Last week I ordered the 13" MacBook Pro (i5/16/512) on sale and AppleCare+ from Best Buy due to the positive reviews. My MacBook Pro is suppose to be delivered to my home in a few days. Lately I've been reading on issues on the 2020 MBP line. The issues are:
1. Loud fan noise
2. Gets hot too use
3. Short battery life
4. Rapid battery drain in sleep mode
5. Screen alignment issue that's off by a few pixels
6. USB 2.0 compatibility issues
Do you think that these issues can be remedied by software patches or that these issues are hardware related? I really don't want a premium laptop that's going to be unusable for a couple of months.
These issues that I mentioned are considered almost a buyers remorse for me and got me thinking to refuse delivery for the Macbook Pro and getting a refund for the Applecare +. I'm not sure if these issues are overexaggerated by MBP owners or anti-Apple people. This got me thinking to get a MS Surface Pro 7 or MS Surface Laptop 3.
I'm so confused! What's your advice in this situation?
NOTE: I have not updated my OS. It is still on the same 10.15.4 from when it first arrived. Don't think it makes a difference, but with Catalina being finnicky, I figured I should stick with the OS version that was on the machine when it passed out of testing prior to shipping.
1. No loud fan noise - the loudest my fans have been were when I was installing Parallels and Windows 10 after. I sometimes get a brief whirl of fan when my 4K monitor has been sleeping and I plug in the USB-C cable. It dies down quickly and I never hear it again.
2. Mine has never been hot to use. I purchased and returned 3 MBPs in 2018 that were literal hot plates that I could not touch. I know the difference.
3. If I'm simply browsing the web, doing some Office work, and listening to music, and have some other apps open in the background, and no external monitor, I consistently get 9-10+ hours of battery life. I get 5 hours if I am driving my external monitor with the lid open for a second screen, which means I am also working in more apps. I hardly use the second scenario now that I have a 4K monitor with USB-C. Another point to note is that it took over a week, but not quite 14 days for me to notice this stability. I've been working on my work laptop a lot lately, so nothing heavy on the MBP at this time. Looking at Activity Monitor at the moment and I've been on battery 1:36 and I'm at 95% Remaining charge, 9:55 Time remaining (of course, as long as I don't suddenly open Parallels and run some programs).
4. I have noticed this twice when I was letting it sleep overnight, but not rapid - maybe 8% down at the most when I come back in the morning. I meant to look into this, but I'm now in the habit of shutting my laptop down when I'm done for the day (I've left my battery charging overnight more than once, so I go through a ritual to develop a habit to make sure I don't forget).
5. No problem with this. I would have noticed something like that right away, but then I admired Catalina island for all of a day before putting up my own wallpapers.
6. This seems to be the biggest issue out of what you have listed and from a quick look on the thread discussing it, but I currently have no way to test since I'm not using a dock (besides the monitor). My connections are direct to the TB ports, so technically I'm not affected by this.
You need to determine based on how you will use your MBP if any of these issues will warrant a return. Also, I would have waited to add AC+ until I knew I was keeping the machine, but that's just me. If you are returning the machine, getting the refund on AC+ shouldn't be a problem.
If you aren't comfortable, you can always return and simply repurchase later. There are a lot of changes coming that should be revealed at WWDC, so who knows, you may find another reason to return the MBP.
