
Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer? - asterslash
Hello,<p>I&#x27;m looking around for a new work setup for a software development environment. I can choose freely both for software and for hardware and since I like macOS and use it myself for quite some time the choice seemed obvious.<p>My problem is, for a decent upgrade both in RAM and disk space I have to go for a $2199 model (the new MacBook Pro touch bar with 16GB RAM and 512GB disk) which seems to leave almost no budget left for anything besides the monitor.<p>So, having said this, I do have a question: do you believe that this year&#x27;s MacBook Pro is worth this value? I&#x27;m willing to give up some things from my setup (likely a usb-c dock that I&#x27;ll buy on my own later for example) if it really means I&#x27;m getting a laptop that&#x27;s worth it.<p>The primary reason I&#x27;m inclined to go with this year&#x27;s model is the T2 chip that I believe to be of significant value for its added security during boot, Touch ID, disk encryption and camera and microphone processing. This is something I personally value but I wasn&#x27;t able to find much technical reviews about this chip that would prove its worth to me.<p>I don&#x27;t particularly care for the touch bar (I admit it may be useful, but in my opinion they should&#x27;ve only added it above the function keys and only if it didn&#x27;t mean a great bump in price) so, apart from the reason above I&#x27;d be open to choose another model.<p>What&#x27;s your opinion on the current MacBook Pro offering?<p>PS: I do have to say though that all their pro hardware seems to be very overpriced for their current offerings and even though I love their products I have to admit that if I really were in the market for a personal laptop, I&#x27;d have a very difficult time choosing myself between a Mac or a PC.
======
drcongo
Absolutely not. I have the top of the range 15" MacBook Pro and I despise it,
it's without question the worst computer I've ever owned.

1\. The Touch Bar is appalling if you're at all a touch typist. It puts
destructive actions just an accidental brush of the finger tip away. 2\. The
keyboard is failing all over the place. My left command key has fallen off,
and three keys occasionally stick resulting in double entries. 3\. The
trackpad is so big that there's nowhere to rest one hand while you scroll with
the other, resulting in exposé happening when you're just trying to scroll a
web page. 4\. It crashes a LOT. I reckon roughly one kernel panic a week since
I've owned it.

It's absolutely killed my confidence in Apple hardware and after owning Macs
for over 20 years I doubt I'll ever buy a Mac again. It's made me a
permanently angry person.

~~~
MaxLeiter
If you’re crashing once a week you’re definitely doing something incorrect on
your end. Apple may have poor QA, but there’s no way it’s _that_ poor.

~~~
joefarish
I don't see how you can blame a user for repeated kernel panic issues.

~~~
NullPrefix
You are user spacing it wrong.

~~~
haasisnoah
Isn't the point of a user space to protect the kernel and keep the OS from
crashing?

~~~
reitanqild
No.

What userspace is is where you work happens. It has no universal obligation to
protect the kernel.

You could possibly say that the point of _working_ in userspace (instead of in
kernel space) is to protect the kernel.

~~~
reitanqild
Seems I'm either wrong or I'm punished for being rude.

In the latter case, sorry. I honestly agree I should have caught that.

In the first case my thought process goes as follows (hoping someone
knowledgeable will correct me):

\- user space may very well contain hostile processes (trojans, rootkits, -
even intentionally in the case where a user inspects malware in some kind of
container or chroot environment.

\- user space _may_ contain mechanisms that attempts to protect the kernel,
but a typical kernel (linux, and I guess most other free kernels) cannot rely
on it.

\- I tried searching for _userspace protect kernel_ and the closest thing I
found was the act of separating userspace from kernel space protects the
kernel which is what I tried to point out in my post above.

------
tomcam
No. I bought the $3,500 version on the advice of my partner and feel cruelly
ripped off. The keyboard, which I dislike, has already been replaced. The
Apple Store guy tried to accuse me of getting water on the keyboard, but that
is incorrect. My partner’s identical machine also needed the keyboard and
motherboard replaced. He got a loaner (I didn’t) and they tried to accuse him
of the same thing.

I would much rather have purchased 2 MacBook Airs for the price. (I do web
development and the MacBook Airs are surprisingly fast for my purposes.)

But more likely I’ll go with something like a Lenovo next time. With Apple
much less willing to honor its warranties I don’t feel anchored to its
computers, which I used to love, anymore.

~~~
modells
Lenovo Thinkpad T series laptops are built like tanks, have proper keyboards,
some have water-resistance, most have easily-removable batteries. The T480 has
a _30_ hour runtime with dual batteries, and starts at about $800 USD. I'd try
to turn that into a hackintosh or find an A1278 because it has 2x drives
(optical turns into second drive bay), works with 16 GiB of RAM and the
battery isn't glued in. On the latter, I'd send it to Rossmann in NYC just to
have the JTAG header removed and exposed traces sealed (Apple BOOO, poor
craftsmanship)... yes, Apple sells computers with logic boards that are prone
to corrosion, shorting and other damage due to substandard engineering and
manufacturing.

~~~
cheeze
But the Lenovo is coming from a company who has _repeatedly_ shown that it
doesn't give a shit about user privacy. Remember superfish? Or Lenovo Service
Engine?

~~~
lern_too_spel
That doesn't happen on business machines like Thinkpads.

------
coldtea
It's value is in

(1) combing a no-fuss GUI and the ability to run most major proprietary apps
with a UNIX underpinning. If you also want to combine that with multimedia
work (serious photo and video editing, graphic and print design, DAW work,
Linux is a no-player, you need either Windows or OS X. Yes, there's Inscape
and a few other tools, but only outliers use them and you'll be missing on
almost all major tools and commercial products).

(2) some not-found-elsewhere niceties in the hardware (great trackpad, fine
display, sturdy all-one metallic, construction, top-notch SSDs, no-fuss
sleep/wake, nice latch, great aesthetic, and such).

(3) works nicely as an ecosystem of products

(4) Finally, it's in resale value.

It's value is not and has never been in bang for the buck or big performance.

And it has lost points regarding (2) through the loss of magsafe (another
handy exclusive feature), worsening of the keyboard, and drop of some handy
ports.

> _PS: I do have to say though that all their pro hardware seems to be very
> overpriced_

Some of it is (e.g. Macbook Air/Mini/etc are long in the tooth, at this point
you're paying just for the privilege of using OS X, which many don't care
about that much). But their costlier models are not really overpriced, they're
just high-end.

I often look to get a comparable machine for Windows, and when you add the
same things from machines from Dell, IBM, Razer, you get at the same price
range very soon. I'm not talking about some custom rig desktop with faster cpu
and gpu, but about getting something comparable at all levels (their top of
the line laptop machine, comparable monitor, ssd, construction, etc).

For me it's still worth it. I like OS X, do lots of programming work (some
native, some remote thru SSH), lots of multimedia with Adobe apps and DAWs,
hate tinkering (and even more so hardware tinkering and custom rigs), and
don't mind paying a premium for something I use 10+ hours each day. I also
don't work with .NET, in which case I'd use Windows.

~~~
robertp
Also the lightweight and tight form factor.

I have travelled a ton with it and its help up the whole way for 14 months and
36+ flights domestic and international.

------
jryan49
I'm a PC person and just got a brand new Macbook Pro 2018 i7 16GB of RAM for
work. The keyboard is pretty terrible if you're used to mechanical keys. The
trackpad (with the "taptic feedback") while strange and annoying at first,
grew on me and is nice. MacOS for Java dev has been fine. The touchbar is
fairly useless, but I was able to bind escape to caps lock very easily, muscle
memory though is still a problem. I personally don't like MacOS more than
Windows 10 after Windows 10 got the Linux subsystem. I hate all the USB-C only
stuff. I can't plug anything in anymore without tons of dongles, and I can't
seem to find a dongle that has all the ports I want on it at once. And the
ones I have to buy are crazy expensive. The thing gets REALLY hot when doing
anything taxing. It warmed my entire desk up where I noticed it when touching
the desk from 5 inches away from the laptop. It burns my legs when I'm wearing
shorts. It also slides off my legs because it's made of slippery metal. The
speakers are very nice. Webcam is okay (all laptop cams suck compared to
phones). Touch ID is okay I guess. I shut my laptop off when I'm done using it
and each time you do that you have to type your password back in to use touch
id, so I don't find myself using it that much.

All in all, I think if I had a choice, I would choose something else over a
2018 Macbook Pro. At least considering how much it costs.

~~~
ioddly
> The touchbar is fairly useless, but I was able to bind escape to caps lock
> very easily, muscle memory though is still a problem

I started using a 2017 Macbook Pro last week. First thing I did with the touch
bar was set it to be all function keys rather than app-specific stuff. I still
miss the feedback of hitting the escape key, but otherwise it's okay.

~~~
d3sandoval
There's quite a few apps (both open source and proprietary) that enable haptic
feedback for the touchbar. I recommend trying them out if you're missing the
feeling of actually touching the escape key.

I think they leverage the same feedback mechanism that the track pad uses to
make it feel like you're actually clicking.

Links: \- [https://www.haptictouchbar.com](https://www.haptictouchbar.com) \-
[https://github.com/niw/HapticKey](https://github.com/niw/HapticKey) \-
[https://community.folivora.ai/t/touchbar-haptic-feedback-
imp...](https://community.folivora.ai/t/touchbar-haptic-feedback-
improvements/2313)

------
Razengan
NOTE: New low-end MacBooks may be announced in 2 weeks or next month.

Have you identified how much RAM and disk space you actually need for your
workflow?

If you just want something “good enough” you might be able to make do with
even the $1300 Core m3, 8GB, 256GB, 12” MacBook [0], or even a PC running
macOS in a VM.

Otherwise the answer is “as much as you can afford.”

I haven’t compared markets lately, but I think that although you’ll find PC
laptops that exceed MacBooks in a couple specs here and there, you may be hard
pressed to find something that betters a MacBook across the board in many
areas (including Thunderbolt 3, SSD performance, trackpad, color gamut and
battery time) and still beats it at price. Then of course there’s the value of
the OS.

The Touch Bar can also be surprisingly handy if you give it an honest chance.
Search for third-party tools that let you customize it, like BetterTouchTool
[1].

[0] [https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-
mac/macbook](https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook)

[1] [https://lifehacker.com/customize-your-macs-touch-bar-with-
be...](https://lifehacker.com/customize-your-macs-touch-bar-with-
bettertouchtool-1827125801)

~~~
Macha
For a Java developer, Eclipse and IntelliJ will happily eat over 8GB on a
midsize project, especially if Spring + related plugins are involved.

For a Javascript developer, a typical webpack based build chain in live reload
mode + chrome debugger + app using a front end framework will also easily go
over 8GB.

So for the two most common classes of developer, I couldn't reccomend a 8GB
MBP. At work I need to work on both, and my 16GB MBP is woefully inadequate.
Chrome debugger + (VS Code or IntelliJ) is enough to summon this screen:
[https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi.stack.imgu...](https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi.stack.imgur.com%2FT3pbc.png&f=1)

~~~
Razengan
It’s pretty grim that you can develop, build and test native apps with more
features (graphics, UI etc.) just fine in 8 GB but twice that is woefully
inadequate for anything with Java in it.

~~~
thorin
It's the same with .Net. I wouldn't consider developing Java or C# without
16Gb really. It's mainly the IDE that needs it, but also the build time,
starting up services etc.. I guess this is similar with a lot of use cases
these days. Web browsing is pretty expensive once you've got a few tabs open.
This seems to be less of an issue on my desktop than my laptop though so maybe
there are a few factors in play. Slow PC is frustrating though and my apk
build is currently taking over 20mins...

------
unstablevacuum
The attraction of programmers to macOS née OS X has always been its UNIX
foundations. Programmers love UNIX. Programmers made UNIX for programmers.

Unfortunately, from the epoch until very recently, UNIX has had GUIs ranging
in quality from absolute shit to mediocre. That's finally changing with Free
Desktop (Wayland + GNOME/KDE, and support libraries).

OS X gave programmers a UNIX core with a beautiful user interface layered on
top. And what a joy it is to use.

But these days, you can easily make do with a much, much cheaper laptop
running GNU/Linux if your budget and/or conscience dictates, and have a pretty
good experience.

~~~
cheriot
Then the difference became battery life. It's been a few years since I ran
linux on a laptop; has that improved?

~~~
om42
It has! I've been using Ubuntu on a thinkpad x1 carbon (2017) for almost a
year. Battery life is between 6-8 hours everyday use including work. Probably
see between 8-10 if I'm not doing any programming

~~~
dan0-
Similar experience on a Thinkpad T440 with a 1080p screen swap, I can easily
go 5 hours before I need to swap to the big battery, which buys ne a few more
hours. Games seem to halve that though...

------
hluska
I recently went through the new laptop experience. When it came down to it, I
couldn't justify spending the money on an MBP that would meet my needs.

My decision came down to a few things:

1.) I hate the touch bar and you can pry the function keys out of my cold,
dead hands. (I like saying that.)

2.) To get an MBP that will provide enough power for me, I'd need to upgrade
to a touch bar only model.

3.) MBPs are seriously expensive.

4.) There are other, really good machines that can run real operating systems
and provide all the power for a fraction of the cost.

5.) To get an MBP with similar performance to those other machines, I would
have to pay approximately $1,000 more. If I invested that money in an RESP (a
registered educational savings plan, it's a Canadian thing), I'm pretty sure
my girl could afford an extra semester in University.

~~~
Razengan
> _To get an MBP with similar performance to those other machines, I would
> have to pay approximately $1,000 more._

Examples?

MBPs have been reported to have the fastest SSDs on the market since 2016 [0],
and I doubt you can get laptops with the same resolution and wide color gamut
for much cheaper.

[0] [https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/01/2016-macbook-pro-
ssd/](https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/01/2016-macbook-pro-ssd/)

~~~
hluska
MBPs do have great SSDs, but I don't particularly care about (or optimize for)
resolution or colour.

If you remove those from the mix, there are many examples. The Dell XPS
series, higher end Zenbooks, and Lenovo Ideapads all beat the MBP.

~~~
Razengan
So it’s disingenuous to claim “similar performance” by arbitrarily removing
metrics from the mix.

~~~
tortasaur
On the contrary, it's disingenuous to act like resolution or color are metrics
of "performance" when the colloquial usage of the word generally refers to
processing speed and memory capacity. I/O speed would qualify, but is only one
metric; it is correct to say it is outperformed by other machines at lower
price points when accounting for the CPU and RAM.

~~~
Razengan
That's cherry-picking specs and definitions.

The ""colloquial usage of the word"" very much includes I/O performance; disk
speed has historically been the _worst_ bottleneck, aside from network access.

Resolution also affects performance: it's how much information you can view at
a time.

Most cheaper laptops do not present the same value as a MacBook Pro unless you
ignore some of the advantages of the MBP you’re comparing against.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
> Resolution also affects performance: it's how much information you can view
> at a time.

Not for me. My 40-something-year-old eyes mean that the amount of text I can
view on a monitor is restricted by the text size, not by the resolution of the
monitor. Retina displays make not a jot of difference to me. YMMV, of course.

------
sudders
I had to switch to a new laptop last year after my old MBP first generation
retina died.

I couldn't justify the price, the specs and the keyboard of a new MBP anymore
and after much deliberation I chose a $1200 HP Spectre x360.

I do mostly web development work (Ember.js, PHP and Node), and after running
Win10 for a few weeks and hating the performance (especially for Node). I
installed Ubuntu Budgie, and have been smoothly running it ever since.

The latest Linux kernel provides me with excellent battery performance and for
a machine a third of the price I must say I made the right choice.

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
Any problems with the touch screen working in Ubuntu? Can you still use the
pen to sketch in drawing programs etc?

I need a good Linux-friendly laptop with touch screen for sketching as well as
code dev, so I'm very curious about this one.

~~~
sudders
Sorry. Only just saw your question.

The touchscreen works out of the box, but I don't use it that often, the few
times I've used it I noticed that if I have an issue it's mostly related to
the program I'm using and the lack of proper touchscreen support for that
particular program.

------
barkingcat
You don't need to buy new. I find this "new everything" by default to be very
sad.

As a developer, you'd be well served by a 2015 (if you like the old keyboard),
2016 or 2017 MacBook Pro. Why do you want to spend so much money to pay for
Apple Corporate to get even wealthier? Even something like a certified
refurbish machine will get you what you need (with full Apple warranty), AND
leave you enough money for peripherals and accessories.

Buy a tool of course, that works for your job, but don't be clouded by the
idea that you _need_ the newest, the latest gadget to do basic development.

~~~
en4bz
Old laptops have old batteries that need to be replaced. Since it's Apple this
will likely cost enough to justify buying new.

~~~
abledon
I got a MacBook pro 2013 15” max spec 16gb/nvidia gpu. 430 cycles (not a lot)
and if it needs replacing Mac store will do it not that expensively. I paid
900$ u.s. on eBay. Model had a bit of scratches but who cares made it way
cheaper . OP just buy a refurbished max spec 2013/2014 15” off eBay .

Only gripe I have is that it sometimes doesn’t ground well with the unibody
casing

~~~
emit_time
I have a late 2013 macbook pro 13" ~500 cycles and 86% capacity

------
iDemonix
I use a MacBook Pro Retina 13" Early 2015, and it's amazing. I hope it lasts
forever.

I've tried a friends new MBP and I can't stand the keyboard, or the dongles.
When I sit at my work desk, I have 2x DisplayPorts to my monitors, a USB 3.0
hub, and often a USB thumb drive. Swapping to USB-C would be a pain.

My biggest gripe with Apple's current MBP line up is the insulting specs you
get for the price. I can buy a 128GB SSD delivered for £24, I imagine at bulk
wholesale Apple is barely paying £10 - yet that's what they put in their
'entry level' £1,250 13" MBP. Absolute madness.

~~~
jsjohnst
> When I sit at my work desk, I have 2x DisplayPorts to my monitors, a USB 3.0
> hub, and often a USB thumb drive. Swapping to USB-C would be a pain.

So with your setup that’s four cables to reconnect each time I need to get up
for a meeting, where as I have a single cable (that single cable provides
power, USB, a 5K and a 4K display, and Ethernet in my setup). Yep, sounds less
painful to me too!

~~~
iDemonix
I don't want the answer to everything to be "Buy a dongle". I have a similar
setup at home to my work setup, almost identical - do I need another
dongle/hub for home?

I also work from my parents house if I'm visiting, they have a monitor I use,
and my girlfriends parents (again if we're visiting) has a dual screen setup
in their office I can use.

Do I buy a Hub/dongle for each location? Do I carry one with me at all times?
(Good job they made the laptop light as I'll now need 38kg of adapters).

Oh wait, I don't have any of these problems, I just take my 2015 MBP and it
plugs in to whatever is there. Nice.

~~~
iDemonix
Also, let's not get started on the travesty that is the loss of MagSafe...

~~~
jsjohnst
Because yeah, there ~aren’t any~ _actually is tons of_ comparable USB-C cables
with the same breakaway mechanism as MagSafe.

------
danielvf
I’ve use Mac laptops as my primary work machine since the nineties. This year,
with the MacBook Pro problems, and noticing that I was almost always working
from my home office these days, I got a 5k iMac instead of a new laptop.

I’m delighted with iMac. The monitor is amazing, and it has quite a bit more
horsepower than a comparable Mac laptop.

~~~
Razengan
AFter trying various combinations for years, I settled on keeping a nice big
iMac at home and getting a lowest end MacBook for portability + an iPad for
bed/couch.

It’s been the ideal setup for me so far.

------
indymike
I just bought a Dell XPS after eight years of Mac use. Zero productivity loss,
now I can test pen and touch GUI on the laptop. Can run Linux, can run
windows. Honestly, the 4k display is even better than my last Macbook's retina
display. Oh, and the Dell's keyboard is much better. The big win: function
keys.

~~~
Boulth
Which version did you buy?

I bought 9350 (Skylake) when that came out and this really scared me away from
XPSes (multiple issues, motherboards replaced, the worst thing being
Thunderbolt integration with the TB16 dock).

I generally like quick and nice Dell support service but would rather not have
to use it.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
I have the 9560, and I love it. I got it as an open box unit from Microcenter
right when the 9570s were coming out, so it was a great deal. I use it for
side projects and as a personal laptop, I would love to use it instead of my
T470 work laptop.

It took a lot of fiddling to get Linux running on it, but it all works now. I
have it set up with 18.04 with the root on ZFS.

~~~
Boulth
Glad to hear it works well for you!

> I have it set up with 18.04 with the root on ZFS.

I was thinking about using ZFS too. Unfortunately it's not so easy to setup
correctly (full disk encryption etc.) on Arch as it is on Ubuntu...

~~~
rhinoceraptor
Yeah, my desktop is root on ZFS with arch as well, even with the LTS kernel I
was always running into issues with mismatched SPL/ZFS and the kernel, I'm
trying the DKMS package atm. That took me an entire day to get running.

~~~
Boulth
Do you get that many benefits from ZFS? I was thinking of using it for backup
via zfs send/receive and snapshotting before pacman updates but the sheer
amount of work made me stay with ext4 and luks setup. Too bad as I'd really
want Tor give ZFS a try :(

------
dbattaglia
People talk a lot about how awful the virtual escape key is (it is terrible),
but another big problem is trying to use an IDE debugger with the touch bar
function keys. The problem for me is, I want to rest my fingers on the keys
and you just can’t do it since they are a touch screen. Even the IntelliJ
first class touchbar support just doesn’t cut it. It just makes me miss Visual
Studio on a boring old Dell keyboard.

------
chubot
FWIW I spent this last summer coding while traveling on a Macbook Air I bought
for $999.

I was considering buying a more powerful laptop for the trip, but I'm glad I
put it off.

If I needed more power, then I would just ssh to Linux box. I even used X
forwarding once! It worked with XQuartz -- my first time I using it, and it
was passable.

Anyway, I really like the Macbook Air -- and I used it for everything --
coding, presentations, taking videos/pictures, video conferencing, listening
to music, watching Netflix, health data, etc.

I ran BOTH an Ubuntu VM and a Windows VM on the Macbook Air too! Computers can
do everything now!

------
Hydraulix989
Consider getting a Thinkpad. They are quite indestructible (at least compared
to Macbooks -- the ThinkPad durability used to be legendary but has also gone
downhill quite a bit these days). The value per dollar is also quite high,
especially if you can get a corporate or student discount (you might be
surprised what you are eligible for with a still-working @.edu email address
or an old corporate job that you no longer work for).

------
s3cur3
I recently upgraded from my 2015 rMBP to the 2018 model you’re looking at. I
agree the Touch Bar is a dumb gimmick (for a dev’s purposes at least), but the
keyboard has grown on me, and the 6-core/12-thread CPU is a serious boon for
dev work.

I wrote up a few more details here: [https://tylerayoung.com/2018/07/23/the-
worlds-shortest-revie...](https://tylerayoung.com/2018/07/23/the-worlds-
shortest-review-of-the-15-inch-2018-mbp/)

~~~
michaelmior
One of the nice things about the Touch Bar is that you can use it to hold a
bunch of useful info without cluttering your prompt.

~~~
wildrhythms
I tried the 13-inch touchbar model for work and I despise the touchbar in
every way. I realized quickly that I have to have a physical Escape key... but
more importantly, I never want to have to look at the keyboard for
information, that's why I learned to type in the first place!

I exchanged it for the non-touchbar model (despite having two fewer USB-C
ports for some unfathomable reason, fuck you very much Apple for that) and
I've been much more satisfied with having the physical keys back.

------
rayvy
Gotta chime in here:

I'm using the new MPB at work (they give them out for free so why not), and I
can't say that I _really_ have any problems with it. Granted, they keyboard
is...weird (such tight, low action on the keys) but not horrible, the touchpad
is _HUGE_ , but I generally don't have a problem with this as I don't use a
mouse. Lastly, the touchbar is (as others have mentioned) just _completely_
unecessary. Why Apple? Do you care about web surfers _that_ much more than
devs? (Answer: yes). Granted, the physical specs of the machine aren't _crazy_
(quad core, 16G RAM, 256G SSD, Intel Core i7), pretty standard for a upper-
shelf laptop.

So I recently bought a HIDevolution Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501VI 15.6 inch Gaming
Laptop. It has Windows (which makes me sad), but I _cannot WAIT_ to get this
baby out of the box. Intel Core i7, 1TB SSD, 24G RAM, Nvidia 1070 (swappable),
quad core It's a tiny little beast fit for gaming, dev work, and running a
node for smart contract work.

I honestly feel like I've broken the mental spell that Apple had over my mind.
We all know their computers are 150% the cost, for 70% the performance - but
for some reason I kept buying Mac laptops. No more though! I'm free, and I
refuse to go back to burning my money for a _cool_ laptop. I'm done. Finite.

~~~
phnk
> I honestly feel like I've broken the mental spell that Apple had over my
> mind.

Same here. For me, it was the lack of updates on the MacBook Air, and the
horrendous mess that is the OS since 10.10 (10.13 is the worst Mac OS I have
ever used. I started with 7.5.3).

------
perrohunter
I recently upgraded to the new 2018 model with Core i9 and 32GB of RAM. For my
kind of development the RAM was a huge bottleneck and since I upgraded it’s
been definitively better, I did had a rMBP 2016 which I was angry at just like
the others, but I decided to give Apple one last chance and so far I’m fairly
happy with my rMBP 2018 (i9/32GB RAM) so I’d recommend it

------
jason_slack
I have a 2018 15" MBP with 32gb of RAM. So far, knock on wood, it is acting
fine. I am going to buy AppleCare+ immediately now after reading these
comments. I feel even more ripped off though. This doesn't include the $300 I
had to spend on an OWC TB3 dock to be able to connect my other drives, wired
ethernet, etc.

I bought this machine because my entire workflow has been Apple for 25 years
and the thought of switching is overwhelming. I have tried to go "cold turkey"
before and switch to Windows and I just can't get used to it. For a few things
yes.

However, I am more determined to try and get out of Apple's grip. So, I am
moving parts of my workflow to Virtual Box VM's and slowly adding more and
more until I get comfortable, find solutions, etc. Hopefully by my next laptop
purchase I can find a non-apple machine.

The touch-bar is pointless. I hate it and don't use it unless I have to. The
keyboard still feels weird to me. I tend to use an external keyboard and
mouse.

~~~
some_account
Windows is by far the most annoying operating system out there. You want
Linux. It's really easy to use these days and works pretty good. It's not
perfect and you will have some trouble shooting but it's a lot better than
sitting and waiting for Apple or Microsoft. You become totally dependant on
them. No developer should ever be dependent like that.

~~~
jason_slack
I’m using Ubuntu in VMs now and for servers.

------
cpr
I love the MBP 15” 2017 keyboard. Works great for me.

I love the USB-C ports.

Touchbar is meh. I ignore it.

Cost is not really an object for a machine I use 10 hours a day to run a
fairly solid “lifestyle” business. I don’t even give it a second thought.

------
ek5Jf
I use the latest 2018 one for work. It's ok but just ok. Personally I will not
be buying a MacBook pro as the current models stand.

Not a fan of the touchbar. I accidentally hit buttons on it as i rest the tips
of my fingers on the top row, the siri button on the top right above delete
was the biggest problem. Likewise I hate the context of the keys switching
between apps, the escape key dispersing or volume buttons diapering. I've
configured the touchbar to be a fixed constant layout now so the keys do not
change however I've had a few instances where it's gone completely blank and
had to restart. The lack of tactile feel is a big loss.

I've also had a few times where I thought I hit the famous keyboard issue with
dust in the keys. Luckily after a few keypresses whatever was in the keys
worked it's way out.

The size etc is nice especially comparing to my 2011 MBP however I feel it's
now form over function. The 2011 I pimped out with upgraded memory and SSD,
that's no longer possible and you have to spec it up front at cost. The 2015
model I have is probably the best model for form/function however that's still
a 2015 model 3 years out of date.

Most of my work is in the terminal, Emacs or tools that run on Linux, the only
Mac software I really love and will be hard to loose is 1Password. I've got a
2018 IMac as a desktop which I considered ok value for an all in one with good
screen but feel if I need to buy a personal laptop instead of using works, as
it stands I'll likely get a Dell XPS or similar and go back to Linux on the
desktop. Based on the Surface Book Go being able to run Linux the next gen
versions of Surface Book could also be interesting if they also follow the Go.

For me to buy a MBP now they'd have to loose the touchbar, fix the keyboard,
come down in price for memory/disk as no longer up-gradable. All unlikely to
happen.

~~~
EnderMB
I've posted about the Surface Book a ton of times, but I can't recommend it
enough. I bought it when Apple delayed their MBP offering, and I'm glad I made
the switch.

As a Linux desktop, there were some teething issues with the first gen Surface
Book, but I've managed to get Debian running with minimal fuss.

------
krob
There is only 2 good reasons to buy a mac. Applications you use are Mac
dependent, you need crazy long battery life. I haven't used a chrome book, I
have heard they're pretty good. Considering those things, if you want to get
power, buy a Dell Precision or an HP Zbook, or a Lenovo T series laptop. Dell
Precision laptops are built like tanks, real workstation workhorses.
Dell/Zbook/lenovo laptops will never give you fantastic battery life, but boy
will they blow the doors performance-wise off anything apple has to offer you.
If you do open source development, moving to kubuntu w/ plasma will feel quite
comfortable for most people. Use Latte-Dock, boom, got your osx style doc, and
it's fast. Font rendering on linux these days is insanely nice, fonts are
bold, crisp. The only negative these days I say is go with AMD chips on the
laptops since they have better support and don't have screen tearing like
nvidia does atm due to lack of proper vsync support.

Vmware, so long as you run it on a non-ntfs partition will run insanely fast.
I run windows 10 on vmware, and it runs fantastic.

My laptop is a Dell Precision 7510 w/ 64gb of ram, 512gb NVME Samsung Evo 950,
+ 2tb Samsung Evo 850, Quadro M2000M w/ Intel graphics. Runs beautifully on
linux. Just don't expect to get fantastic battery life from it in linux as
right now, that is the only thing that I think needs a lot of work. Windows
got horrible battery life as well. I think Apple with osx has windows & linux
beat on battery life.

Also.. with regard to keyboards, if you type fast, just say you're a touch
typist, I'd say that Dell Precision & Lenovo keyboards are some of the best
out there for typing for long time. If say you type 60wpm+ you'll enjoy them
considerably. If you type for any duration on a mac, the tips of your fingers
over time will start to feel a stabbing feeling, I don't get this with my
dell. I do have a Late 2014 model mac laptop which I just replaced the
keyboard, and I still have this problem with the laptop, something to do with
short key travel.

~~~
FabHK
The MB Pro the OP is asking about doesn’t even have crazy long battery life
though. Its battery stores less energy than the MB Air IIRC. My 2016 MBP
‘Escape’ gives up after about 4 hours with not much more than Safari browser
and an editor running.

~~~
jsjohnst
Check energy consumption tab in activity viewer. Something is likely vampiring
power without you realizing.

~~~
krob
Yes, did that. Nothing showed up :/

~~~
FabHK
Neither here. Safari was chugging along, WindowServer, bla bla. Nothing
suspicious. I should add that a "Service Battery" warning has popped up
recently, so maybe it's just an issue with my machine. Will bring it in.

~~~
jsjohnst
> I should add that a "Service Battery" warning has popped up recently, _so
> maybe it 's just an issue with my machine._

Yep, all 2016 MBPs have terrible battery life, _when they have faulty
batteries and are directly telling you that’s the issue!_

~~~
FabHK
That battery warning came only recently. Battery life has been terrible all
along. Anecdata, anecdata. But again, the design capacity of the MBP battery
is less than that of the MB Air. It’s a questionable trade-off for a “pro”
machine.

~~~
jsjohnst
> the design capacity of the MBP battery is less than that of the MB Air.

Correct, the MB Air is rated at 12hrs for “wireless web”, the MB Pro is 10hrs
for “wireless web”.

> It’s a questionable trade-off for a “pro” machine.

You must have a very opinionated view of “pro” that doesn’t fit the normal
reality. A usual “pro” (at least in Apple’s context) is usually (but obviously
not always) sitting somewhere with a power outlet. The battery is intended for
meetings or other moderate duration periods of disconnect. If you want a
laptop for being completely mobile, then go with one designed for that purpose
(MacBook, MacBook Air, iPad w/ keyboard). If you want desktop class
performance in a portable form factor, then there are trade-offs, and battery
being one of the heaviest parts, that’s usually it. While I think Apple’s
obsession with thinness at all costs is questionable to me, laptop weight
being as minimal as possible isn’t, especially to my back that carries it each
day.

------
golangnews
No. I own one and regret buying it. The fingerprint sensor is the only useful
bit of the touch bar, missing esc key is annoying if you use vim, and the
keyboard is pretty terrible, even if I hadn't seen different keys come off or
come loose. Have another appointment to get it fixed next week.

~~~
pfranz
I explicitly avoided the Touch Bar, so it sucks I had to get the lower specs
and fewer ports. I already remap Caps Lock to Ctrl and after playing around
the ESC would really bother me. The travel on the new keyboard grew on me
pretty quickly, but after almost a year I think I'm getting double-letters on
certain keys and I still really really hate the half-height arrow keys. It
sounds so silly, but if they released a new version with fill-sized arrow keys
and maybe one other gripe (like an updated camera--seriously, this is the same
camera on my 6yo macbook) I'd sell this one and buy another. Otherwise I'll
probably put up with this for a few years until I'm fed up and find a PC
laptop I'm willing to live with...

------
Rjevski
Do you _really_ need 16GB of RAM, more storage and a beefy CPU? For reference,
I'm using a 12-inch MacBook with a _dual-core_ M3 processor and 8 GB of RAM as
my daily driver and it's more than enough; this thing somehow runs IntelliJ
and around 5 Docker containers in the background (including Javascript stuff
with 1000+ dependencies) and has plenty of resources to spare.

Now I do agree the new MacBooks have a lot of drawbacks (I'm typing this on a
keyboard where the "R" key is no longer responding; autocorrect is my saviour)
but the time saved not having to tinker with shit in Linux or Windows (and be
put to actual, billable work instead) means I can literally buy a new machine
every month if needed. Not ideal but for me MacBooks are still the best option
at the moment.

~~~
jsjohnst
> Do you _really_ need 16GB of RAM, more storage and a beefy CPU?

Why be so presumptuous? My main computer is a 12 Core Xeon Mac Pro with 128gb
RAM and dual high end video cards and I still run into issues _needing_ more
horse power (which admittedly AWS/GCP makes mostly easy to consume).

~~~
Rjevski
I'm just basing this on my own experience where I used to always demand more
power (and completely dismissing the new MacBooks and basically anything below
32 GB of RAM) until I realised that actually a low-power machine was perfectly
usable for most development work.

------
bufferoverflow
You can definitely get a cheaper PC laptop with similar (or actually better)
specs.

Examples:

[https://www.ebay.com/itm/273405851977](https://www.ebay.com/itm/273405851977)

[https://www.ebay.com/itm/153078138692](https://www.ebay.com/itm/153078138692)

It's more of a choice of the OS, I feel like. I don't get how you can't simply
copy files between a macbook and an iphone. With a PC it's trivial.

~~~
pfranz
I'm curious, how do you copy files around? Between PCs I'd probably go for
Dropbox first. To be a network share client in Windows 10 I go to the Network
browser, then had to enable searching for network servers--I'm not sure how to
serve files. I found the behavior kind of fickle...but it might be my
hardware/network. The little I've seen of sending files over BlueTooth on any
platform has been a miserable experience.

------
physcab
Honestly the MacBook Air is still an amazing value. I just bought another one
before they discontinue it. It was just over $1k, keyboard is still the old
pseudo mechanical kind before they switched to butterfly, 8gb ram and 512 ssd.
12 hours+ battery life means I only charge mine maybe twice a week between
programming and browsing.

The ONLY thing I would change would be retina but I value more battery life
than a better display.

------
meritt
If you prefer macOS, then yes it's your best option. If you're content with
windows or linux, I'd suggest a dell xps or thinkpad x1.

------
purrpit
It's worth switching from Mac to something else in 2018.

1\. OSX is still fantastic, a sturdy UNIX like OS. So there will be some
friction when you're moving away to an alternative, but it's not as bad as it
was in maybe 2015 when windows wasn't even up for consideration as a developer
machine for many and Linux variants were far from being non-flaky (because of
lack of manufacturer support mostly).

2\. Windows is catching up with the introduction of WSL, many developers may
now setup their LINUX ready projects completely in Windows.

I switched from Macbook Pro 2013 to ~$1,000 Xiaomi Mi notebook pro (i7, 16GB,
Dedicated GX card, better battery, HDMI port, 15inch, Mac like keyboard and
touchpad, fingerprint reader). I run a right-swipe virtual machine and run
chrome all day without issues. It's a good for 3 years machine. Screen is
fullhd though.

------
ElCapitanMarkla
I got an Air mid 2013 for $2200 NZD and that has been my main dev machine for
the last 5 years.

I was going to buy a new MacBook after the latest round of updates but the
price was insane.

Ended up building a Ryzen 2700+ PC with 32gb ram and running a bunch of dev
vms on there. Now I just ssh into those from either the pc or my air.

------
broken_symlink
Lenovo just released the thinkpad x1 extreme. You can get 16gb ram and 512gb
ssd for $1975.

~~~
thangnguyennhu
with an awesome ThinkPad keyboard.

------
steve19
I recently purchased a used 2013 model max specced. Definitely worth it. Loads
of ports. Great retina screen. 16gb of ram. Fast CPU.

On the other hand I was not going to pay the prices for a current model, which
lack the ports I like (hdmi, sd card, usb a).

------
xor1
I paid $1200 for a maxed-out 2015 13" MBP at the beginning of this year, and I
would recommend that in place of a new MBP for most people. It was
unopened/brand new, from a certified seller. The one I bought it from is out
of stock, hopefully other certified sellers still have some.

I have a 2013 15" MBP (barebones spec), previously had a maxed-out 2016 15"
MBP (with touchbar) for work, and currently have a maxed-out 2017 (also with
touchbar) for work. I really dislike the new keyboard, and the USB-C ports are
still a pain point. I never use the touchbar, in fact I wish I didn't have it
at all.

------
emit_time
UNIX backbone, with many powerful applications available.

Especially when you include Keyboard Maestro, Karabiner Elements, Hazel,
Contexts, Alfred.

Also, tend to be good, lightweight machines, no hassle, and reliable.

------
jonnybgood
No. I returned my new 13 inch 2017 MBP within a week and bought a refurbished
13 inch 2015 MBP with 16gb of RAM and 500gb SSD for $750 on eBay.

------
CyberFonic
I own a 2009 MBP and still use it for the few apps that aren't available on my
other systems.

My workhorse system is a desktop lotsa RAM, SSD + TBs of HD, triple monitors -
and running Ubuntu on it is far better experience than the MBP ever was.

When on the road, I use a ChromeBook or a Lenovo tablet (depending on whether
I expect to type much).

Gave up on iPad and iPhone years ago. I used to be an Apple fan, but since
Steve Job's passing, the company has become yet another mega-corp chasing
profits. The magic is no more.

------
lupinglade
Yes, a great machine for Xcode. The only thing I don’t like about the Touch
Bar is the lack of a hardware escape key.

------
walrus01
No. In all seriousness if you need a lot of ram and cpu resources you should
be remotely controlling a big, loud, beefy xen or kvm hypervisor that is
remote to you.

No laptop is going to substitute for something like a used $800 Dell poweredge
r910 with 32 cores or a selfbuilt, new, 16 or 32-core threadripper or epyc
machine.

The 12" MacBook (not air) is a great little laptop if you can deal with the
single usb-c port.

------
kasey_junk
I literally bought a chromebook yesterday to test drive as a dev machine
because my experience with the new MacBook Pro has been so bad.

I’ve owned and used Macs extensively since 1994.

------
partycoder
Unless you use macOS or iOS in production, just buy a regular laptop and
install Linux.

A very minimal setup with XFCE can give you decent performance and battery
life.

------
stunt
I'm not sure if it is even fair to call it Pro.

------
Kagerjay
Apple forgot how to manufacture macbooks since 2015. Keyboards are absolute
garbage and touchbar is a marketing gimmick that rarely anyone uses, even
video editors as well since you can go with a MX Master 2S mouse for that. You
aren't going to care about touchID, disk encryption, camera and microphone
processing as much as you think you will. Because a shit keyboard is going to
be painful on your wrists for prolong periods of typing / coding. Trust me it
is an AWFUL keyboard, I've touched and felt them before. 2015 feels like a
solid mechanical keyboard, 2018 is like the worst nonmechanical keyboard you
can buy off amazon. Plus you lose the slick cool lightup apple icon in the
back.

Buy a "used" 2015 Macbook pro one on amazon here. Better keyboard, legacy
ports (its got USB and HDMI). Look for listings with good images and ratings.
Good sellers will tell you the exact battery cycle on the used ones. I've done
the homework for you, just bought a 15" macbook pro after 5-10 hours of
researching GPU / CPU spec benchmark, thunderbolt2 eGPU compatability, getting
opinions from many experts both on reddit forums and youtube, etc. I built my
own windows computers since I was 13 so I know what to look for. This is the
best spot to buy one since you get Amazon's return policy.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-
listing/B00XZGUL8W/ref=dp_ol...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-
listing/B00XZGUL8W/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=all)

You might want to look at these listings every so often to find a used one you
really want. The only trustworthy alternative location IMO is ebay, because
that's where the sellers are at.

Its the last good one from apple. You'll spend ~$1500 for a 15". Don't buy a
13" IMO, screen real estate is already small as it is. You may or may not need
a built in graphics card, its only about 30% better than the dedicated GPU
around that time.

I bought mine for $1500. It was "used". Only had 21 battery cycles, for all
intents and purposes it was brand new to me. I chose not to get a built in GPU
because of potential issues it might have using an external GPU.

Peripheal accessories, I use a 2nd monitor from Gechic. You need an HDMI based
portable monitor, they are the only ones that make it. Because if its not HDMI
it causes the CPU fan to spin really loudly.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M9CXOTV/ref=oh_aui_sear...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M9CXOTV/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

For backpacks to carry macbook, I use this personally, after researching every
backpack in the market. Its designed specifically for most HN'ers in mind, IMO

[https://www.amazon.com/eBags-Professional-Laptop-Backpack-
So...](https://www.amazon.com/eBags-Professional-Laptop-Backpack-
Solid/dp/B00DU0PEA8/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8)

If I need a more powerful PC I use my windows computer

------
alphabettsy
For me, Yes.

------
sage76
I have had nothing but issues with my MBP. Within 2 years

It stopped booting for some hardware issue.

Both the speakers are screwed up

The charger is not working

2 of the 5 little dots where the charger connects are now blackened and
expanded.

WORST PURCHASE EVER

