For those who think that the keyboards are NOT an issue (such as "... but my uncle's 2017 is working just fine"):
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewansp...dirty-butterfly-broken-keyboard/#51cde76a3fca
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-macbook-pro-keyboard-fix-is-absurd-2017-10
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/macbook-pro-keyboard-failure-rate-double-older-models/
http://bgr.com/2017/10/19/macbook-pro-2017-keyboard-not-working/
https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/03/macbook-pro-keyboard-petition/
https://theoutline.com/post/2402/the-new-macbook-keyboard-is-ruining-my-life?zd=1&zi=amvd3fcu
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/21/2016-macbook-pro-keyboard-issues/
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/apple-macbook-pro-recall-petition?utm_source=notification
Most of these articles are echoing the experience of one person, this Casey Johnston. She doesn't speak for everyone. There are so many rubbish tech articles these days. People regurgitate pretty much anything these days.
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MBP 15" touchbar, late 2016 here.
My views:
All in all, not very happy with my purchase, specially with the keyboard failure
- Keyboard reliability issues are real: after reading about it on the internet, mine broke too.
- It is the most beautiful and well put together laptop in the market, bar none. The space grey is gorgeous.
- Trackpad, like all macs, is best in industry. However, it is unnecessarily huge. No need for such size: it doesnt add to the confort.
- Batery life is so-so, about 5 hours of real world use: skype, browsing, etc
- The touchbar is an absolute gimmick: I never managed to find any real, productive use for it.
- Speakers are amazing: loud and full.
- Screen in gorgeous: crispy and bright. Colors pop and are very accurate.
- Price wise: overpriced, no way around that. I paid almost $3,000 for mine, and I feel it was around $600 too expensive for the specs.
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What browser are you using? Chrome? What processes do you have running on the menu bar? I've been getting a consistent 8-9 hrs with an average of 8.5. I use Safari since it's fast and more efficient than Chrome. If you're using Chrome, try using Safari for a day and see if that gets you a couple of extra hours. I also don't have Flash nor Java installed on this machine and I avoid anything that relies on them. When I'm editing video or doing anything that turns on the dGPU and really puts the CPU to work, my battery life drops to around 5.5 hours. However, this is unavoidable since more power consumes more energy. An iPhone usually lasts 7-8 hours when browsing on a mix of LTE and Wifi using apps but if you play more intensive games, you can drain the battery in 2-3 hours even on the Plus phones.
I agree with the price. It was definitely steep. I wonder how much the OLED Touch Bar with Touch ID and the T1 Secure Enclave cost to manufacture. What kind of yields they had as well. Most likely they spent a lot of cash on R&D for this thing. I think the prices will decrease over time or they will charge the same but offer more. They now include the Pro 555 in the base and the 560 in the $2799 config. Both GPUs are nearly identical to the 455 and 460 which both cost extra cash in the 2016s.
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Overall, I'm really happy with it. I use it for everything I do (think I've put 520 cycles on the battery in roughly the same number of days - this basically goes with me everywhere), and so it's pretty important that it all works well. The only worry is whether the keyboard will fail in the future. If you do buy one (and I would on balance recommend it), AppleCare is probably the way to go. I would be really surprised if Apple didn't initiate a repair programme like they did for 2011 GPUs at some point, however.
I recommend using up as many battery cycles as you can so you can get a fresh battery before AppleCare runs out. $199 out of warranty isn't terrible, but if you can get it replaced for "free" why not. If keyboard or anything else fails on a large number of these machines, then they definitely will start a repair program like they did for the anti-reflective coating damage on the retina MBPs. In some cases people were given a newer machine since they exhausted supplies of older models. http://bgr.com/2017/07/24/macbook-pro-battery-replacement-apple-free-upgrade/ That's pretty damn awesome service. Imagine having a problem later on and getting a 2021 MacBook Pro instead.