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I got mine refurbished, so I'm not an original owner, but it's still serving me really well as a second computer. I would probably recommend anyone still using these to upgrade the SSD, though, because that gave mine a decent read/write speed boost.
 
I had the first G4 too. I miss f’n Phil Schiller. That guy was great. Federhigi (forget spelling) is great though and his antics in the last event made me legit LOL.
 
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Legendary machines, Steve Jobs's legacy at its greatest. My 2015 15" rMBP still lives on.

Just picked up a 16" M1 Pro MBP, and although it is head and shoulders above in many ways, there's a few things that leave me disappointed and wondering if I should return it.

The loud clacky keyboard was a shock, but am getting used to it.

The worst issue I've found so far is the poor audio quality, much to my surprise, after reading all the rave reviews. Yes, the bass is impressively deep, and yes the flat and wide frequency spectrum (according to the charts I've seen) is impressive. But the character of the sound is awful. It's ok for music, but when watching movies or tv, the spoken voice has a muffled, hollow, sound to it. I find it sucks at my energy, and I've actually been reaching for my 2015 rMBP to watch those, rather than the new one, even though my old one has some colour aberrations creeping into the old screen after 7 years.

The old Retina screen is not called Retina for nothing, it is fantastic, and although the new screen is definitely nicer, it's not enough to have any wow about it, the reviews have overcooked this big time. I haven't even noticed the promotion, even when switching back and forth between laptops. I don't know what people have been raving about with this.

The audio is a huge issue for me, as I use the external speakers daily, and.... I'm struggling to deal with them. I've installed Audio Hijack to see if I can mess about with the EQ and it has improved it somewhat by turning down the bass which cuts out a lot of the weird hollow muffled awkward audio, but it still doesn't sound as nice and relaxing as the my 2015 rMBP.

Damn. Wondering if I should take it back and wait and see if they really do put out a 15" MBA, and without the inauthentic muffled hollow bass. The 24MB RAM and M1 chip will do me just fine.
 
I bought an early 2013 model rMBP 15” for my then company and it’s still running today. I had used it up until 2020, when I then switched to an iPad Pro 12.9”, which had been my work travel device previously. It was miles ahead of PC laptops of the day - the fact that mine is still functioning a decade later is testament to the old adage of you get what you pay for.
 
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I got the 15 inch Retina when it first came out and it felt like the best computer in the world. Someone dropped it a few years ago and it stopped being able to charge, but I was blown away at the time with how huge the screen resolution was and how relatively fast it felt. I wish it still worked, I'd use it to play videos or something at least.
 
While you all are taking a trip down memory lane… and for nostalgia purposes… Apple has been at the forefront of their product lines, and the features they offer for a long, long, time…. Steve Jobs was a visionary… and often spearheading ideas and things that were way ahead of their time.

Just as an example - nearly 30 years ago (1993) the future iPhone was actually introduced. It took them 14 years for the time to catch up with the vision that Steve Jobs had… people often forget, Apple at its core was a visionary company before all else… they’ve still got it, but not as much as they once had. Who remembers this iconic device that went no where?
But it wasn’t a Steve Jobs product! It had a stylus, yuck.😉
 
oh boy. the good old days of upgradable and fixable Intel Mac Laptops.

Once your m1 system on a chip SSD wears out your computer turns into a worthless paper weight.

No matter how fast it renders a FCP file.
Only the Early 2013 rMBP, which had a standard SATA SSD. The Late 2013 and most subsequent rMBP revisions came with semi-proprietary (and much faster) PCIe SSDs. Nowadays third parties have developed adapters that let you use standard NVMe SSDs in those Macs, but there’s a lot of guesswork as to which drives actually work without random hangs and sleep-wake issues.

It’s certainly *more* upgradable than the current machines in that you can replace the drive at all (RAM was soldered on all rMBPs too), but not by much.

Speaking of which, my main memories of when the 15” rMBP came out were a) badly wanting one, and b) many people on the internet being livid about Apple dropping the DVD drive, FireWire port, and Ethernet jack, claiming Apple had abandoned the pro market. Time is a flat circle, etc, etc...
 
I didn't jump on the retina train until the 2018 with touch bar which I absolutely hated. Way too thin, annoying touch bar, bad keyboard, etc. The 14" has restored my faith in Apple and it's by far my favorite model. I have a 2012 non-retina 15" which I used up until I got the 2018. Got to keep a few OG Macs around with disc drives, firewire, etc. for when I want to tinker with vintage machines. Typing this on a 2006 core duo MBP I got for $60 actually lol.
 
I love my new 14-inch MBP, but I also loved my prior laptop, which is the one in this article. The machines are worth every penny, and the old one STILL works.
 
It was also the first MacBook Pro to feature flash storage, allowing for a thinner and lighter design.

No. It was not.

The original MacBook Air in 2008 had an SSD option, so did the 2008 MacBook Pro and onwards.

If we’re talking strictly the long custom flash storage cards, those stated in the MacBook Air 2010, with flash storage as the only option.

It *was* the first MacBook Pro to use only flash storage tho.
 
Apple has come a long way in form, function, and ability. I remember sporting a 13" 2012 MBP thinking I was on the tech edge and then this gets released. lol I really liked my 13" MBP.
didn't they get announced at the same time, assuming you mean the mid 2012 13" mbp?

I remember getting mine on day 1 and still have it in use.
 
10 years later and we are still at 8GB base ram ..
I remember thinking it was absurd at that time in 2012. It's even more absurd now to have a "Pro" offering with 8gb base. As a photographer with the typical photog workflow, my 16gb 2021 MBP 14 is always around 65 percent memory utilization.
 
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I too purchased this immediately. Retired it this year in favor of the 16" M1 Max, primarily because it wouldn't stay on without being plugged in and Apple doesn't service them anymore.

Got me through my senior year of high school, 4 years for design degree, and 4 years of my career and the start of my own studio.

Hoping for the same with the 16" Max. The first computer that I felt was a worthy upgrade. I skipped a whole generation of no MagSafe, Touch Bar and the whole butterfly keyboard situation.
 
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I too purchased this immediately. Retired it this year in favor of the 16" M1 Max, primarily because it wouldn't stay on without being plugged in and Apple doesn't service them anymore.

Got me through my senior year of high school, 4 years for design degree, and 4 years of my career and the start of my own studio.

Hoping for the same with the 16" Max. The first computer that I felt was a worthy upgrade. I skipped a whole generation of no MagSafe, Touch Bar and the whole butterfly keyboard situation.
Apple services all devices for battery swaps regardless if they are Vintage or Obsolete. The limiting factor is battery availability locally which might mean a week or so wait.
 
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