I was walking through a computer store recently and I couldn't help but notice how tacky all the computers looked. The Touch Bar may be frivolous, pretty useless and a waste of money, but it blends into the design of the laptop and most importantly, is subtle. Now, Asus could certainly prove me wrong and implement some beautiful, understated software for the touchpad, but judging by the demo photos, that isn't the case. Not to mention, how does it perform as a touchpad? Will I have to avoid hitting some corner for fear that it will open a new app? At least the Touch Bar took away features that most consumers (i.e. non professional computer users) won't miss.
I’ve been trying to find a cheaper MBP replacement after 10 years with 3 MBP. Everything else is ugly. Some decent choices end up at the or worse price point as Apple.
After nearly a decade with MBP, I finally decided to replace it with a brand new, top-spec 13" dell XPS. Initially I was super happy with the choice, but after more than a year with it I would not recommend going that route to anyone, it's just full of little problems that don't exist with Apple hardware. The coil whine is insane and a known problem with those, from time to time the computer goes to sleep but isn't actually off - the fan is off but something is still running, and when you pull it out of your bag it's literally hot to touch(it's also a known problem with loads of threads on Dell forums about this). It happened to me once at an airport and when I pulled it out of the bag I was certain someone was going to stop me, the computer was literally boiling. I've had the motherboard replaced with dell 3 times now, both coil whine and spontaneous staying on when in sleep still happen. Plus the touchpad is actually crap, when you press down the cursor sometimes jumps a little bit resulting in you clicking on something else, and the screen while gorgeous has a stupid amount of backlight bleed near the edges. At first glance, the computer is as nice as any MacBook - but after living with it for a while I'm seriously considering going back to MBP again.
Except that macbooks have gotten worse (and pricier) :/
My 2016 base pro model overheats and some keys literally fell out while I was typing. Sometime when I open the lid, I see the apple logo, which means it's rebooted.
I got myself a Thinkpad T480s. I ended up spending around 2.5k for a machine that has 24GB of RAM, 1TB of PCIe SSD and weights a pound less than a MBP. The keyboard is stellar, the screen is matte, and it has HDMI, both old and new USB ports, ethernet, and an SD card slot.
I think that the panel is on par with the one my 2013 MBP had, so yes, a little worse than the newer models. However I feel that the difference is more than made up by the matte finish especially in bright light situations. But then again I'm a software developer, I really don't have much use for wider gamut, I just need crisp text and not to see my reflection in the screen.
Which model are you currently on because my top of the line 2013 15 inch MBP is still running like a champ.
If you are willing to try out windows, the surface pros are actually pretty sweat. I got one for my gf for grad school and will probably get one for myself if my MBP ever dies.
I still have a 2013 Macbook Air going strong and I will be extremely sad the day it finally kicks the bucket. It's not a powerhouse by any means, but it's lightweight and it runs any text editor I need with no gimmicks and better battery life than anything else its size despite its age.
Don't know if you'll get much of a cpu upgrade these days but ram definitely helps. I got mine with 16GB of ram to be future proof since I saw that ram tends to be a major cause for slowdowns as developers constantly eat up more as computers get better. This seems especially brilliant in hindsight considering top of the lines are still at 16GB.
