
Ask HN: Should I wait to get a new MacBook Pro? - _bxg1
My late 2013 MBP is aging, and I&#x27;ve been considering an upgrade. Rumors initially slated a major redesign of the lineup for 2020, but I&#x27;ve started to hear that it may be pushed back to 2021.<p>Unlike others here, I&#x27;m not particularly offended by the touch bar or the current keyboard design. The keyboard reliability is definitely an issue, but given how readily they&#x27;re repairing them, a failure would probably end up being an annoyance rather than a catastrophe. That said, there would undoubtedly still be things to look forward to in a major redesign.<p>Would you personally hold out for the unknown, upcoming redesign, or just go for it now?
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mstaoru
My personal anecdote. So my trusty rMBP turned 5 years old on June 15. Happy
Birthday. As I'm a solo developer for a number of companies, I decided it's a
good time to get a spare "just in case".

I am "particularly offended" by the touch bar, because the way I type my
fingers rest closer to the top, and on my mate's X1 3rd Gen I always turn
sound on and off... :-) So touch bar = no go.

I got an 4k touchscreen Dell XPS 15 9570 from an OEM channel (no CPU, GPU,
HDD, RAM, battery), put in a real 6-core i7-8750h, 32G DDR4-3200, mobile
1050Ti, 2T Intel's T660 SSD, and a 94Wh battery. Switched Wifi to the new
Intel AX200. Repasted with Kryonaut paste, added some 3M heat pads. All in all
cost me ~$1800.

A week ago my MBP finally stopped working, main board failure. Over the course
of 5 years I changed screen twice (first the horrible staingate, then water
damage), battery twice (first one popped within 1.5 years), repasted, and
changed the little charging board. It's time for it to retire.

Migrating to Windows 10 turned out to be much less pain than I expected. A few
tweaks for the horrible font rendering, install GlassWire (like Little
Snitch), Wox (like Spotlight), Seer (preview on Space bar), Chocolatey (like
Homebrew), ThrottleStop (easy performance boost), SpeedFan (for fan control),
and it feels pretty much like a Macbook. I'm pretty amazed on how easy it was
to just swap parts inside - unscrew the lid, pop out the old one, insert the
new one. Keyboard is great. Touchpad is okay, though I miss that three-finger
dragging.

~~~
mstaoru
For the folks asking about font tweaks, two main tweaks that helped me
tolerate Windows font rendering:

1\. Used Winaero Tweaker to change all the system fonts to Source Sans Pro
Medium / Bold.

2\. Used Stylus in Brave (Chrome fork) to add a global stylesheet with: body {
-webkit-text-stroke: 0.3px; } - this makes web browsing very close to Mac
experience.

------
makz
It’s easy. It’s just a tool. If you need it now, go get it. If you don’t need
it now, don’t get it. Don’t overthink it.

~~~
_bxg1
Well the other thing is this is a personal machine. I do programming work on
it, but not as a job. I also have a perfectly capable desktop. I just enjoy
the portability, and also MacOS. And as another commenter said, "It'd be nice,
but I can do with the old one I have". Although it's getting to a point where
I'm not sure how much longer I can "do with the old one I have". I basically
never do anything serious on it anymore because it's too painful.

~~~
makz
Then maybe just get an air instead of a pro?

~~~
_bxg1
It's not that I won't use the power; it's just that my income isn't being
hampered by not having it for a while longer.

~~~
makz
Then it’s clear: wait for the new model.

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no1youknowz
I have an ageing MBPr 2012. I have been to the Apple store and tried every
iteration from 2016 and up.

I won't upgrade. With mojave, I have noticed a slower machine with my dev
workload than with El Capitan. Despite this, I'm happy and can report no
problems at all.

The touchbar is completely useless. I don't like it. I am hoping that they see
some sanity and offer models with and without. But I doubt it.

The over sized touch pad is ludicrous as well. My palms were always resting on
it. I couldn't imagine using this 2016 to 2019 model. I hope the 16" comes
back to the 2012-2015 sized touchpad.

If anything Apple should have retained the original F1 function keys and then
offered the touchbar between the keyboard and the smaller touch pad.

Finally, it's not just the keyboard, they are loud and do not travel well. How
is the thermal throttling? They say it's fixed. But in the UK it's summer now
and it just throttles by existing!

Also don't forget stage light, is it fixed in the 2019 models?

It's all these things that make me wish they go back to the 2012-2015 sanity
and make another really good machine.

To be honest with you. I'm going to hold off on the upgrade and I'm waiting
until the 16" comes out. But ultimately, I want to see an ARM capable MBP. One
that doesn't throttle. That would be really nice!

~~~
willio58
I’ve never seen someone complain about the touch pad. I like it, makes my
older MacBook Pro’a touchpad feel so restricting.

~~~
x3haloed
Indeed. Palm rejection is perfect. No need to worry or complain about the size
of the touchpad. I know I would never go back.

------
gumby
First: if you can afford to upgrade, just do so: you've already mentioned on
another thread that your current machine is failing. If you don't like your
choice you can return it to Apple no questions asked within two weeks.

FWIW: I've done a lot of C++ development on first a MacBook retina (2016),
then a 15" MBP (2018) and now a 2018 MacBook Air. Because my work is in C++
the Touch Bar doesn't affect me (never used F keys) though it was too
sensitive so I completely disabled it on the MBP and mapped escape to caps
lock.

I am perfectly happy with the butterfly keyboard, though the first one (on the
MBr) did fail twice and would have been replaced yet again if the machine had
not been destroyed in an accident.

But the MBP keyboard didn't fail _for me_. What failed was that the machine
was simply too heavy (which is a hilarious statement when I pick up an old 17"
like I used to carry around) after I'd gotten used to something tiny. The Air
was a good compromise. I rarely rebuild the entire system, so compile speed
was not a huge difference in practice compared to the MBP.

Good luck

------
erfany
I actually had to make the exact same jump a couple months ago. My 2013 MBP
wasn't really slowing me down but I was giving it away to my family instead. I
had a lot of hesitation when it came to touch bar but the that was way too
much easier to get used to than what I thought.

The keyboard I'd say is a lot better than the 2018 versions. I've used a
friends 2018 MBP where I had issue with repetitive keystrokes or no keystrokes
at all, it's been two months I'm using mine and haven't had a single issue
yet.

I think if you need it now you should go for it. There are always gonna be
changes, updates, redesigns just like how it has been since 2013. If you're in
need it of the tool now it's less like that the next update will have a
meaningful impact on your work that's worth to wait.

------
moksly
I recently sold my MacBook Pro 13” late 2018 edition. I got tired of the
touch-bar, the keyboard and frankly OS/X (finder, docker, running local
servers, outdated unix cli, iCloud and a range of other annoyances).

I replaced it with a Surface Pro 6 i5 edition and setup my development
environment in WSL. This is the first device I’ve genuinely loved since my
iBook G4 and it honestly feels like something Apple should have build.

I don’t actually like Windows 10 that much, but it works as well as OS/X for
daily usage and WSL is just so amazingly good for isolating your dev
environment in actual Linux.

It’s also cheaper than a MacBook, will work as a tablet and is great for
taking hand written notes.

Worth considering, at least while you wait for the next MacBook keyboard.

~~~
_bxg1
I currently end up doing most things on my Windows desktop. Developing on
Windows is... not terrible, but not great. I don't do a lot of funky Linux-y
stuff so I don't have much use for isolating my dev environment. It also
doesn't sound like the things that annoyed you about your MacBook are things
that annoy me.

I also just really want a real laptop. I've heard good things about the
Surface, in general, but a) I have virtually zero use for a tablet, and b) I
like to put my laptop in my actual lap sometimes, which tablets-with-keyboards
don't do a great job at. I've considered the XPS 13, but I know the trackpad
won't be as good and of course it's Windows.

~~~
moksly
I use my surface on my lap quite a lot, and it works fine, a lot less wobbly
and no heat on thighs (or calves, not sure what your upper legs is called in
English). It can’t be used on stomach in bed though, like at all. So there are
certainly limitations a laptop doesn’t have.

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sfifs
Your comments below indicate you're doing personal (hobby? Learning and
experimentation?) programming on your MBP.

In this case I would suggest buying a modern Linux laptop with some kind of
Nvidia GPU from Dell or ThinkPad which gives you the flexibility of a true
Linux environment (Linux dominates servers) and an ML environment to learn on
the same machine. You could get a lot beefier processor, a lot more RAM and a
true GPU for a comparable price that gives you more experimentation options.

------
ishjoh
It seems like Apple likes to announce things in spring or fall (March,
September, October) if you check out their events page:
[https://www.apple.com/apple-events/](https://www.apple.com/apple-events/)

You can see historical events roughly line up with that. If you're not in too
much of a rush I would be tempted to wait until November to see what is
annouced.

~~~
_bxg1
Yeah; I think that's what originally had people saying 2020 would be the major
redesign. It's apparently a 4-year cycle. But just today I read that they were
possibly delaying it another year.

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TimTheTinker
Why do you want to upgrade?

Absent any specifics, the baseline reason to upgrade is for security updates
and compatibility with software you use. If you have that already, I don't see
any reason to upgrade. A 2013 MBP is compatible with Mojave and is still
receiving security updates.

~~~
_bxg1
It's slow. I kind of suspect the graphics chip may be dying; raw compute tasks
like compiling code are usable enough (not great, but usable), but browsing
the web is just egregiously sluggish, especially when there are images on a
page.

~~~
jseliger
Then you've answered your own question. If cost is an issue, get the n-1
model, or a refurbished model.

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duxup
Don't discount the upfront benefit you get from upgrading.

Maybe there is a new model coming but if you're using your MBP a lot, don't
punish yourself by penny pinching and sitting on a bad experience for a long
time.

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pinewurst
There's supposedly a 16" coming in the early fall, but rumors are just that.
That's the only notable thing I'd consider waiting for.

~~~
_bxg1
Rumors say the keyboard will be redesigned, and the screen bezel may be
thinner, giving you more screen-size-per-device-size. Also, while I don't
loathe the touch bar, I wouldn't be opposed to them reversing course on it.

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automathematics
No. The keyboard isn't great and the touchbar is worthless for anyone who is
reading HN.

Consider getting a Dell XPS, a System76 or a Google Pixelbook for your
development unless you're specifically making iOS or macOS stuff.

~~~
_bxg1
> the touchbar is worthless for anyone who is reading HN

That seems unfair. I've never really had use for function keys, and while I do
enjoy the physical volume and brightness keys, the touch bar can certainly be
put to use by power users: [https://www.intego.com/mac-security-
blog/customize-and-perso...](https://www.intego.com/mac-security-
blog/customize-and-personalize-your-macbook-pros-touch-bar/)

I looked into the XPS 13 but the screen is smaller than I'd like, and more
importantly Windows and the non-Apple touch pad just generally put a damper on
the whole user experience. Which isn't something I want from an expensive new
device.

------
itsfirat
I personally am waiting for redesigned lineup to get 16" version. There is
nothing else that interests me in the current lineup, I am happy with my mid
2012 rMBP.

