Ask HN: Is the Touch Bar preventing you from buying the 13in MacBook Pro?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31994136

by amichail • 4 years ago

3 14 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

And if so, what alternatives are you looking at?

gtvwill• 4 years ago

No, Apples ethics towards e-waste, planned obsolescence in its designs and anti-workers rights behaviour in a corporate level tends to hang heavier on my decision to not buy a 13 inch MacBook Pro than the presence of a touchbar does.

Tbh didn't even know it had one.

idnfus• 4 years ago

What do you use for a laptop?

clintonwoo• 4 years ago

There's some beastly new laptops that recently came out, with Intel gen 12 and Nvidia 3000 series GPUs, the price is around 1300-1700 USD range. The power usage is higher than MacBook but if you use it plugged in for programming (and gaming) it's really the best thing for most people.

Reviews seem to say battery life ranges from 4 to 10 hours depending on the configuration. This gen is way thinner than previous also. Refresh rate is 120-300hz. Anyway I've not personally used it but I'll be trying them out in the store soon.

smoldesu• 4 years ago

Nope, ARM's the main limiting factor for me.

nicce• 4 years ago

I have had a chance to play alot with 16” M1 Max and it is a fine machine. But because of the ARM, it is not suitable for me. Emulation for x64 is not fast enough when compared to my old machine and ARM ecosystem is not complete enough. Need to wait a bit more.

muzani• 4 years ago

I thought they got rid of that. I bought a 14" 2022 and it doesn't have one.

It's not pleasant but not a dealbreaker either. Worse is workflow in the OS and the keyboard. I'd stick to Windows if possible but the M1 was too good to turn down.

runjake• 4 years ago

No, but it's definitely an anti-feature.

If I was back to last fall or whenever I bought this, knowing what I know now about the lack of need for the fan, I would have opted for the M1 MacBook Air, instead.

amichail• 4 years ago

Isn't a fan a good idea for software development even on an m1/m2?

altdataseller• 4 years ago

The unintuitive mousepad is preventing me. To this day, i still dont know how to left click.

kojeovo• 4 years ago

Tap to click >

However you have to explicitly enable. Best left click experience on a laptop IMO

approxim8ion• 4 years ago

It baffles me that tap to click is not on by default, even on many Linux DEs. Touchpads are pretty damn unusable for me without it.

al_borland• 4 years ago

The 13" MBP seems to only exist to fill in a gap in price points until they can get the 14" down in price. The fact that it kept the old body style tells us it's not going to stick around. That's what would prevent me from getting it. Plus, the 14" has MagSafe, HDMI, an SD card reader, a better keyboard, and a better screen.

I actually didn't mind the touchbar that much.

i_have_an_idea• 4 years ago

I think they have kept the Touch Bar in the 13", as well as the old design, for the small minority of people that like the Touch Bar and/or don't like the more squared look of the new laptops.

Otherwise, especially with the advent of the M2 Macbook Air, I don't see a logical reason why one would want to buy the 13" Pro laptop.

ozaiworld• 4 years ago

The M2 Air seems to have a considerably more comfortable design, which would be my main goal if I’m not buying a 14 or 16-inch Pro. Besides that, the Touch Bar has given me so much pain over the years. My 2018 Pro had parts of the Touch Bar OLED unit black out permanently even on a replacement model.

Ask HN: Is the Touch Bar preventing you from buying the 13in MacBook Pro?

Related Stories