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Comment by mypalmike

The keyboard/trackpad combination of the last decade of Macbooks (Air/Pro) were basically perfect. I like the OS, and I've never found a PC laptop to come remotely close to the sweet ergonomics of those Macbooks.

And then I got a 2017 Macbook Pro at my new job. Never mind that the keys are reported to stick (mine haven't yet), it just feels terrible. Virtually zero throw in the switch. And a personal pet peeve, they made the same mistake Microsoft did with their ergo keyboard for 1 sad iteration (before they fixed it in later models) - they changed the arrow keys from the standard upside-down T layout to a diamond layout. Those designers at Apple wanted symmetry so they made it happen. Too bad it kills the ergonomics.

But the trackpad is where it really goes downhill. It's physically huge for no good reason. Worse (and the reason I'm seriously looking to see if I can swap it for an older model), it routinely (like 20% of the time) mistakes 1- and 2-finger clicks for each other. I never know which it's going to do. I never experienced this at all with any of my older Macbook Pros and Macbook Airs. Good luck giving a presentation - you're awkwardly fumbling with context menus when you don't want them, etc... audience will think you've never used a computer before. And yes, I've disabled all the stupid gesture stuff because it was even worse before I did so.

The "only 2 USB C ports and a headphone jack" is the icing on the cake. I could live with it if it were the only issue, but it just annoys me that I need to bring a docking station with me to stay plugged in while presenting and using any usb peripheral. What's the benefit here - maybe 1/2 mm thinner?

parent mypalmike 8 years ago

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