard replacement.

But yes the certain aspect of "feel" for butterfly was great. I really like its key stability. I often wonder if it wasn't so thin, had the typing distance of 1.3mm would reliability drastically increase and feels a lot better.

> After we fought very hard for it.

Interesting. I don't think there even was a 'keyboard replacement', because it was glued onto the mainboard. In any case, I just went into show them the sticky keyboard and got 50% of a new laptop back. Twice! Too bad you had to argue. (I think the defect wasn't just the keyboard but maybe the cooling or even the firmware.)

they improved over the butterfly keyboards of that era but the M1 and beyond keyboard are still significantly worse than before 2016. I recently used an older MacBook pro and the difference was quite staggering.

I dunno, I went from 2013 Pro to 2020 Air to 2024 Pro, I also use the previous Magic Keyboard (sans TouchID) and they all feel similar. The Magic Keyboard feels a lot like the 2024 Pro, the Air has less travel and has a sharper click and the old Pro has the most travel and is the mushiest. But they all feel like members of the same family, and are all very nice keyboards.

This is interesting. They all felt very different to me.

This actually reminded me a study 40% of people can't tell the difference between Coca Cola and Pepsi. And then some 30% can taste the difference but can't tell which is which, 10% can tell but don't have preference.

I guess I am in the extreme minority. You could blindfold me and I could tell you by typing which keyboard is which. And this is not to brag but I much rather I don't have these high standard. Life would be a lot happier.

Tbh the M1 keyboard seems better than my 2012 MBP (and well, better than that clusterfuck or 1st gen butterfly design, but that ain’t saying much anyway).

Maybe it’s age, but the older one feels mushy

To me 2011 has slightly more key travel than 2015, but 2015 and M1+ seem to have about same keytravel but M1 is a lot "crisper". M1+ keyboard seems to uniformly actuate wherever you press it, whereas the shallower keycaps of 2015 keyboard mean that it feels different when you push it from corner vs center.

And I have just realise the 2020 Air is actually on the new scissors rather than butterfly.

So practically speaking you went from old scissors to new scissors.

Really? Maybe it's a modern laptop thing but I also don't like the newer ones. There is almost no travel, it's so weird, and I broke TWO keyboards in a year after having the previous one for 5 years. I have to be super sensitive with them, whereas I could type with a brick with my pre-2020 thinkpads (which also weigh less than 3lbs...)

I used a 2015MBP for many years, now a new Apple silicon one. The 2015 feels really annoying to type on now, too squishy, requires more force than feels natural. The new keyboards feel terrific in comparison. I never had reliability issues, despite spilling a pretty large amount of water on it once.

Interesting. I mean, it's still way less force than any average mechanical keyboard?

Modern Apple Scissor keyboards have a 64gf tactile force [1], that's pretty much in regular tactile switch territory. The travel is very short though.

[1] https://www.rtings.com/keyboard/reviews/apple/magic-keyboard...

As a former Model M user (and many thinkpads), it's called 'touch typing' and you have to adjust. Nobody is selling a 'brick' laptop in current year.

the x1 carbon isn't a brick lol

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