MacBook Pro Thoughts
This week I got a new MacBook Pro at work. One of the touch bar models. It's certainly too early to have anything reasonable to say, so a few quick first impressions.
• Keyboard. Louder, less travel, doesn't feel as substantial.
• Screen. Just lovely in every way.
• Trackpad. Very big. And also big. The 'click' is softer. Why is it so big?
• Touch Bar. Why. Is. This. A. Thing?
• Touch ID. Being able to use my fingerprint to login is wonderful.
• Ports. All USB C, all the time. Not as big of a deal as I thought? Only need one USB C => USB A dongle.
• No physical escape key. I'm in vim all the time. Not having an escape key is almost a deal breaker.
No escape key or function keys at all. That sucks.
My company refuses to buy Touch Bar models.
Well you have them, they're just in the touch bar. There are no physical keys any longer.
Just FYI, in case it isn't obvious, you can also tap the black area to the left of the "Esc" graphic. It's there just as a visual symmetry with the TouchID button, but it still functions as Esc. Perhaps that will help a little. I almost never use vi-style editors anymore, having fully embraced VS Code.
There are times that I like the Touch Bar, but this is greatly tempered by the fact that I use an external keyboard most of the time, so I can't really make the Touch Bar part of my normal usage. I have a Touch Bar 13" MBP as my personal laptop, and I don't use an external keyboard with that, so there are a few situations where I've gotten used to it. For example, I like having the Archive and Delete buttons in Apple Mail.
Yep I noticed the area next to the esc graphic is also used. Which is great as I'm still trying to train my finger to move up a little further. Getting there. Like you though while at work I'm got external keyboard monitors so I only get to use the actual keyboard when I'm on the sofa at home doing a work thing.
Not having any experience with the Touch Bar MacBook Pro models, I've heard some say you get used to it.. Some apps take advantage of the Touch Bar and allow certain functions or shortcuts. As for the keyboard, I've been using the first gen short travel keyboard on my 3.5 year old MacBook (2015). I've gotten used to it, but I can tell you it took some time to get used to that short travel. And it's noisier than the previous keyboard on my 2008 MacBook Pro. From an external keyboard option if you are working at a desk most of the day, any bluetooth keyboard previous to the Magic keyboards works well for those wanting more key travel.
Glad to hear the screen in great. My friend who does DBA work got this new model – with i9 and 32gb of RAM… he says the screen is the best thing about this.
Heh, and you know, while I've since bought a 2013 era MBP for my own personal Mac, I also still have my 2008 model and it still works great. You really notice the lack of retina screen though.
Yeah, I used my 2008 MBP for almost 6 years. I think it's stuck at Mavericks 10.9, if I recall correctly
Yep I think you're right. Either that or El Cap, but certainly reached its end of upgrade life.