After years of wandering in the woods being assailed by unreliable butterfly keyboards, Apple has come to our aide in the form of the 16” MacBook Pro. Overall, I am very pleased with this machine, but is it enough to bring back macOS users who might have strayed to Linux or Windows because of the hardware? Let’s go through the highlights — my config:
The Keyboard: So, let’s just get the elephant in the room out of the way right off the bat. The new keyboard is far better than the much maligned butterfly mechanism of the last few years. It’s not a “blow your mind” typing experience, but it feels like a reasonable keyboard. The real test will come in a few months as these initial units begin to age, but my bet is switching back to the scissor switch mechanism will element most of the reliability issues of the butterfly models. While this is probably the most import change on the 16” model, it’s also one of the most boring, as the butterfly keyboard was just an unreliable mistake.
The Pricing: In my mind this is one of the most under-reported and most important “upgrades” from the previous two models — the base configurations are universally reasonable. Sure, if you’re a power hog like me you’ll probably want to upgrade some, but with the hard disk bumps and impressive processor performance, the base models will make sense for a lot of folks; this goes doubly for corporate IT purchasers who want to simplify their purchasing process.
Audio: One area that was a pleasant surprise with this model is how good the onboard speakers are. If you’re an audiophile you’re still not going to be impressed, but they are much improved from the last generated; there has also been some moderate improvements to the onboard mic.
Touchbar: It’s still there. I still don’t really get it and not many apps really use it in a very interesting way, however, Vim users will be pleased to have the hardware escape key back.
All in all, Mac is back! Hopefully, this trend continues and the scissor switch keyboards come down the line to Apple’s other laptops. Is this enough to go macOS full time for recent switchers? I’m not sure and for me probably not, but I can imagine this model satisfying many grumbling pro notebook users. What do you think? Reach out on Twitter. If you need any internal development or automation work done, reach out to my company, The Mad Botter.
