I’ve been having a lot of fun working on Linux over the last few months and continue to use it as one of my two daily drivers, but the realities of corporate VPN policies and the fact that even Ubuntu is not supported by most common corporate VPN clients forced me to pick up a Mac. Being the type of guy that likes to go big or not at all, I went for the 15” MacBook Pro. Take a look:
Sure it’s not the absolute highest end Mac you can buy but it’s by no means a slouch. Here’s some thoughts after working with it for about two weeks.
The Good: The MacBook Pro has the best screen I’ve ever seen in any laptop in over a decade of being primarily a laptop user. The build quality is very good and the “Space Gray” gives it that “pro” feel I’ve found missing in Apple products for some time. While I’ve been pretty critical of the full-fledged (one might even say “courages” adoption of USB-C over USB3), I see the long-term value in having all your devices use a standard port for charging and data transfer, however, I question if Apple would be willing to have the iPhone adopt the standard as well in it’s next iteration.
The Bad: While the MacBook Pro feels premium in practice its performance doesn’t feel like the nearly $3,000 I paid for it. Knowing that it doesn’t run Kaby Lake may be part of my problem and certainly for that amount of money, I’d like to at least have the option of more than 16GB of RAM. Also, the price jump between storage configurations feels a lot like gouging. All in all, the worst part of this machine is the price tag and feeling that you have “SUCKER” painted on your forehead when you compare the price to the specs.
The Ugly: I’ve developed Mac apps and iOS apps for a long time and in the past I’ve be skeptical of Apple’s additions to both platforms. In most cases, I’ve been forced to at least concede that some users may like some features. This simply is not the case for the TouchBar. Try as I might to find a productive and interesting use for it over it’s classic function row predecessor, I’m left feeling like I am holding what in ten years will be a curiosity of Apple hardware design history that is unlikely to be widely adopted by developers let alone repeated in other product lines. I also can’t help but feel that the TouchBar is at least partially responsible for the hefty price tag.
Overall, the MacBook Pro is a fine tool and it does a job that I need done. If you’re looking to fall in love with a device, you’re in the wrong place. However, if you are like me and consider your machines tools to do work on (much a like a carpenter might look at a particular table saw or hammer), then you’re likely going to get some return on your investment and be happy in the end.
