MacBook Pro 2017 - A bit of balance

[Shadow Puppets]

Since everybody always uses the phrase "You'll only hear about the negatives online", I thought I'd provide a bit of balance for what my experience has been like with my new MacBook Pro 2017 13" (maxed out).

I bought the machine on Friday (so I know it's early days) after months of reading about the issues and talking myself in and out of the purchase. I thought now would be a good time to buy to take advantage of Apple's extended returns period over Christmas (if any issues arise I have until January 8th to return it).

The Keyboard
No issues at all with mine out of the box. Typing is quick and accurate. No stuck keys. Decent travel. Not too loud. I'm aware that this could definitely be a "...yet" situation, so I'll be sure to report back if anything does crop up.

The Screen
No dead pixels. No banding. Very bright and crisp, and no obvious pink tints or anything. Very impressed by it actually.

The Trackpad
Yeah, it's big. But I spent 2 hours on Sunday typing scripts, followed by another couple of hours in Photoshop, and I didn't experience anything out of the ordinary. The palm rejection seems good.

The Touchbar
Took a bit of getting used to (mainly the volume and brightness) but now I can see where it will be useful. In Word or Mail for example, being able to format text straight from the Touch Bar. Or in Photoshop, being able to select some of my most used Tools. The only slight negative is that I find it gets quite warm... not hot, but quite warm when the computer is charging and/or doing something fairly intensive. Granted I am not someone who ever used the function keys, so I don't miss them, and can access them really easily if I ever do need them.

The Speakers
Are by far the best I've heard in a laptop this size... period.

The Battery Life
Seems OK so far. Not great.. not horrendous. I got about 7 hours out of it on Sunday with word processing, photoshop, Safari with a bunch of tabs open, and Spotify for most of that time.

Negatives
The only real negatives I've experienced so far are:

1) I can't plug the headphones from my iPhone 7+ into it (but that's more to do with Apple's stupid decision to remove the port from the phones and force lightning headphones on everyone)

2) The ports issue does seem a little stupid, but thankfully I don't really plug anything into my computers (other than headphones and chargers).

3) The charger that is supplied with the laptop is the ungrounded one (as I found out in another thread), so in some situations, when you are charging the laptop, you can feel a slight buzzing on the chassis. Requires a £19 grounded Apple cable to fix that. Thankfully it's not actually defective, as I previously worried, and that it's common on most MacBook Pros with those style chargers.

Summary
I know it's very early days (a grand total of about 10 hours of usage), but I'm impressed so far. I certainly haven't found any of the "big" issues affecting my unit (as things stand), and the build quality, speed and style are all excellent. Plus the Space Grey is lovely in person. Basically I just wanted to tell people who may be on the fence about buying one, that they're not as bad as Internet forums / Youtube comments will make you believe. In fact, they're really good. There's obviously been some teething problems with them, but dare I say (touch wood), maybe most of those have been ironed out by now?...

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Basically Apple continue to sell the 2015 version, MacBook Airs, Retina-MacBooks, and the 2017 Pro's. They're all Macs, and all good in their own light. If you want a 2015 then go for it, it's a great machine and clearly of use which is why they sell it. If you want the latest and fastest chips then get a 2017, again great computer. A lot of the complaints are subjective (Oversized trackpad, 'clicky' keys, 'The TouchBar...', etc.) and whilst there are some genuine issues with keys becoming stuck, this is largely overrated and bloated as people seem to want to hate it. I've not had any issues with mine for the last year, clean it a few times a month, that's it (Looking at the backlighting it's full of dust, looks like a little galaxy in there, so clearly 'a small amount of dust' is not sufficient to stick them.). I just wish people would buy a Mac and be happy instead of obsessing over criticising other peoples purchase, I don't understand peoples need to tell people that they have the wrong one, and the right one is the one they have... So yes there's a lot of negative, and if you listen you'd be pressed into thinking all these issues only started with the 2016 version. Yet this is a help/support forum which has existed for 20 years? Pretty sure people have been having 'issues' with Macs for a lot longer than the 2016+, regardless of what you'll hear (On that note I'd take a stuck key that resolves with some air over a failed GPU, delaminated display, swollen battery, or other critical things any day!).

Anyway enjoy your computer, but buy some proper headphones for a start (Come on, the EarPods suck ). And keep an eye out for USB-C cables to replace your old ones, makes life much better - I grabbed a 'refurbished' USB-C -> Lightning on Amazon for £5 last year, pretty sure it was just an open box return, but I wouldn't be spending the £30 on it Apple are wanting!

 

[Shadow Puppets]

Just an update, a week on.

Still no problems at all. Clocking in 40 hours of use so far.

 

[Calbretto]

Thanks for writing this post! I am currently in the market for a new MacBook Pro and am completely torn between the 2017 model and the 2015 model.

 

[Elise]

Thanks for this post OP as I was beginning to have some reservations.

 

[khollister]

New 15” mbp here as well. Love the screen, love losing 1/2 pound, love the space gray color, love the USB-C ports (4 multipurpose ports, can use the charger for iPads and iPhones with a cable swap), love the TouchID and the GPU makes a big difference in FCP. Sure, I would like 32GB of RAM, but 16 is ok for my purposes.

I use Lightroom, Luminar, Photoshop, FCP and the usual productivity sruff (Numbers, Pages, PDF Expert, Safari & Mail)..

I have the 3.1 i7 w 1 TB SSD.

 

[Lastgreen]

2 weeks into owning my 2017 256 gb ntb macbook pro.. no keyboard issues thus far

 

[Bapu]

Dear All, I have an problem in reinstalling OS in MacBook Pro. It is not booting from DVD Drive. And asking User ID password when I try to reinstall from Internet.

Kindly HELP
[doublepost=1514097276][/doublepost]Software to be installed is Install_OS_X_10.11.1_El_Capitan

 

[senttoschool]

Basically Apple continue to sell the 2015 version, MacBook Airs, Retina-MacBooks, and the 2017 Pro's. They're all Macs, and all good in their own light. If you want a 2015 then go for it, it's a great machine and clearly of use which is why they sell it.

You can no longer buy the 2015 version brand new.

It's not even that Apple still sells the 2015 Mac, which is essentially the same as the 2012 version. It's just that they spent the last 4 years of R&D and still somehow made a laptop that makes life harder. We shouldn't even be having this argument of whether the 2015 or 2017 version is better. It should be 2017.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

You can no longer buy the 2015 version brand new.

It's not even that Apple still sells the 2015 Mac, which is essentially the same as the 2012 version. It's just that they spent the last 4 years of R&D and still somehow made a laptop that makes life harder. We shouldn't even be having this argument of whether the 2015 or 2017 version is better. It should be 2017.

Still get the 15" 2015 model (Albeit without dGPU). Had the same situation in 2012+ when they continued to sell the older upgradable model alongside newer ones, which people would argue was better. Anyway arguing whether one is better than the other is partly subjective, the 2017 is 'better' in every regard with the exception largely being lack of physical dedicated ports, with the 2017 having more multi-functional ports. As it's a laptop that's supposed to be used on the go, using a docking station with the dedicated ports you need and having the functionality to use whatever port you need when you don't know what you need is largely seen as a benefit. And it gets really subjective when you talk about what ports it should or shouldn't have in that sense, should it be HDMI, DP, mDP, DVI or VGA? Or is it better to have a single port that can do any of those? Put it this way, if they just made it exactly the same as it was then surely we'd all be arguing about 'Innovation' and stuff again? Truth is you can't please everyone and you can't live in the past if you need to move forward, if you need all those ports and are fine with a slower computer then it's a discussion about upgrading for newness sake.

Anyway no problems with mine, can't say it's made life harder but hasn't made life easier. It is a computer after all, I expected it to be faster than my previous model which it is, it's lighter which is certainly a bonus, otherwise it doesn't have a built in coffee warmer which would definitely make my life easier.