Apple No More?
My trusty Macbook Pro is 8 years old. A bit like the Argo it is arguable if that's entirely true, since the memory has been increased and the HDD has been replaced by an SSD (if you haven't done this I can't emphasis enough how worthwhile an upgrade it is).
But the fact remains that it's elderly and things like running an android emulator are getting too much for it.
I've been putting off buying a new machine as long as possible though. Gone are the days when I used to lust after the latest model. Apple seem to be deliberately making their machines less appealing to me.
This may be age creeping up on me and an accompanying lack of desire to experience new things, but I don't think so (at least, not in this case). Soldered memory and soldered SSD? Memory I can just about cope with; to be honest I don't find a need to use more than 8GB for anything these days. But I get all itchy at the thought of internal storage you can't replace or upgrade. Add to that a keyboard that seems flaky at best, and cannot be fixed without replacing the entire machine!? And then add to that the fact that an equivalent spec (disk size, screen size and RAM) as my current machine costs £2,700. And the endless dongles!
It's difficult to justify. Yet I do admit to being a snob with respect to laptop build quality and user experience. And Windows 10 is so unlovely.
But then Apple brought out (finally) a new Mac Mini and I calculated I could get a good laptop AND a mini AND still have change out of the price one Macbook pro would cost. Put like that I get redundancy and the chance to do my small bit to try and tell Apple they're going in the wrong direction.
What laptop to get though? The Dell XPS was one option I seriously considered -- good reviews, expensive but not Macbook-level expensive and a screen lots of people seemed to love. But I finally chose the Huawei Matebook Pro.
And I mostly really really like it.
The keyboard is shallow but gives a really satisfying sensation of key actuation. It's a surgeon's scalpel of an instrument.
The screen is touch (who cares about that) and glossy (which bafflingly seems unavoidable these days) but the dimensions (almost 4x3 ratio) are suited to text and the resolution has made every other screen I use seem blurry and imprecise. It's bright and sharp and the colours are great. It's also "infinity" or bezel-less (almost) and so is not much smaller than my old 15 incher despite being physically nearer in size to a 13 inch laptop.
After a bit of linux distro experimentation I run Linux Mint on it and it looks at works perfectly.
It's really quick. Apps load instantly, and Android development is so so much quicker.
It's light. Barely-there light after my 2010 macbook pro.
But the fact remains that it's elderly and things like running an android emulator are getting too much for it.
I've been putting off buying a new machine as long as possible though. Gone are the days when I used to lust after the latest model. Apple seem to be deliberately making their machines less appealing to me.
This may be age creeping up on me and an accompanying lack of desire to experience new things, but I don't think so (at least, not in this case). Soldered memory and soldered SSD? Memory I can just about cope with; to be honest I don't find a need to use more than 8GB for anything these days. But I get all itchy at the thought of internal storage you can't replace or upgrade. Add to that a keyboard that seems flaky at best, and cannot be fixed without replacing the entire machine!? And then add to that the fact that an equivalent spec (disk size, screen size and RAM) as my current machine costs £2,700. And the endless dongles!
It's difficult to justify. Yet I do admit to being a snob with respect to laptop build quality and user experience. And Windows 10 is so unlovely.
But then Apple brought out (finally) a new Mac Mini and I calculated I could get a good laptop AND a mini AND still have change out of the price one Macbook pro would cost. Put like that I get redundancy and the chance to do my small bit to try and tell Apple they're going in the wrong direction.
What laptop to get though? The Dell XPS was one option I seriously considered -- good reviews, expensive but not Macbook-level expensive and a screen lots of people seemed to love. But I finally chose the Huawei Matebook Pro.
And I mostly really really like it.
The good
It's nicely put together. It has that apple level of attention to detail at the design level that just feels nice.The keyboard is shallow but gives a really satisfying sensation of key actuation. It's a surgeon's scalpel of an instrument.
The screen is touch (who cares about that) and glossy (which bafflingly seems unavoidable these days) but the dimensions (almost 4x3 ratio) are suited to text and the resolution has made every other screen I use seem blurry and imprecise. It's bright and sharp and the colours are great. It's also "infinity" or bezel-less (almost) and so is not much smaller than my old 15 incher despite being physically nearer in size to a 13 inch laptop.
After a bit of linux distro experimentation I run Linux Mint on it and it looks at works perfectly.
It's really quick. Apps load instantly, and Android development is so so much quicker.
It's light. Barely-there light after my 2010 macbook pro.
The bad
That camera. Nostril cam doesn't even cover it. Budget for a decent webcam if you plan on doing any videoconferencing.
Videoconferencing also causes the fans to fire up, they're noisy and make the built-in mic basically unusable.
The trackpad isn't bad, but it's just not as good as apple's one. Nobody's is, but that doesn't stop me missing it a little. However, once you learn the quirks and how to use it it's ok. Interestingly I notice that it's the software that matters since an apple bluetooth touchpad is just the same experience on the Huawei.
Comments
Post a Comment