[kylehotchkiss]

I got the 13in 2016 MacBook Pro sans-touchbar and absolutely love it. The screen is lively, USB-C has made traveling much easier (don't need dedicated charger, can use Anker USB-C battery to top laptop off), the build quality feels substantially better than my old Macbook Air, and the battery life has been fantastic. I've seen a lot more of these rants crop up and end up confused since my own experience has been substantially different.

The only negative thing has been needing to buy/carry an external hub for USB/SD cards (I use it maybe monthly).

[phil21]

If I didn't need 15" this is exactly what I would have done - I actually like the 2016 MBP 15", but the touchbar is utterly useless and a regression from having a physical escape key.

I honestly don't know how you (the article author) could have a problem with the touchpad though - it's an improvement in every regard. Quite happy to do away with the mechanical bits there for better reliability, and it's very difficult for me to feel a difference. One of the better parts of the laptop to be sure.

USB-C is fine - with the large caveat of Apple fucked the rollout up horribly - things like not shipping reliable working HDMI<->USB-C adapters at launch date are inexcusable. After those initial pains though, USB-C is amazing for portability - I'm always near a charger now, and my 15W phone chargers I have in every room of the house do fine to either charge it overnight or simply not lose battery life while working.

I can certainly wish there was integrated HDMI and USB-A, but then again I also don't miss those that often after getting a dock for work.

My largest complaints are the regressions in battery size from the 2015 15" rMBP, the keyboard, and the stupid and utterly useless Touchbar I was forced to pay for. That and the corresponding lack of ESC key. I do however love the Touch ID - and won't buy another laptop without something like it.

If the next MBP doesn't come with a physical escape key I plan on seriously attempting to make Linux work again if the hardware is out there to do so.

[rosege]

The other thing I really like about USB-C charging is that its on either side of the laptop - so I can have it plugged in on the most comfortable side depending on where I'm working. But yeah an inbuilt HDMI and USB-A would have been awesome.

[kylehotchkiss]

I found a USB-C to Displayport cable on Amazon, not sure if it fits your use case but it ended up being much faster than HDMI on my Anker hub, which was limited to 30fps I think.

[sidyom]

You're able to modify the touchbar (control strip?) to always have an escape key, if it bugs you as much as it does me.

[mbreese]

I just remapped caps lock to esc. Works great, but it takes me a minute to get my mind back around when I’m back using my normal (wired Apple) external keyboard.

[_ix]

Was considering this model... then I bought a GalliumOS-capable Chromebook for $180 bucks. It's not for everyone, but I think it's going to replace my RevA Retina MBP. ~20 hours of battery life, more than enough power to run Alacritty tmux'd SSH sessions to cloud infrastructure. Did I mention that it was $180?

[BoorishBears]

To each their own, but I know 180$ would barely buy a stand-alone display of high enough quality for me to read from 8+ hrs a day, let alone an entire laptop with a display that I’d be ok with.

The amount of computing power people need tends to differ based on the stack they’re working with, but to me a quality screen is a hard requirement