Space Grey - Be honest?

[James Godfrey]

Hi

I have always like the look of the space grey MacBooks but never purchased one and also opted for silver due to fear of the edges of the device wearing away the colour and also around the ports and palm rests.

How durable would you say the space grey colour is? I am generally very careful if my devices, but have seen some photos of bad premature wear on anything other than silver online.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Apple fans are going to praise/defend Apple stuff. "Be honest" makes no difference. In fact, the question mark on the end is quite applicable.

Ask if base RAM is enough. Or the old Fusion Drive. Or Butterfly keyboard when Apple was pushing that. Or about phablet phones when Apple was clinging to 4" as "perfect" screen size. Etc.

You can't get much objectivity from a biased crowd... especially if you are asking them to assign fault.

You probably have your answer by seeing photos you've already found. Yes, those could be rare exceptions... but "we" will claim problems with butterfly or fusion, etc were also rare exceptions. Parroting Apple PR: "...affecting only a small number of users." That's great if you are not in the small number and not great if you are one of them. And if you are the latter and come back to post your very real issue, you'll likely be cast as the cause and/or anything else that can redirect any blame away from Apple.

My opinion: if you want a color but are afraid of one "burned in" put your new fundamental Silver MB in a case/skin. There are TONS of case/skin colors. And if any of them fade/fail you, it's easy to swap them for another. If something towards space gray is stirring your interest, here's quite a selection (but not even remotely close to all of them) in various shades of gray.

If the goal is darker, there are 3 options that go towards full black at Glitty. I'm quite a fan of their cases. But they are not the only ones either.

 

[bradman83]

I have a Space Grey MBP 14" going on 3 years old and it still looks great, no noticeable wear along the edges. Your mileage will vary, as the saying goes, but I don't have any durability concerns.

 

[someoneoutthere]

I have owned couple MacBooks in Space Gray. I haven't experienced any issues around the ports, palm rest or edges of my Macs. But we are all different. I am typically gentle and careful when it comes to handling my Mac and plugging things in/out. When I travel my Mac lives in a sleeve. I have never bothered getting a skin, keyboard cover, etc.
To address your fear, there are plenty of solutions online. You can get a skin that literally goes over and around your Mac, including the palm rest area. But then... the color of your new Mac would be insignificant since you'd only be seeing so little. I'd say give Space Gray a try!

 

[canuckRus]

Space Grey never a problem pour moi.

 

[GMShadow]

Rounded edges will show much less wear than the squared off ones on the older MacBooks. There's a *little* wear on my 2019 MBP16, but not excessive - I do tend to be careful around ports though.

Something like Midnight is going to show much more significant wear.

 

[Lioness~]

Space gray is much nicer then silver. But I really like my present Midnight a lot.
This far it’s the winner of all the colours. Though I liked Gold a lot too.
Not having any problems with fingerprints this far. So it seems like they succeeded with their improvements to this version.

 

[BigBlur]

I've had Space Gray since 2017 and Space Black for almost a year now. I don't have any durability concerns either. I guess some of the ports on my 2017 look a tiny bit worn if I get up super close to inspect them, but I consider that to be normal wear and tear which doesn't bother me (and doesn't affect re-sale/trade-in values in my experience). I'm careful with my devices, but I'm also not one that "baby" them or tries to keep them "flawless" and "pristine". They're meant to be used and enjoyed. You'll likely be getting a new one in a few years anyway.

I also say go for Space Gray (or Space Black) to give it a try and see how it works out for you. If it ends up wearing down more than you'd like, well then you know not to get it again and can stop wondering what it'd be like to have the Space Gray/Black color you've always wanted.

 

[chrfr]

I've seen some fairly significant fading of space gray over the years, and yes, it wears around the edges of ports and such. I do think silver wears better, and looks better to begin with.

 

[msackey]

Hi

I have always like the look of the space grey MacBooks but never purchased one and also opted for silver due to fear of the edges of the device wearing away the colour and also around the ports and palm rests.

How durable would you say the space grey colour is? I am generally very careful if my devices, but have seen some photos of bad premature wear on anything other than silver online.

Similar fear.

I am very careful with my products too, but I think after a couple of years, there will be some edge wear showing.

 

[TracerAnalog]

I don’t care about normal wear. It’s a tool. 🤷🏻‍♂️. Having said that: I hardly see any wear on my M1 MBP

 

[Victor Mortimer]

It's fine.

And by that I mean it's no worse than silver. I'm not terribly nice to my laptops, they get tossed around and dinged up. I don't think the space grey looks any worse than the silver, the scraped edges are visible on both.

The ports are fine, not really much wear there at all. Zero wear on the palm rests, but I rarely see palm rest wear post-TiBook, and when I do I always find myself wondering WTF the user had been doing. The only times I've seen it on the aluminum it's been users with... questionable personal care habits, or in an industrial environment.

 

[richinaus]

I don’t care about normal wear. It’s a tool. 🤷🏻‍♂️. Having said that: I hardly see any wear on my M1 MBP

I hammer my silver M1 MBP day in day out [it's a tool to do a job and does it very well], and the only wear I see is on the keyboard itself.

 

[Shirasaki]

You can't get much objectivity from a biased crowd... especially if you are asking them to assign fault.

This and the rest, very well said and echoes what I believe in Apple crowd. Somewhat scary tbh.
Put that aside, to OP, you can change your mindset on how to treat your MacBook so that scratches and wear outs don’t bother you as much, or use a skin, or use a case, or go crazier to coat your MacBook with some other material to protect the original colour. I choose to not bother much about how scratched my MacBook is, even though I always choose the silver option as I like silver more.

 

[nburwell]

All of the MB’s I’ve owned over the years have been space gray. I generally take very good care of my devices and my laptop is no exception. I have not experienced any issues with the color on either my MBP and MBA devices.

 

[ryanarrr]

I had the original 2015 12 inch MacBook in Space Grey. Dropped it on a concrete floor, caving in the corner of the case and totally destroying the display. Ruined the laptop, but IIRC there was no damage to the finish that would show the natural aluminum color through the anodization.

IOW: you can certainly break a laptop, but if you abuse it badly enough to scratch away the finish you probably will have worse problems with the laptop than the finish. Get the color you want.

 

[zorinlynx]

M1 Macbook Pro from 2021 user here. It travels with me from home to work every day and back and I use it constantly. No noticeable wear anywhere on the space grey finish.

That said, I do take reasonably good care of it.

 

[Saturn007]

Another space grey owner here. Had it for 4 years; used every day; and it look brand new — no port wear, no case wear, and so on — with one exception. I didn't baby it, didn't put a skin on it, schlepped it around, etc. and it still look good,

The exception? Two key caps showed wear and their backlight area became bigger and the letters this distorted. Looked terrible. But I had similar wear on a silver MBA and on white iBook — on that one, Apple replaced the detachable key top platform three times under AC!

As to aesthetics, I’ve always found space grey to be the professional look and choice. Classy. Upscale white collar office, if slightly boring after years and years of it. Silver always looks industrial to me. Commonplace. Unfinished. Not a big fan of those metallic kitchen appliances, either.

I now have the starlight MBA and it's marvelous, quite appealing — not garish, perhaps a bit silvery in certain lighting conditions, but a wonderful change from the space grey along with panache.

No wear on it at all, not even the keyboard.

I agree 💯% with Big Blur — try it and see how you like it!

 

[James Godfrey]

I have a space grey iPad mini and tbh it still looks flawless after over 12 months of use. I might give the space grey a shot and see how it fairs. I suppose I just need to get over this need for my Apple devices to look their best and focus on them as a tool.

 

[DeepSix]

These people who are scratching their MacBooks out of nowhere, this is why you don't throw it down the stairs. Stop taking a kitchen knife to it.

It's not that easy to be scratching them.

 

[throAU]

Hi

I have always like the look of the space grey MacBooks but never purchased one and also opted for silver due to fear of the edges of the device wearing away the colour and also around the ports and palm rests.

How durable would you say the space grey colour is? I am generally very careful if my devices, but have seen some photos of bad premature wear on anything other than silver online.

I have not had a space grey laptop but anecdotally my space grey s2 and s4 watches took a lot of knocks and they never showed bare aluminium underneath.

I think if you don't treat it like absolute trash it will be fine.

 

[icymountain]

I have had a several space gray laptops over the years. One of them was used daily for four years. It was a sharp edged MBP (2018 version). Both the sharp edges and port angles were a bit "polished" and had the light gray aluminium colour, but this was not ugly looking at all (actually I liked this).

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

No wear on my MBA M3, and very very little of it on my '16 MB m3.

 

[DeepSix]

Don't throw your Macbook down the stairs and you won't get scratches showing up on it.

 

[1BadManVan]

Don't throw your Macbook down the stairs and you won't get scratches showing up on it.

sounds boring...