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Am I the only one who loves the "old" MBP?
- Thread starter laudern
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1) Correct me if I am wrong but I heard that apple now begins to install SSDs with PROPRIETARY SSD-connections.
For what reasons others than to bloc every attempt of the OWNER of this overpriced hardware to buy 3rd party products and the RAM is still glued like the batteries are since a while??? Imagine: GLUED-in batteries! ridiculous!
2) Apple seems to invest more R&D in preventing customers to use their property as they want than in helping their customers to use their machines the best and free style possible.
3) Once apple had good design - now they search just useless stylistic gimmicks like "another Millimeter less thick" sacrificing nearly every option of connecting external equipment without buying a million of highly-overpriced adapters.
They are not even included for their high-priced products.
4) For every Millimeter less "Thickness" you are obliged to carry huge and expensive adapters with you. That´s their way to "more comfortable and effective usage"? I´d prefer less "Thinness" and instead have bigger batteries in the "old" form factor - which could even stay so with all connections.
At least for security reasons but also for performance reasons I prefer to branch sometimes a ethernet-cable.
5) The Ivy-fetishism of "Less thick" is getting more and more ridiculous and ignores more and more the desires of being the most productive in using their products. See for the MB 12" which in fact is less performing than some old MBAs...
6) Apple is going the wrong way. In fact they started already in 2010/11/12 in NOT following the international standard and NOT implementing USB 3.0 but resting with the 12 times less rapid USB 2.0. Is that "innovative"?
Instead they tried together with Intel to force their customers to use the highly-overpriced TB-gimmick (at least 50 USd for a TB cable!) .
Their customers made learn them the hard way that this reckless form of making money does not work. So they had to
go with USB 3.0 - as the last company on earth… every most basic PC had it already since years.
But they did not learn their lesson. Now they do even more silly things (see above). And they do it even with their MacPros since 2013.
7) The product quality of apple is going down since years.
Used IBM, Toshiba and Panasonic Pro-line Notebooks since the 90´s.
NEVER had issues with keyboard failure or charging devices or included cables.
Just besides of me there are 3 (!!!) chargers that have now defective dc-cables. There are hundreds of Youtube videos how to repair these GLUED overpriced chargers. The bad design of the DC-part cable is ridiculous and they make a lot of money by NOT making it exchangeable. This costs not only a lot of money for the customers, it means also pollution the environment and waste of resources.
Apple is the only enterprise on earth being incapable of producing cables that fit for normal or professional use. Third-party Cables and ALL cables of competitors are LIGHTYEARS above in quality. Apple just does not care about their customers as long as they are like lemmings and spend a lot of money in buying well-produced 3rd party cables or even just again the ridiculous cables with apple logo for 2-3 times the price an 1/3 of product-quality.
Same for cables for IOS-Equipment.
For a long time I used a Nokia-Smartphone (YES, it was NOT apple in 2007, it was NOKIA in 1997 that developed the smartphone with their revolutionary Communicator-series! != years before apple!) I NEVER EVER had problem with their chargers or cable for more than 10 years of use.
The communicator NEVER failed. No apple-like bugs with their OS either.
There is a saying in Europe: "Arrogance comes before the big falling"
Perhaps soon apple will try to sell tickets to get in their temples of glittery lifestyle-products?
I would not be astonished at all about that… and I am sadly shire that a millions of lemmings will praise that instead of criticize it…
The competitors are approaching fast and their products are well-designed ( look at the Dell XP13, surface, samsung for ultra books) - if apple does not turn the right way (playing with instead of playing against their customers) and look for the REAL needs of their customers they will lose at long term.
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Just wait till it goes on sale. I bought my 2012 13" MBP at BestBuy last July when BestBuy had their Cyber Monday sale. It was $799 and then I used my rewards certificates so I paid just over $750 for it.
I upgraded the ram to 16GB. I still have the original 500GB drive in it but I just use it for internet anyways and the occasional CD/DVD burning.
I should also mention that I bought the 2015 15" $2499 MBP two months earlier.
No, you are not the only one. I still like our 2011 13" and 2012 15" MBPs. They still work, get the job done, and have taken upgrades very (hardware and software) very well. But just because I like them does not mean I dislike the new MBPs. There are things about them that I look forward to if and when out present ones start failing.
Having had both a 15" cMBP and a rMBP, I'd still prefer the rMBP. Upgradebility is nice, but definitely prefer the new form factor. I was also skeptical of the soldered RAM, glued batteries, etc; but I've found it simply doesn't matter. I DID notice the significant reduction in weight, speed, screen and form factor. After 2 years I've never felt remorse and said "man I wish it was upgradable". The rMBPs also come with decent starting specs to begin with, which makes upgrading less necessary. The old cMBPs came with 4GB and a 500GB HDD. If my old 2012 15" cMBP came with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD to begin with, I probably would have never bothered removing the back panel to upgrade it.
While there are legit advantages to the cMBPs, I think a significant part of it is fear of change. I have several friends and family members complaining about the gradual disappearance of CD drives in laptops, but when I ask them how much they actually use it they say "almost never" yet they complain about the weight of their current laptops.
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As someone with a 2010 15" mbp, who upgraded from 4gb/320gb HD to 8gb/256gb SSD + 500gb HD, I understand the benefits of upgradability. So, when I got a rmbp, I maxed out the ram. More expensive than upgrading over time, but I'm futureproof for a while.
The 2012 cMBP 13" is the sweet spot for me. I have owned most models of MBP except for the retinas over the years. The retina screen is absolutely beautiful but it does come at a substantial cost. Before my current 2012 13" I had a 2014 MacBook Air 13". I loved the thin design and incredible battery life but to be honest I used it 90% of the time attached to my 27" Thunderbolt Display. I was stuck at a 128GB SSD which meant external drives attached via a Thunderbolt dock. However, once I left the comfort of the TB display those external devices were then inaccessible.
I sold the MBA13 and picked up a used cMBP13 2012 i7 2.9GHz at half the price I sold the Air for. I then added a pair of Samsung 850EVO 500GB (replaced the DVD with caddy) so I have 1TB of fast SSD storage even when I am not attached to the TB display. Battery life is half of the Air but I rarely use it outside the home so this is not at all an issue for me. I picked up a 16GB RAM kit for $90 and maxed out the RAM. More than I need but it was cheap. I still have USB 3.0 (very important for external device speed) and TB for my TB display.
As far as SSD speed goes, yes the PCIe is a faster interface and can achieve very high sustained transfer rates by removing the SATA bottle neck. However, what most people forget is that sustained transfers are the minority of SSD access. Most of the perceived speed of the SSD is in transferring small amounts of data and which do not exceed SATA so in actual perceived performance there really is not much difference between PCIe and SATA for most day to day operations.
That leaves the graphics. The HD4000 is capable enough for everything I do. For gaming I don't need any graphics processing at all since I stream Steam from my PC gaming machine. This gives me all of the graphics power I need and also access to the larger PC gaming library. Works great on the 27" display.
Everyone's needs are different but, for me, this is definitely the most cost effective in terms of performance and upgradability
I sold the MBA13 and picked up a used cMBP13 2012 i7 2.9GHz at half the price I sold the Air for. I then added a pair of Samsung 850EVO 500GB (replaced the DVD with caddy) so I have 1TB of fast SSD storage even when I am not attached to the TB display. Battery life is half of the Air but I rarely use it outside the home so this is not at all an issue for me. I picked up a 16GB RAM kit for $90 and maxed out the RAM. More than I need but it was cheap. I still have USB 3.0 (very important for external device speed) and TB for my TB display.
As far as SSD speed goes, yes the PCIe is a faster interface and can achieve very high sustained transfer rates by removing the SATA bottle neck. However, what most people forget is that sustained transfers are the minority of SSD access. Most of the perceived speed of the SSD is in transferring small amounts of data and which do not exceed SATA so in actual perceived performance there really is not much difference between PCIe and SATA for most day to day operations.
That leaves the graphics. The HD4000 is capable enough for everything I do. For gaming I don't need any graphics processing at all since I stream Steam from my PC gaming machine. This gives me all of the graphics power I need and also access to the larger PC gaming library. Works great on the 27" display.
Everyone's needs are different but, for me, this is definitely the most cost effective in terms of performance and upgradability
While there are legit advantages to the cMBPs, I think a significant part of it is fear of change. I have several friends and family members complaining about the gradual disappearance of CD drives in laptops, but when I ask them how much they actually use it they say "almost never" yet they complain about the weight of their current laptops.[/QUOTE]
Fear of change is definitely not a factor in my case, as most all of my employees have retinas. Looking at their retinas (since I usually help with problems some may have with their computers and bloat or quirks) can't say that the retina screen really makes a ground shattering experience of a difference. What I do notice is UI lag in almost all of them. However the reverse is true when they look at my late 17" MBP 2.5ghz with two SSD's - 1.5T , how they are all surprised at how fast it is (after they usually make fun at the old timer with *antique* mac). The connectivity is a big factor for me as well as self reliance in repairability and upgradeability ( and screen work space on a 17")- much faster than my having to deal with Apple geniuses. I also do not believe in waste, and know that a retina after 5 years will be useless to anyone as repairs will not be a viable option (hardware failures or accidents). As far as portability, my MBP is a desktop replacement so no issue there. Portability wise a macbook air seems more logical than a MBP.
Finally the trade off for *thin* is too extreme IMO.
Fear of change is definitely not a factor in my case, as most all of my employees have retinas. Looking at their retinas (since I usually help with problems some may have with their computers and bloat or quirks) can't say that the retina screen really makes a ground shattering experience of a difference. What I do notice is UI lag in almost all of them. However the reverse is true when they look at my late 17" MBP 2.5ghz with two SSD's - 1.5T , how they are all surprised at how fast it is (after they usually make fun at the old timer with *antique* mac). The connectivity is a big factor for me as well as self reliance in repairability and upgradeability ( and screen work space on a 17")- much faster than my having to deal with Apple geniuses. I also do not believe in waste, and know that a retina after 5 years will be useless to anyone as repairs will not be a viable option (hardware failures or accidents). As far as portability, my MBP is a desktop replacement so no issue there. Portability wise a macbook air seems more logical than a MBP.
Finally the trade off for *thin* is too extreme IMO.
I want a FAT Powerful MBP bigger than 15" with all the bells and whistles and a decent GPU, not a thin, non-upgradeable, expensive, weak MBP that will last 2 years at best before its obsolete.
My 2011 17" despite the GPU issues is still going strong, but since then Apple haven't persuaded me to upgrade although I want to!
I have started looking at Powerful Windows laptops but I don't wanna go back to Windows
I also dont want to go the Hackintosh route, too much hassle.
My 2011 17" despite the GPU issues is still going strong, but since then Apple haven't persuaded me to upgrade although I want to!
I have started looking at Powerful Windows laptops but I don't wanna go back to Windows
I also dont want to go the Hackintosh route, too much hassle.
This! I bought my early 2014 MacBook Air since it was cheaper than getting the Pro with the optical drive, but if I had the funds to burn-- I'd rather have bought a pro with an optical drive since I still enjoy using the computer to watch DVDs. It's annoying to have to pull out my optical drive every time I want to watch something. I decided to up the SSD capacity when I ordered my MacBook Air since I've had nothing but *headaches* with external hard drives-- getting busted by accident, becoming "read only" for no obvious reason, etc.. I do have an external hard drive for a backup, but would rather be able to carry the files I want with me rather than saving them on another device I *have* to carry with me everywhere I go. I also ordered my MacBook Air when I realized their next design model came without the USB ports that I use all the time! I don't want to spend my money on something that will ultimately make everything else I own obsolete-- forcing me to spend even more. The main reason I started buying Apple laptops vs competitors is because I repeatedly ended up replacing my Windows laptops every two years due to crashes that were more expensive to fix than replacing the laptops themselves!
My 13 cMBP feels so slow
Give it 16GB RAM and a SSD and it will feel very fast.
What would be "faster"? My 13cMBP or MBA? Ah damn. I can't upgrade the RAM in my Air:/
Should I keep hold of my cMBP for years to come?
I miss my late 2008 15" unibody.. it was a proper laptop. 2.4Ghz Penryn with 4Gb and an SSD was gud enough for me, I'm a geek and Musician, and it ran Garageband and Logic well enough, but it died at xmas,.
since then i have bought three 15" retina Macbook Pros', all from seperate UK businesses on a famous auction site, and each one i had to return, as they all had faults. I'm done with retina MBPs.. it seems my luck was out, i had one arrive every week since xmas, the Lady at the Post Office thinks i'm dealing laptops, not returning faulty retina 15"...
For me, these rMBP are too thin and light, I'm a big Guy and i find myself in all kinds of situations where durable, pro quality gear is a must, and particularly recording studios, and i don't get this seemingly pathological almost 'supermodel' like obsession with thinness ? if it's a tool, i would choose the most physically durable and solid tool i had, not some light bit of stuff out of a xmas cracker, a thin sheet of metal will easily bend and may not be as durable as even a (high quality) pro quality plastic one, so lets have a bit thicker metal please ? i have Professional Motorola 2 way radio equipment that is Mil spec and super robust, and i want a laptop to be solid too, i want a sturdy, thick and solid laptop that wont let me down, so why is thinner better ? were there ever problems carrying a laptop ? was anyone too small or weak to carry one ? were the cMBP too heavy ?
no. Elves do not buy laptops.
In the 1990's (yes, i'm old) laptops were only slightly smaller than a small video recorder, we called them 'luggables', and they were quite popular, people carried the thimngs around everywhere, i still have one today, and it still works.
People are maybe getting confused between mobile phones, tablets and laptops.. they're 3 different things, one is a telephone, one is a computer and the tablet, well, they're just consumption devices. but I write, play and record and produce music, sometimes with bands, i learn code, geeky security and privacy and experiment with operating systems too, and i want, well need, something that will last, not something that's main claim is just that it's thin. i hate that.
I like the retina's i7 .. it's a nippy machine, but the retina's keyboard seems lighter, shallower (and cheaper) than the earlier cMBP.. and where's the IR ? i use the infra red remote almost daily, on all my Macs, these things are the very essence of what actually made a 'Macbook Pro' what it is, but that now seems to be gradually dwindling away, as they attempt to redefine what a MBP actually *is* .. i mean, yes, it's their product, and it's theirs to change at will, but make the changes logical, it's ridiculous to make something physically thinner (cheaper) and expect it to be just as resilient. You cant always have your cake and eat it.. especially in physical engineering, heavier build lasts longer, feels better, and probably allows more inside. it's hardly rocket science,
Some design 'losses' do make sense i think, i personally hate optical media, CD/DVDs are not what they were originally promoted to be (near indestructable) .. i'm a musician, so i was glad to see the back of them, sure for some of us it's a pain to 'burn' an ISO to a USB, but an external USB DVD is no problem for me, so full marks on ditching that one. it was flaky tech to begin with, and it just took up space, added moving parts, complexity and even attracts dust and generates noise, heat too perhaps, and it depletes battery life, for me, i won't miss CD/DVDs.
I rarely used the LED battery charge indicator button on the side of the cMBP, but i was glad it was there, same thing with the sleep LED, but was it such an anachronism that Apple decided LEDs were old tech, or minimalism gone too far ?
I think it's just fashion, the removing of features in hardware (and i OS interface design across the board it seems) seems to be 'style over content' and "art for art's sake" - an example of design or minimalism gone too far, and running unchecked, if you've already got a good design, fine tune it.
I'm no Apple fanboi, but I respect good engineering and that's why i'm typing this on an iMac, cheap and nasty, plastic computer hardware drove me here, but bad or engineering down to a price may drive me away, I don't pretend to know how Apple Inc. works, but i do know that popularism is where the plastic computer makers belong, and Apple marching that way too, is a sad day for us that want quality computers, because if Macbook Pros' and iMacs turn into yet more dumb plastic generics, Apple will too, and become another mobile telephone company, albeit a (apparent) high teir one, and the rest of us will all have to go shopping elsewhere, and i really don't want to either be forced backwards or to 'make do' and 'do without' - the choices will dwindle. I don't want a iPhone, IOS or anything like that, I'm a computer Guy, i have been since the 1980s and i know the difference, and i need choice, forcing us all into one strait jacket is in direct contradiction to the famous Apple 1984 advert, and it seems the irony is lost on Apple at the moment.
My friend has a Windows laptop, it's an i7 CPU, all metal unibody design, backit keyboard, and has many of the things that attracted me to the Macbook Pro.. it's not as nice, some of the details and nice touches are missing, and as i have been using Linux since 1997 it would not be too unthinkable for me to jump back there, but my music/computer stuff would finish, as it's mostly imposible on Linux, so i would miss OS X as a platform.
Maybe the Asus, Dell (or whoever it is) of the world may eventually make a proper iMac or Macbook Pro alternative, or maybe i'll have to just keep buying solid built 'old' cMBP ....
since then i have bought three 15" retina Macbook Pros', all from seperate UK businesses on a famous auction site, and each one i had to return, as they all had faults. I'm done with retina MBPs.. it seems my luck was out, i had one arrive every week since xmas, the Lady at the Post Office thinks i'm dealing laptops, not returning faulty retina 15"...
For me, these rMBP are too thin and light, I'm a big Guy and i find myself in all kinds of situations where durable, pro quality gear is a must, and particularly recording studios, and i don't get this seemingly pathological almost 'supermodel' like obsession with thinness ? if it's a tool, i would choose the most physically durable and solid tool i had, not some light bit of stuff out of a xmas cracker, a thin sheet of metal will easily bend and may not be as durable as even a (high quality) pro quality plastic one, so lets have a bit thicker metal please ? i have Professional Motorola 2 way radio equipment that is Mil spec and super robust, and i want a laptop to be solid too, i want a sturdy, thick and solid laptop that wont let me down, so why is thinner better ? were there ever problems carrying a laptop ? was anyone too small or weak to carry one ? were the cMBP too heavy ?
no. Elves do not buy laptops.
In the 1990's (yes, i'm old) laptops were only slightly smaller than a small video recorder, we called them 'luggables', and they were quite popular, people carried the thimngs around everywhere, i still have one today, and it still works.
People are maybe getting confused between mobile phones, tablets and laptops.. they're 3 different things, one is a telephone, one is a computer and the tablet, well, they're just consumption devices. but I write, play and record and produce music, sometimes with bands, i learn code, geeky security and privacy and experiment with operating systems too, and i want, well need, something that will last, not something that's main claim is just that it's thin. i hate that.
I like the retina's i7 .. it's a nippy machine, but the retina's keyboard seems lighter, shallower (and cheaper) than the earlier cMBP.. and where's the IR ? i use the infra red remote almost daily, on all my Macs, these things are the very essence of what actually made a 'Macbook Pro' what it is, but that now seems to be gradually dwindling away, as they attempt to redefine what a MBP actually *is* .. i mean, yes, it's their product, and it's theirs to change at will, but make the changes logical, it's ridiculous to make something physically thinner (cheaper) and expect it to be just as resilient. You cant always have your cake and eat it.. especially in physical engineering, heavier build lasts longer, feels better, and probably allows more inside. it's hardly rocket science,
Some design 'losses' do make sense i think, i personally hate optical media, CD/DVDs are not what they were originally promoted to be (near indestructable) .. i'm a musician, so i was glad to see the back of them, sure for some of us it's a pain to 'burn' an ISO to a USB, but an external USB DVD is no problem for me, so full marks on ditching that one. it was flaky tech to begin with, and it just took up space, added moving parts, complexity and even attracts dust and generates noise, heat too perhaps, and it depletes battery life, for me, i won't miss CD/DVDs.
I rarely used the LED battery charge indicator button on the side of the cMBP, but i was glad it was there, same thing with the sleep LED, but was it such an anachronism that Apple decided LEDs were old tech, or minimalism gone too far ?
I think it's just fashion, the removing of features in hardware (and i OS interface design across the board it seems) seems to be 'style over content' and "art for art's sake" - an example of design or minimalism gone too far, and running unchecked, if you've already got a good design, fine tune it.
I'm no Apple fanboi, but I respect good engineering and that's why i'm typing this on an iMac, cheap and nasty, plastic computer hardware drove me here, but bad or engineering down to a price may drive me away, I don't pretend to know how Apple Inc. works, but i do know that popularism is where the plastic computer makers belong, and Apple marching that way too, is a sad day for us that want quality computers, because if Macbook Pros' and iMacs turn into yet more dumb plastic generics, Apple will too, and become another mobile telephone company, albeit a (apparent) high teir one, and the rest of us will all have to go shopping elsewhere, and i really don't want to either be forced backwards or to 'make do' and 'do without' - the choices will dwindle. I don't want a iPhone, IOS or anything like that, I'm a computer Guy, i have been since the 1980s and i know the difference, and i need choice, forcing us all into one strait jacket is in direct contradiction to the famous Apple 1984 advert, and it seems the irony is lost on Apple at the moment.
My friend has a Windows laptop, it's an i7 CPU, all metal unibody design, backit keyboard, and has many of the things that attracted me to the Macbook Pro.. it's not as nice, some of the details and nice touches are missing, and as i have been using Linux since 1997 it would not be too unthinkable for me to jump back there, but my music/computer stuff would finish, as it's mostly imposible on Linux, so i would miss OS X as a platform.
Maybe the Asus, Dell (or whoever it is) of the world may eventually make a proper iMac or Macbook Pro alternative, or maybe i'll have to just keep buying solid built 'old' cMBP ....
You're headed for a rude awakening, my friend. The entire industry, not just Apple, is moving toward thin, light, powerful mobile devices. Tablets and phones are no longer just tablets and phones. The kids coming up through school now are doing EVERYTHING, including typing up papers, on mobile touch devices. They think of laptops and desktops as legacy systems.
I love full blown computers and am resistant to this change as well, but it's happening with or without us old school computer users. After a couple more software updates to a handful of apps in my regular workflow, even I will have serious trouble justifying owning a full blown Mac other than that it has a keyboard and mouse.
But laptops aren't the priority anymore for most companies that make computers. The public has voted with their wallets and they want smartphones and tablets.
No, you are not the only one.
I also like the older style MBP with Ethernet, Kensington security slot, user-upgradable storage and RAM options, sleep indicator light (yes!) better than the new design.
Unfortunately Apple is under the spell of Sir Jony, so the chances of them returning to a more reasonable design are zero.
I also like the older style MBP with Ethernet, Kensington security slot, user-upgradable storage and RAM options, sleep indicator light (yes!) better than the new design.
Unfortunately Apple is under the spell of Sir Jony, so the chances of them returning to a more reasonable design are zero.
This. Faster Storage speed is of declining benefit to the user experience, you rapidly end up with differences only benchmark tests can detect...
Your criticism of apple is the same as mine.
But I don´t understand why you purchased the crippled "new" MBP instead of buying for example a second-hand 2012 cMBP in good condition?
You could have saved a LOT of money (and time as well)….
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I bough a new one in July - My first one was a stock standard one which I put a bigger HD and RAM in (purchased Sept. 2012) was stuffed up by the genius bar, so they gave me a retina Pro, I sold that and bought an i7 model + a 1TB SSD. It is practical, fast and upgradable which I love. Far more cost effective than a retina pro, has the ports I need, has the optical drive I need, has the battery life indicator and it has the IR sensor.
My (unlikely) hope is that that when the Retina Pro inevitably gets a redesign (like the Retina Macbook) that the cMBP will finally get an update as the true pro machine.
The cMBP has sold excessively well, they could surely spec bump it given the money they've milked over the last 3.5 years of selling the same hardware.
My (unlikely) hope is that that when the Retina Pro inevitably gets a redesign (like the Retina Macbook) that the cMBP will finally get an update as the true pro machine.
The cMBP has sold excessively well, they could surely spec bump it given the money they've milked over the last 3.5 years of selling the same hardware.
I love my 2012 rMBP, I've said this many times, that its the best laptop I ever bought.
Yet, what you bring up rings true, I miss the sleep indicator light and the ethernet port. I personally could care less about the kensington lock, but the other items are spot on, like upgradable ram.
Apple has slowly but meticulously inched towards sealed computers, the Mac mini, iMac and MBP all are now virtually sealed which is too bad. I still think my 2012 rMBP is an awesome computer, but its been replaced. On the desktop I have brand new 27" iMac and for my mobile needs, I use my SP3.