MacBook Pro Thoughts Part 3
Previously and previously.
The keyboard is apparently different enough to give me issues with my hands. I never had a single RSI problem with the 2013 model with "the good keyboard". I could type on that thing all day. Now I find that the bones in my hands and fingers ache after prolonged typing.
When I'm "in the office" at work, I hook the laptop up to an external keyboard/monitor and things are fine. But I really feel it when I work remotely and use the native laptop keyboard. Like, literally feel it in my bones.
Speaking of the days I'm in my work office and "things are fine", they're not fine really. For I'd rather not have to reboot once a day just to fix the "oh look the external monitor has started flickering on and off again" issue.
Those previous generation MacBook Pros were really really really good. Now they're really really really not. Which is a shame.
I detest the new MacBook keyboards. I have tried multiple times to type on them and make more errors than I thought possible. I spend more time correcting than typing. The last time I borrowed one for a half-day and did nothing but type on it in the hopes I could get used to it and replace my failing 7-year-old MacBook Pro. Nope. It's garbage. I am actually more comfortable typing on my iPad keyboard case cover (the APPLE one with fabric keys!) than I am this.
I hope your 7 year old MacBook Pro lasts for at least a bit longer. Surely Apple has recognized all the problems with these keyboards and the "next generation" will be better? I couldn't honestly recommend the current generation to anyone.
I have a 2017 15" at work and a 2017 13" at home, luckily for me, I don't find myself typing all that much on the actual laptop keyboards. (This, despite the fact that I don't use an external keyboard with the 13", just that the things I use it for aren't very typing heavy.) However, when I do type on them, I find that I'm much happier if I focus on typing with a lighter touch.
As for issues with external displays, my work laptop has three external displays and I only have a couple of minor problems:
1. I have are a fairly rare issue where one of the monitors will be go offline when I wake up the laptop and I have to disconnect and reconnect it to fix it.
2. Somewhat more often, though still not actually often, when I wake up the laptop and all three monitors wake up as well, the windows from two of the monitors will be swapped. Kind of annoying to have to reposition all of those windows (usually around 10 of them). Particularly odd since most of windows are pretty good about going back to the correct monitor even after I use the laptop without the monitors for a bit.
I wonder if the problem you see could be related to cables or dongles?
Could be the cable yeah. One kinda important thing I didn't mention was the Thunderbolt 3 Dock that all the things get plugged into and then one USB-C cable to the Mac. Wiggling and unplug/replug of all the things does nothing. Reboot always fixes it.
So, I'm going to try replacing the one dock-to-mac cable first to see if that takes care of it. If not, I'll take the dock out of the equation next.
I hate the keyboard on my 2017 MBP and use one of the external Mac keyboards. At first, I only used it at work but I've recently started packing it to bring home for my one WFH day each week. So much happier since I started doing that. Now if only I can get my external monitor a place if its own at home.
Yeah I'm gonna get another external keyboard to use at home because my bones will thank me :-)
Using the first gen butterfly keyboard with my 2015 MacBook (the ultra light model), I've gotten used to it, but I admit to preferring the Magic Keyboard 2 that I use on my 27" iMac. I've held off with the laptop upgrade for many reasons, cost and the keyboard. I'm guessing that the ext keyboard will help a lot.
It will be interesting to see what Apple does with their next big revision to the line.