As someone who bought a mid-2018 with the escape key on the touchbar, then watched the next model have it's own key, then watched all these ports get added back... I'm extremely frustrated to say the least. Trade in is valued at $840. If I had known either of these two updates would have gone "backwards" like this, I would have waited to purchase
We have a lot of people at work with 2015 models - and they are SUPER happy. I have the 2018 model with i7 and I can't really see any difference in performance. I love the display, but mostly I use a 27 inch high DPI external screen along with an Apple magic keyboard.
One thing I strongly dislike about the i7 is how hot it can get with long compiles and such. So I think it's time to upgrade to the M1 Pro or Max.
Got the same life out of mine, although the battery swelled up this year. :-/
Didn't bother to look into the cost of replacement as my initial research indicated that they'd want/need to replace the keyboard and upper chassis as well, so probably a $600+ repair. So I opted for a company laptop instead.
Team 2015 MacBook Pro here. This thing still works so very well and only turns into a pavement grinder when it comes to the fan sound when I play Civ6.
Yep. I have a Mac mini, a 13 inch MBPR an 11 inch Air all from around 2013 and they just dropped off the MacOS update path in the last few months. All are more than adequate for general office work including software dev.
Having had to send in my early-2015 for repairs after accidental liquid damage, my next purchase will be a Framework. Mac repair costs are insane, I would have tried the repairs myself (thank $DIETY for YouTube repair videos), but it was going to be a multi-hour-process fraught with risk, so I sort-of get why Mac repairs are costly.
Since I had no AppleCare as I chose to "self-insure" (it's a 6-year old laptop), and the Apple Genius helpfully informed me the repair costs were the same as the price of a brand new Apple laptop (what a coincidence!), a 3rd party handled my repairs, and it was still pricey. I'm comfortable with DIY repairs, so I see Framework laptop when I decide my Mac bites the dust, or needs more costly repairs.
The Framework laptop is a good choice—I'm typing this reply from one.
My least-favorite thing about the older MacBook Pro I migrated from was that (even when it was covered by AppleCare+) both times its battery failed I needed to wipe its SSD, hand it over to Apple for a week, and then restore it from a backup when it was returned.
If my Framework's battery ever fails I can order a replacement for $59 and replace it myself in minutes.
I see a lot to salivate over in the new MBP. But as long as I can avoid it, or until batteries become radically more reliable, I'll never again rely on a main laptop without a user-replaceable battery.
I'm mostly happy with the trackpad. I don't think it uses a haptic click like the MBP's trackpad, for whatever that's worth.
My one complaint about the trackpad, in comparison to the MacBook Pro's, is that while both support using two fingers to right-click, I have to be a bit more conscious about spacing my fingers slightly apart on the Framework laptop's trackpad (in Windows, if that matters) to register the right click, compared to on the MacBook Pro.
The build quality of the Framework isn't totally on par with the solid aluminum chassis of the MBP, but it's totally fine for me. The Framework's fan sounds less annoying, probably on account of the wide airflow through the bottom of the case.
The Framework is much faster than my old Intel MBP, but not quite as fast as an M1 MBP would be. The battery life is middling (but fine for my purposes). Overall I'm very happy with my choice after a few weeks.
Both times that the battery swelled up previously, the laptop was still under warranty. Apple wasn't going to hand me a new battery to install myself; I had no choice but to let them install it if I were to have it covered.
Now the laptop is out of warranty. If it were to fail now, I could in theory buy a battery replacement kit from iFixit, and muck around with adhesive removers and many delicate parts and hope I don't break anything else in the hours-long process: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Function+Ke...
That's a fairly user-hostile situation, though. There's a reason Apple doesn't advertise the battery as user-serviceable, in contrast to some other manufacturers.
> Your machine has excellent resale value, because it's a Mac.
If the laptop is from Apple's garbage era of 2016-2019 who would pay good money for it? Macs don't unconditionally have excellent resale value, the resale value depends on the quality of the item.
A lot of people will pay very well for those machines. I hear that you think otherwise, but that's because you haven't actually bothered to check. I agree with you that the 2016-19 machines are inferior, though.
Same here. I bought the mid-2018 for $3.5k (full spec). It had battery issues and now I think it's mostly just junk especially that it's quite slow with the new macOS.
It depends. Sometimes macOS upgrades are worth it for new features.
For me personally, I installed Big Sur for the ability to use Stereo HomePods as an AirPlay output (previously you could only choose one, but not both in stereo).
It made my movie/tv/video watching experience so much better that it's worth the downside of slightly lowered performance.
That said, because macOS is not a fully sandboxed system like iOS, it's probably worth doing an erase install every 3-4 years, especially if performance has dropped noticeably. I did this with the 11.4 mid-cycle update earlier this year and it was helpful on my 2014 machine.
