Several months with a 2018 MBP 15' i7 560X 16gb 512gb .... No issues yet.
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How reliable is the new Macbook Pro?
- Thread starter dapa0s
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My MBP was flawless, but I see so many reports of coil whine, or the T2 crashing, it certainly gave me pause. The biggest concern I had (I've since sold the laptop), was the keyboard. I had hoped that the Apple got it right with the 3rd generation and it does seem better then the prior generations, but we are seeing people post here and elsewhere about their keyboards failing.
I've seen people give the advise that you really do need to buy applecare with the latest MBP and to be honest, that rubs me the wrong way. If the MBP is that bad that you have to buy the extended warranty, then perhaps its not the right machine. Apple currently has a keyboard repair program running for the laptops, so I would expect that to provide a measure of peace of mind.
I was happy with how my MBP ran, and it was a great laptop, don't get me wrong, the display is gorgeous, I found no use for the touchbar, it actually hampered my usage, but overall the laptop was thin and light. I chose to move on to the windows platform for reasons that is not germane to this thread, but suffice to say that the the MBP does have a lot going for it, but do your homework.
My 2018 has been relatively solid in terms of functionality. I have had the BridgeOS crashes as others have reported here, however it seems that the latest beta of Mojave might have actually remedied this. It has been waking from sleep much faster with my external displays plugged in than ever before, and it has yet to reboot upon sleep.
That said, I am waiting for a box to send it in for service:
1) I’m not entirely convinced that the crashes are fixed and just want to be sure something is on record.
2) the left command key has some flaking paint (if we call it paint)
2a) my “a” key sometimes feels like it doesn’t register, but that might be me trying to type too quickly, so I can’t say for sure.
3) the keyboard looks like it is leaving marks on the display (as pretty much every MacBook Pro in recent times has done).
As soon as the box arrives I’m going to order the cheapest refurb 13” Pro they have and return it when my 15” is returned to me. I feel that doing so is a bit wasteful, but that is exactly what the senior advisor told me to do (though he didn’t specifically mention a refurb, but a new machine).
All in all my complaints are mostly cosmetic and having used the machine 12+ hours a day since picking it up launch week, I can’t really say that any other machine (Mac or PC) would have held up any differently (other than the display, which doesn’t seem to affect pc users).
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I have been talking to some friends, and Python is apparently pretty Windows friendly (more than I expected), but man it’s hard to leave macOS.
What did you end up grabbing? I feel like I read that it was a Lenovo, but I could be mistaken?
That said, I am waiting for a box to send it in for service:
1) I’m not entirely convinced that the crashes are fixed and just want to be sure something is on record.
2) the left command key has some flaking paint (if we call it paint)
2a) my “a” key sometimes feels like it doesn’t register, but that might be me trying to type too quickly, so I can’t say for sure.
3) the keyboard looks like it is leaving marks on the display (as pretty much every MacBook Pro in recent times has done).
As soon as the box arrives I’m going to order the cheapest refurb 13” Pro they have and return it when my 15” is returned to me. I feel that doing so is a bit wasteful, but that is exactly what the senior advisor told me to do (though he didn’t specifically mention a refurb, but a new machine).
All in all my complaints are mostly cosmetic and having used the machine 12+ hours a day since picking it up launch week, I can’t really say that any other machine (Mac or PC) would have held up any differently (other than the display, which doesn’t seem to affect pc users).
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This is/was(?) my single biggest headache with the 2018 machine. And it didn’t materialize for months. And to me, that made it worse. I’d rather it had started from day one, than say, day 181. It obviously has something to do with external devices (screens for me) as it never crashed until I started using them more frequently. But let’s call a spade a spade....plugging an external monitor into ones laptop is what I’d call basic functionality. Expected behavior and all of that, right? I’m not entirely sure how it was missed in hardware testing.
I have been talking to some friends, and Python is apparently pretty Windows friendly (more than I expected), but man it’s hard to leave macOS.
What did you end up grabbing? I feel like I read that it was a Lenovo, but I could be mistaken?
I purposely didn't upgrade to Mojave for this reason and it dawned on my, why am I not upgrading or treating it with such kid gloves?
I ordered the Lenovo X1 Extreme, thanks to the THINKJANUARY coupon code saving me lots of $$
I originally considered holding off on Mojave as well, but with the iMac Pro having T2 issues on High Sierra, I was hoping that Mojave had fixed it. . . Yeah. . . not so much. I will say that sitting down in front of my MacBook Pro right now, it was nice being able to hit the space bar on my magic keyboard and have both of my UltraFine(s) spring to life almost immediately. I haven't experienced that since the day I bought the machine. Silver lining and all
I had looked at the Lenovo Yoga X1 (3rd Gen) a friend of mine has one from work and it looks like a pretty solid machine. Not sure the differences between hers and yours. I guess the yoga screen flips around all the way, and includes a pen.
The problem is that this is a bit like reading reviews on Amazon. There, 95%+ of the reviews are from people who have just bought something, and tell you how wonderful it is. What you really want to know is how well it was working a year or three later.
Only history will judge how reliable the 2018 is. It is far too early to tell. What does concern me is that Apple have put in a 4 year warranty on the keyboard. I don't expect an MBP to last 4 years, I expect it to last 6 years or more.
That said, and I don't know if this applies in other countries, but here in the UK the Consumer Rights Act (formerly, the Sale of Goods Act), gives you remedy for up to 6 years from purchase where it can be shown that there was a design or manufacturing fault at the point of purchase. The keyboard is a pretty clear case of this, so I would expect remedy beyond 4 years here. What that remedy is is another matter.
My 17" late 2011 had the dGPU problem. The logicboard was replaced twice under the repair program, and then once more under the 6 year Sale of Goods provision. To their credit, Apple never quibbled about this, they just did it. So, unreliable computer, but Apple made good on it. The fact that it had to be replaced several times is because each time the logic board was refurbished, not new.
With recent MBPs the repair may be more problematic as most things are soldered down, but if the keyboard fails outside the 4 years, here in the UK at least, I would expect remedy in the 5th and 6th year, but that remedy may well be a refurbished keyboard or it may be financial and is unlikely to exceed the trade in price for the machine at that point in time. I would say that for any internals (logic board, processor, memory, ssd etc) the likelihood of token remuneration is quite high.
Anyway, as I said, we will see in a few years how reliable the 2018 has proved to be.
With regard to your original question, I'm a musician, and my 2018 has gone back (flickering, audio pops and crackles), but I won't be replacing it. All I can say is that if you want to use it on your lap for making music you had better buy a very good cooling pad, because once you start anything that seriously spins up those cores or the dGPU you are into the 90s centigrade on the processor very quickly and major fan noise. It ran very hot for me for the two weeks I had it. It is, IMHO, far too thermally compromised for anything that requires *sustained* high clock speeds (it never throttled though as far as I could see). YMMV.
My 2016 nTB MBP is fine over two years later (about 27 months). Much longer than the max of 6 months that you claim. My MBP sees daily use with lots of typing. I have had zero problems with it so far.
Apple has had some quality issues with the MBP recently for sure. But Apple sells about 20 million new Macs every year ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/). Browsing these forums it can feel like every single new Mac sold will suffer a myriad of problems, but individuals posting here represent a small fraction of all users of all 2016-2018 Macs sold.
I am sure lots of people have no problems, which has been the case for me.
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Same here - rocking a MBP 2016 13" with Touch Bar and have had zero issues since I got it in Feb. 2017. The keyboard is also fine although I can see a lot of debris between the keys
Thanks for the anecdote. Your machine will still go down in history as one of Apple's worst machines they ever made anyway.
It's always the pre-2015 crowd trying to justify not upgrading their jurassic machines.
I'm always amazed by people with the Staingate infested 2015 and prior brick trying to point their fingers at an issue that's covered by a 4 year no questions asked warranty.
They'll create 1 billion threads about how the 2016 MBP absolutely sucks. People with these laptops will prove them wrong. And then they'll say "it's just yours, everybody else's is broken". Point proven. Rinse and repeat
Wow, my machine will be famous! Woohoo!
But I think you mean my model, right?
Anyway, with a 16/512 configuration my particular MBP has been perfect for my modest needs and has so far been the best Apple laptop I've had. It has been a more reliable experience than the machine it replaced, a 2012 rMBP which went through two initial replacements and then a screen repair for ghosting.
You may tell me to just wait and that it will eventually happen, and maybe it will, but so far I've waited for 27 months and it is still fine. I will still keep waiting!
In the meantime, perhaps I have the only one of 20 million or so 2016 MBPs that has no problems?!?
That must be it!
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I was given a 2018 15" MBP in September for my birthday but didn't realise that to get the Apple Care one has to apply within 60n days of purchase. I therefore haven't got it. I have to add that, to date, I have had no issues with this beautiful, if lacking in places, machine!
Since acquiring the MBP I have been reading all the gloom and doom about this model, all the "issues" it could have, so have been researching exactly what is covered and for how long in the UK.
A lot of people are concerned, and very rightly, about issues after the warranty period. However, not many people are fully aware of exactly what the law says about warranty so have a look here under your country/zone/ I was pleasantly surprised when I read the UK section. All is not lost, read on.........https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/statutoryrights.html
Since acquiring the MBP I have been reading all the gloom and doom about this model, all the "issues" it could have, so have been researching exactly what is covered and for how long in the UK.
A lot of people are concerned, and very rightly, about issues after the warranty period. However, not many people are fully aware of exactly what the law says about warranty so have a look here under your country/zone/ I was pleasantly surprised when I read the UK section. All is not lost, read on.........https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/statutoryrights.html
FYI, AppleCare (not plus) can still be purchased for a Mac up to one year after purchase. Not saying you necessarily should (with great consumer laws it might not be necesssry), but you could theoretically still do that on your 2018 MBP.
I can only speak from personal experience, but this has been by far the most unreliable Mac I've ever owned. T2 issues started after 3-4 months. The entire system frequently locks up for 10-20 seconds for no reason doing even basic things. Boot and wake from sleep times are twice that of my old 2013 MacBook Pro. The built in 560X renders black pixels as green, and has just recently started doing this (which requires a full restart when it happens):
![IMG_1719.jpg]( "IMG_1719.jpg")