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by NeedMoreTea 2769 days ago
I updated from 2012 to 2016, hated and sold it after a couple of keyboard fails, and bought a 2015. My next Macbook will probably be a Thinkpad way things are going.

The better speakers I'd like. I still need to use USB sticks and SD pretty frequently and have always hated bags of adaptors. They always seem to break or get lost at the moment you're sitting with the important client.

The rest seems to come with a cost far worse than the benefit (for me anyway).

Larger trackpad was so large I would constantly get false activations when typing. Perhaps I have the wrong sort of fingers.

The touchbar was constantly activating when I typed on the top row of physical keys. Perhaps I have the wrong sort of fingers again. :)

The newer thinner keyboard was both horrible and horribly unreliable. Dust sensitive? LOL I think back to when the kids were little and throwing rusks, or putting toast in the VCR the moment we blinked. Then the amount of dog and cat hair (that magically gets everywhere) that's been removed from our keyboards over the years.

Lighter is OK, but not at a huge battery life cost compared to the 2015.

3 comments

Well, don't get the Thinkpad for better speakers. Speaking as an owner of a new t480s, whose dumb idea was to put speakers on the bottom of the case? My lap don't have ears. Of course the battery life is even worse than the bad 2016 Macbook, not by much though. But it's not whatever double digit hours they claim. If you think apple makes nonsensical design decisions, try any windows laptop, apple is still miles ahead in certain areas. Windows is so bad it's not even funny anymore (for example cortana guided setup is disturbing) and don't get me started about linux.
What's wrong with Linux? Its support for Thinkpad hardware is pretty exceptional, it just isn't great at holding your hand.
If by holding your hand you mean stuff works out of the box, then yes it isn't great. I did manage to get hidpi working in just 1-2 days (not with wayland, nothing works on wayland, let's give it just 5 more years and I'm sure it will happen), and it also goes to sleep fine, trackpad is not as bad as I expected it to be. All perfectly great achievements for 2018.
xubuntu versions running perfectly on my Thinkpad E550 (and Desktop) for many years already. Raspbian on my PI's and ubuntu on my beaglebone black. Don't settle for the provided software configuration. Settle for the open tool that is made for support.
Not sure why a laptop really needs better speakers (or even any speakers) both of mine are permanently hooked up to headphones.
Because some people dont like to use headphones. Some couples prefer watching a movie in bed.
Easily solved with a Bluetooth speaker, unlike say dust-vulnerable KBs...
What if you dont carry your speaker everywhere?
your scenario was about a couple watching movies in bed, though...

To be honest, I really love my rMBP 2014 hardware, it was basically perfect. Great speaker, as you say, good enough keyboard, BEST display, etc.

If Apple releases another MBP based on 2015 I'll take a quite good look again.

I only use my laptop when I am traveling. At home, I have no need for it. I am not traveling with speakers. I doubt I am alone.
Are you really going to carry around a bluetooth speaker in everyroom though, if someone wants to watch it on the couch?
Ah like the annoying teenagers on the bus sodcasting
Why would you even argue for bad speakers for laptops? Of course a laptop should have good speakers..
I was checking Yoga from Lenovo and or Matebook X

https://consumer.huawei.com/en/laptops/matebook-x-pro/