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Yeah I wanted to pick on up, until Lenovo decided to price the new Yoga Book at close to $1600 in Asia, which instantly flipped on my red light for poor value & price gouging. At around $1K it's an interesting proposition as to some extents it's a sample of things to come.
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You can pick one up for less than $800 in the US with Lenovo's eCoupon which is great for the guys stateside, however asking twice the price in Asia, results in the obvious - No Sale...

Q-6

Absurd.
 
You gotta wonder how much flatter Apple can make their laptop keyboards (possibly even all-glass??)

...while everyone else continues to offer "normal" keyboards.

Sure... those other laptops run Windows... but typing is rather important... :p

We're at the point where if you want to run MacOS on a laptop... you've gotta deal with a terrible or unreliable keyboard.

OR... you can run Windows which isn't desirable for a Mac-user... but the keyboard is actually decent.

It shouldn't have to be like that.

I wonder if any of Apple's own engineers were part of the "small number" affected by failed butterfly keyboards?
 
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It's funny actually how everything almost everything comes down to personal preference. I say almost everything, because there are people here who will defend butterfly keyboards till the end of time.

Everything is up to personal preference and of course specific requirements one may have. I mean, there are people who honestly prefer 2-in-1 ones (kidding, kidding...).

As to butterfly keyboards... I am getting a bit desperate with the external black magic keyboard I am using at the office. It's been a few months now, but I am still constantly making typos and my fingers hurt. It just doesn't have the precision or ease of response of a butterfly KB on my MBP. I very much hope that Apple gives us external butterfly keyboards soon....


The glass keyboard with e-ink has already been done by Lenovo. The Yoga Book. I have one.

Except its just a cheap touchscreen with no tactile feedback. It's crap. You can't type on it. I am talking about a real keyboard with raised keys that *can* be pressed. Except that this keyboard is a single sheet of glass. Like one that Apple patents describe.
 
Everything is up to personal preference and of course specific requirements one may have.

...but if you're going to roll out the same style of keyboard across the whole range and not offer any choice, you don't want something that is so clearly "love/hate" as the butterfly keyboard (even leaving aside the reliability issues). The old keyboard design, which was already a compromise in terms of key travel, seemed to have pretty broad appeal. I don't recall people complaining about it here 3-4 years after its debut.

This is the real problem - for the 4th largest maker of PCs (or whatever it is currently) the current choice of Macs is ridiculously narrow. There's now very little difference between the MB, MBA and the MBPs apart from processor/gpu power and screen size, with even the connectivity determined by how many TB3 ports the chipset can support.

I think Apple's trouble is that their success is built on a few truly classic designs - the original Mac, the original Powerbook, the original iMac, iPod, the original iPhone, the Macbook Air. When your product is what created that product category, and the competition is struggling to copy it, you maybe don't need to offer choices. The original 'unibody' MBP and keyboard was probably one of those. Sadly, I don't think any of Apple's 2019 range is really in that class.

I am getting a bit desperate with the external black magic keyboard I am using at the office. It's been a few months now, but I am still constantly making typos and my fingers hurt.

That pretty much echoes my feeling about the current Magic keyboard - compared with the old model wired keyboard - after Apple gave it the old 'thinner and lighter and cheaper-to-make is better" treatment instead of just sticking wireless in the old design that many people loved and few people hated.

I have, a couple of times now, tried sticking with the Magic Keyboard for several months at a time for the sake of avoiding a wire and a USB port - so its not just "Eek! Change!", but I've always ended up going back to the old keyboard with a sigh of relief. At least, that's easy to do with an iMac...

(The current-gen Magic Keyboards are a sort of half-way house between the original chiclet design and the MBP butterfly keyboard - they're still scissor mechanism, but the travel is about 1/2 to 2/3 of the original and the keys have been enlarged by reducing the spacing).

Except that this keyboard is a single sheet of glass. Like one that Apple patents describe.

I think that, if Apple could really pull that off with the sort of spooky haptic skills that they demonstrated with the trackpads, they might have a contender. It could certainly be worth putting up with some loss of 'feel' in return for a totally sealed, dust-proof, wipe-clean keyboard. But for pity's sake don't pull an Airpower - make sure you can do it and that people like the result before announcing it.

There seems to be some 'wishful thinking' in some of Apple's recent designs - the iPhone X "wishes" that it had through-screen cameras and fingerprint sensors (and kludges it with a notch), the Mac Mini "wishes" that the integrated graphics were better and the MBPs "wish" that they had super-cool A15x processors and super-thin haptic touch keyboards and that everybody was using USB-C.
 
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The only reason why I bought a macbook pro is because of that glowing apple logo. I want to tell people indirectly that I'm edgy, rich, classy, elegant, etc... Now, aftter they removed that glowing logo and butterfly keyboards sucks, I think I'll go back to my $400 dollar acer notebook. As for now, I'll enjoy the attention and compliments I get from people who cannot afford mac.

Aside from macbook, is there any windows laptop that implies "elegance, elitism, classy. etc"? I don't care about the price, I just wanted to look rich.
 
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The only reason why I bought a macbook pro is because of that glowing apple logo. I want to tell people indirectly that I'm edgy, rich, classy, elegant, etc... Now, aftter they removed that glowing logo and butterfly keyboards sucks, I think I'll go back to my $400 dollar acer notebook. As for now, I'll enjoy the attention and compliments I get from people who cannot afford mac.

Aside from macbook, is there any windows laptop that implies "elegance, elitism, classy. etc"? I don't care about the price, I just wanted to look rich.

April Fools day was yesterday :)

But if you were actually serious, Luvaglio can sell you a $1M laptop that just screams "I have more money than you!"

https://luxatic.com/1-million-laptop-by-luvaglio/
 
The only reason why I bought a macbook pro is because of that glowing apple logo. I want to tell people indirectly that I'm edgy, rich, classy, elegant, etc... Now, aftter they removed that glowing logo and butterfly keyboards sucks, I think I'll go back to my $400 dollar acer notebook. As for now, I'll enjoy the attention and compliments I get from people who cannot afford mac.

Aside from macbook, is there any windows laptop that implies "elegance, elitism, classy. etc"? I don't care about the price, I just wanted to look rich.

A fun engineering challenge would be to build an ultrathin Apple stick on with a very thing battery.
 
I wouldn’t purchase one even for 500$. No real physical keyboard is a major no-go for me.

You are right. It really isn't for serious typing, but it is quite portable and it is really nice for reading e-books in PDF format. I didn't need it, but I wanted it. It has been fun, and I really enjoy writing on it. The writing is better than the typing experience. I also have the earlier Android version (Yes I am a tech freak), it actually is the best writing experience because you write on a textured slate vs glass. And of course I can sketch on both which is a must have for me.
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Everything is up to personal preference and of course specific requirements one may have. I mean, there are people who honestly prefer 2-in-1 ones (kidding, kidding...).

As to butterfly keyboards... I am getting a bit desperate with the external black magic keyboard I am using at the office. It's been a few months now, but I am still constantly making typos and my fingers hurt. It just doesn't have the precision or ease of response of a butterfly KB on my MBP. I very much hope that Apple gives us external butterfly keyboards soon....




Except its just a cheap touchscreen with no tactile feedback. It's crap. You can't type on it. I am talking about a real keyboard with raised keys that *can* be pressed. Except that this keyboard is a single sheet of glass. Like one that Apple patents describe.

You are mistaken. It does have hepatic feedback and it can be adjusted. I turned my off, because I prefer typing without it. It amazes me how you continue to comment on things you haven't experienced or know little about. The Yoga Book is not a "cheap" device.
 
I wouldn’t purchase one even for 500$. No real physical keyboard is a major no-go for me.

It has haptic feedback, basically it's only suitable for quick responses and minor edits and being only 10" also limits the usability. Yoga Book is well executed for what it is, build quality is superb. For me I'd just use it as a digital notepad, consumption etc. equally pricing is sheer nonsense here in Asia, especially given the very limited window of usage.

Same happened with the first Gen Yoga Book, way over priced here, by the time Lenovo woke up and reduced the price nobody was interested as there was simply far better hardware available at a similar price point.

Q-6
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You are right. It really isn't for serious typing, but it is quite portable and it is really nice for reading e-books in PDF format. I didn't need it, but I wanted it. It has been fun, and I really enjoy writing on it. The writing is better than the typing experience. I also have the earlier Android version (Yes I am a tech freak), it actually is the best writing experience because you write on a textured slate vs glass. And of course I can sketch on both which is a must have for me.
[doublepost=1554220982][/doublepost]

You are mistaken. It does have hepatic feedback and it can be adjusted. I turned my off, because I prefer typing without it. It amazes me how you continue to comment on things you haven't experienced or know little about. The Yoga Book is not a "cheap" device.

I agree it's not cheaply designed or produced by any means, actually quite premium. That said Lenovo is simply joking at close to $1600, that's just gouging plain and simple. Nor does it set up to be a higher level premium product as the usage is limited to some extents.

At the current US price I would pick one up, at our pricing little more than a curiosity that will gather dust in the Lenovo Store :p

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So basically, it’s a Touch Bar?:p

Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t yet have the courage to ship a laptop equipped ONLY with a Touch Bar

P.S. no wonder you hate the touchbar if you try to type on it. You are holding it wrong, silly
 
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It has haptic feedback, basically it's only suitable for quick responses and minor edits and being only 10" also limits the usability. Yoga Book is well executed for what it is, build quality is superb. For me I'd just use it as a digital notepad, consumption etc. equally pricing is sheer nonsense here in Asia, especially given the very limited window of usage.

Same happened with the first Gen Yoga Book, way over priced here, by the time Lenovo woke up and reduced the price nobody was interested as there was simply far better hardware available at a similar price point.

Q-6
[doublepost=1554222662][/doublepost]

I agree it's not cheaply designed or produced by any means, actually quite premium. That said Lenovo is simply joking at close to $1600, that's just gouging plain and simple. Nor does it set up to be a higher level premium product as the usage is limited to some extents.

At the current US price I would pick one up, at our pricing little more than a curiosity that will gather dust in the Lenovo Store :p

Q-6
same in UK, Yoga Book is currently for £999 so it's about $1300, too much for this type of hardware, the older model was about less than half of the price and the keyboard was on Wacom tablet instead of E-INK in newer model, the prices are insane and no coupons, so why I never bought any Lenovo from P series
 
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You are mistaken. It does have hepatic feedback and it can be adjusted. I turned my off, because I prefer typing without it. It amazes me how you continue to comment on things you haven't experienced or know little about. The Yoga Book is not a "cheap" device.


Sigh, again, i am talking about a difference between a tablet and a real keyboard with keys that can be physically pressed. I know that Yoga vibrates in response. And to repeat myself for the third time, it’s not the same thing as actually having the key move, and it’s very different if you need to type seriously. I apologize if I used the terms improperly, I shouldnt have talked about tactile feedback. I’m sorry if my post confused you.

And speaking of things that amaze us, it is kind of remarkable how you manage to quote posts out of context most of times. I never said that Yoga Book is a cheap device - I said that it’s “keyboard” is a cheap e-ink tablet which is crap for typing.
 


I believe it. My wife sent me this one from the Wall Street Journal as well.

https://www.wsj.com/graphics/apple-still-hasnt-fixed-its-macbook-keyboard-problem/

Don’t let Apples use of “A small number” fool you. By legal definition, it can mean something as simple as a “minority.” All they are saying is that a minority of owners have a problem in a way that makes the number sound smaller than it perhaps really is.

But hey, you ask some folks and they will tell you the problem is overblown. I agree with the premise of that a article in that it is likely under represented.
 
Sigh, again, i am talking about a difference between a tablet and a real keyboard with keys that can be physically pressed. I know that Yoga vibrates in response. And to repeat myself for the third time, it’s not the same thing as actually having the key move, and it’s very different if you need to type seriously. I apologize if I used the terms improperly, I shouldnt have talked about tactile feedback. I’m sorry if my post confused you.

And speaking of things that amaze us, it is kind of remarkable how you manage to quote posts out of context most of times. I never said that Yoga Book is a cheap device - I said that it’s “keyboard” is a cheap e-ink tablet which is crap for typing.

As the keyboard is half the device in this case, so saying that it is a "cheap e-ink tablet" is saying it is cheap. There is nothing cheap about the tablet part of the device. It is made of quality material and the tech is quite impressive. The keyboard can be changed to fit different regions and types with the touch of a button. The display is sharp and very responsive. I don't buy "cheap" things.
 
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I believe it. My wife sent me this one from the Wall Street Journal as well.

https://www.wsj.com/graphics/apple-still-hasnt-fixed-its-macbook-keyboard-problem/

Don’t let Apples use of “A small number” fool you. By legal definition, it can mean something as simple as a “minority.” All they are saying is that a minority of owners have a problem in a way that makes the number sound smaller than it perhaps really is.

But hey, you ask some folks and they will tell you the problem is overblown. I agree with the premise of that a article in that it is likely under represented.

Same on another site
https://www.notebookcheck.net/A-wor...oard-failure-rate-of-30-percent.415595.0.html

The good is that such public exposure in the tech press might actually promote Apple to actually do something meaningful, equally expectations are at an all time low...

Q-6
 
Same on another site
https://www.notebookcheck.net/A-wor...oard-failure-rate-of-30-percent.415595.0.html

The good is that such public exposure in the tech press might actually promote Apple to actually do something meaningful, equally expectations are at an all time low...

Q-6

That and my 2018 will in all likelihood fall under a repair program for one or more issues. People still having T2 issues/crashes even as late as 14.14.5 Firmware Version: 16P55095c. Where is this issue going to end? Luckily I haven't had an issue since upgrading to the 14.14.5 beta, but it is still early. Others are still having issues.
 
Posted this on the iPhone board and is appropriate here as well..


As an Apple fan myself, that video was depressing to watch. These days I get the impression that Apple is like a ship without a rudder; they are all over the place.

On the fear of getting a dud keyboard (I blame reading Joanna Stern’s WSJ article about the KB), I bought my wife our first non-Apple computer in well over 10 years, a Surface Laptop 2, she’s been using it for almost a week and so far she absolutely loves it - she doesn't miss using a Mac one bit.
 
That and my 2018 will in all likelihood fall under a repair program for one or more issues. People still having T2 issues/crashes even as late as 14.14.5 Firmware Version: 16P55095c. Where is this issue going to end? Luckily I haven't had an issue since upgrading to the 14.14.5 beta, but it is still early. Others are still having issues.

Simply a poor show all round. Too much is coming out half baked and ill conceived, barring the ability to turn coin. Apple's built it's monopoly and firmly taking advantage of it's position. Previous to 2016 I always generally recommended the Mac over a Windows OEM, reassuring the additional cost was worth while. Today the message is simple avoid Mac's at all costs unless your absolutely dependant on the OS as they simply no longer make sense...

Over twenty years with the Mac, highly impressed the current trends :rolleyes: Mostly these days your just buying into Apple little else..

Q-6
 
I recently started working remotely and now that I type all day on my MBP I absolutely hate the keyboard. For infrequent work it was ok and I could wave off random issues. Not anymore. I was disappointed with the iPhone X and XR, and now that the keyboard issues have hit the breaking point I am considering other options. Never thought I'd see the day.
 
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