Apple Silicon Macbook Pro keyboard build quality has left the building

[yakult121]

a rant.

I am back to Macbook Pros after my last one (2011 MBP) died and I'm very surprised to find the keyboard build quality is so poor. Even a 2014 MBA has better keyboard build quality compared to the MBP M5.

There is noticeable freeplay when touching (not pressing) the keys, making the keyboard feel flimsy and cheap. Pressing down on the keys felt the key travel had diminished a fair bit. There is much less feedback compared to the pre 2016 keyboards.

I had skipped the butterfly keyboard generation 2016 to 2019, perhaps for the better.

Can Apple please bring back the good keyboard feel?

 

[cbum]

Mine does not have that - check the store if they think it's defective.

 

[zkap]

I have the M5 MBP, the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard and the Mac Magic Keyboard (black with Num Pad). The M5 MBP keyboard doesn't feel cheap to me, but it does feel / seem the worst of the three. The other two keyboards feel substantially better, FWIW. I don't really care so long as the keyboard works, but I did get the impression immediately after starting to use my M5 MBP that the keyboard on my old M1 MBP felt better.

 

[benholt]

Coming up on two and a half years of daily use on my M3 Max 16" and the keyboard still feels the same as day one — no lateral freeplay, key travel hasn't softened. I also use the black Magic Keyboard with numpad on my Studio and the iPad Magic Keyboard; ranking those for feel I'd put external Magic > MBP > iPad Magic, but the MBP gap really only shows up when I switch boards in the same session. What yakult121 is describing (free movement when touching but not pressing) doesn't sound like normal variance to me — I'd take it into a Genius Bar before the return window closes, since a lot of units don't have that and yours might just be defective.

 

[yakult121]

Coming up on two and a half years of daily use on my M3 Max 16" and the keyboard still feels the same as day one — no lateral freeplay, key travel hasn't softened. I also use the black Magic Keyboard with numpad on my Studio and the iPad Magic Keyboard; ranking those for feel I'd put external Magic > MBP > iPad Magic, but the MBP gap really only shows up when I switch boards in the same session. What yakult121 is describing (free movement when touching but not pressing) doesn't sound like normal variance to me — I'd take it into a Genius Bar before the return window closes, since a lot of units don't have that and yours might just be defective.

Thank you! I"ll do just that!

 

[dblissmn]

That doesn't seem right to me. Mine are good. The Retina MBP from a decade ago by comparison feels mushy.

 

[yakult121]

I didn't have a Retina MBP to type on, only the pre-Retina ones.

 

[pshufd]

My history is the 2008 MacBook Pro 17, 2014 MacBook Pro 15, 2015 MacBook Pro 15 and 2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro 16.

The 2008 and 2014/2015 have the best key travel length. I like the keys on the 2008 the best as they are the most articulated.

The 2021 has short travel length but it has a solid click and it substitutes stiffness on the click for feedback instead of travel length. It does work but it's different.

I also have a Lenovo Yoga and that has the longer key travel and the more mushy feel of the older MacBook Pros and it's probably the best of these for feedback, feel and travel length.

My favorite keyboard is the Cooler Master MK730 which is a Cherry MX Blue keyboard. Long travel, high actuation weight, loud and clicky feedback. This one has backlit keys which I like as I often work in the dark. I like colored keys over the usual laptop backlighted keys which have white lighting. The gaming laptops are nice for the colors but I don't want a gaming laptop.

It comes down to what you are used to, and what you can get used to.

I've not done any playing around with the M4 and M5 MacBook Pro keyboards outside of using them briefly at The Apple Store or Costco and they seemed fine to me.