Moved from 2015 15" to 2019 16" and ...not a fan.

[ls1dreams]

Clearly Macbooks from 2016-mid 2019 were garbage with the butterfly keyboard.

I finally managed to get my hands on a 16" 2019 from work, and comparing it side-by-side with my 2015 15", I actually prefer the old one.

Why?

- The giant trackpad screws up palm rejection all the time
- No physical keys for volume up/down is super annoying. Apple, please kill this stupid touchbar.
- I'm not 100% sure, but it seems to run much warmer, even when just idling
- For daily use, I notice no difference in performance compared to the 5 year old 2015! (web browsing, office work, etc)
- The new keyboard is dramatically better than the butterfly keyboard, but I prefer the slightly more travel in the old 2015. Not a huge deal, though.

I dunno, but a $600-$700 2015 model still seems like a bargain to me vs a $2500 2019. Obviously if you are doing video editing or similar then the 8 cores will make a big difference, but you can barely notice the ~ 20% single threaded performance change.

2019 geekbench scores: ~ 1100 (+18%) / 6649 (+98%)
2015 geekbench scores: ~ 931 / 3357

Says more about the sad state of affairs with intel though really in the last 5 years.

 

[profcutter]

That’s fascinating. I’m curious how that would go with my workflow. I was shocked at how slow the 2017s were compared to my 2013. I haven’t had a chance to try a 16” yet, but I’ll wait on a new display. I wouldn’t be shocked, but I would be disappointed, if it wasn’t measurably faster in day to day tasks than my current 2015.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

You were expecting your office tasks to become significantly faster? You could do those with an Air, moving from a low powered computer to a super computer isn't going to make a difference to low powered tasks. It's also 100% faster in multi-core use, which is pretty good no?

I've never had an issue with palm rejection, not sure why some people do.

Did you know you can touch and slide for the volume controls? You don't need to tap, then tap again, simply touch the volume then slide your finger to change up or down.

Keyboard is a keyboard, it works, so far hasn't broken - the 2016 gen was pretty bad.

It may run warmer, is this a problem? As long as it doesn't overheat and shut down, or burn through the desk, I think it's fine - it's also a lot quieter, so they may have sacrificed a little ambient temperature in order to reduce the noise.

From what it sounds, you don't need a high powered computer so might be best getting a cheaper 2015 then.

 

[Pangalactic]

Clearly Macbooks from 2016-mid 2019 were garbage with the butterfly keyboard.

I finally managed to get my hands on a 16" 2019 from work, and comparing it side-by-side with my 2015 15", I actually prefer the old one.

Why?

- The giant trackpad screws up palm rejection all the time

Maybe I'm weird, but I've never had this issue. I usually placd my hands around the trackpad diagonally, never onto it

- No physical keys for volume up/down is super annoying. Apple, please kill this stupid touchbar.

That is very annoying indeed

- I'm not 100% sure, but it seems to run much warmer, even when just idling

That is an unavoidable consequence of having more powerful GPU. I have a Razer Blade with a 2080RTX inside, and I had to do quite a lot of tweaking before it stopped blasting it fans at full speed in idle mode

- For daily use, I notice no difference in performance compared to the 5 year old 2015! (web browsing, office work, etc)

And you shouldn't. Daily productivity is pretty much I dependant of how powerful your laptop is. Certainly for the 15 inch ones, the difference is negligible

- The new keyboard is dramatically better than the butterfly keyboard, but I prefer the slightly more travel in the old 2015. Not a huge deal, though

.

I guess this is more of an acquired taste

I dunno, but a $600-$700 2015 model still seems like a bargain to me vs a $2500 2019. Obviously if you are doing video editing or similar then the 8 cores will make a big difference, but you can barely notice the ~ 20% single threaded performance change.

2019 geekbench scores: ~ 1100 (+18%) / 6649 (+98%)
2015 geekbench scores: ~ 931 / 3357

Says more about the sad state of affairs with intel though really in the last 5 years.

That is the CPU though, the GPUs would be much more of a difference