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Perhaps this is why the butterfly keys keep failing on me...
- Thread starter bill-p
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- too much lol
The X1E wifi is only as good as the Air and low end Pro (nTB, 1.4).
All the other Pros have 50% more throughput capability. What makes the wifi better on the X1?
Its kind of sad that you cannot type the way you need too w/o breaking what used to be a component that hardly failed.
Another vote on the Thinkpad, its a great computer and the keyboard is lightyears ahead of Apple. Heck, its even spill proof (water proof?).
Too bad Apple couldn't just license the ThinkPad keyboard design, it would be an instant and huge upgrade. Also too bad ThinkPads have 16:9 screens and crappy trackpads. All that being said, I'd be pretty satisfied just having an X1E, or even better, a P52 - oh, all those ports!
Build materials. For example, in my house, I can have decent wifi reception on my upper floor with X1E. I couldn't do that with MBP. And I can easily swap wifi/bluetooth card on my X1E. As soon as I'm ready, my plan is to upgrade my X1E with wifi 6 card.
That would be an admission that their design is flawed, and an acknowledgement that PC makers have superior parts. Apple takes any and every chance to knock, and belittle their competition. Licensing the keyboard flies the very face if the corporate culture of if its not invented by us we don't use it.
That is a great option. It'll still be 2x2, but 2x2 on Wifi 6 is nothing to sneeze at.
as a dude who's had butterfly keyboards fail (7 total, 1 was a 2019, the rest 2018) within 5 days, i can tell you that it's the design of the keyboard that's crap. The 2019s are definitely a bit more reliable, as my 2019 keyboard in my last 2018 failed after a month. Now I'm on a 2019 MBP and i don't know how keyboard #8 is gonna last.
You've had the keyboard fail 7 times?
You'll have to forgive me for asking a 2019 account questions on this. I know 5+ people with this keyboard personally and my wife knows dozens. 0 failures in YEARS of usage. As someone who types 145+wpm and can destroy normal keyboards in weeks with full speed typing, I would expect my keyboard to not last over a year and my wife to have problems (she types on hers for hours every day) if it was even HALF as bad as ... failing SEVEN times.
Call me skeptical but... if I had a keyboard fail SEVEN times, I'd probably move on after the ... second failure. You got a 2019 MBP and had SEVEN keyboard failures?!?!?!
I have a problem with people calling this a crap keyboard when AppleInsider shows it being repaired LESS than previous models. Ignorance is bliss, can't blame people for wanting attention.
The 7 keyboard failures were all on 2018 models (4 total, as they replaced it a few times). They finally gave me a 2019 and so far it's been fine, but time will tell. I type pretty fast but i don't pound on the keyboard. Key switches just start duplicating after a while unfortunately. I do like the rest of the machine which is kinda why i stuck with it. Can't deny that the trackpad, speakers, display, SSD speed, etc is really nice
Dude that sucks. I'd be devastated if my MBP failed that many times. Why they ever decided to put a keyboard in that can't be repaired by the average Joe is beyond me (requires a whole top end case?!?!?!). That, I will always frown on. I just don't know how some people get a lot more failures than others. Sorry for your loss. Good luck with the 2019.
But then we end up with Windows
So which is it? You say 1 of the failures was a 2019, and then you say no problem at all with the 2019?
Yep, that's what I'm doing, I have a fantastic machine and windows is fine. I understand that some may not like windows, but its a stable and fast platform that offers a number of advantages. macOS has a different set of advantages, so its really what's important to you.But then we end up with Windows
Did you come from Windows initially?
Curious if you would come back to Mac if the shortcomings that chased you off were fixed?
2016 MBP and 2017 MB here, no keyboard issues of any kind, knock on wood. I mentioned on another thread that as a college prof, I have many, many students (students rarely use PCs) with newer Macbook variants and over the years, I have not heard a single complaint about keyboard failures - at least not w/o dumping a latte into it. It seems like this problem is really clustered around certain users.
My wife sees the same thing at a major California university. Her professor has been using these keyboards for a long time without problem.
On my last 2018 MBP, they put in a 2019 keyboard and it failed. After that, they replaced the machine with a 2019 macbook pro.But then we end up with Windows
So which is it? You say 1 of the failures was a 2019, and then you say no problem at all with the 2019?
My daughter's group at work has 40 or so 2018 MBP 15. No keyboard failures.
Yet certain users seem to have many failures. Very interesting statistically.
Yeah, I think the picture is finally emerging here... it never made sense to me that I could type daily on my 2016 MBP for years and have no issues, while others would have multiple failures within weeks.
I read somewhere that the part that was reinforced in the 2019 keyboards was the dome. Maybe all the failures were just the result of hitting the key so hard the dome "squished" or even inverted? That would also explain why some people were able to reverse the problem by "pounding" the key a bunch of times. Maybe they were able to get the dome to "pop" back out.
I remember when I first used a 2015 MacBook I was hitting the keys hard because of the low tactile feedback. Eventually I learned to trust it and type gently. I could see how a lot of people just kept pounding the keys.
Imagine if all these keyboard issues were avoidable just by a lighter touch. (Not to blame the user, the keyboard should have been more robust.)
Mine also. Runs for weeks without rebooting. Never crashes. Never had a virus.
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But I know people that type pretty hard who never had an issue. So I think it is something more than key strike velocity at play.
Well, I live in San Jose, and I do sometimes use my computer in Cupertino, so... unless Apple lives in an alternate dimension...
I don't know. I certainly wouldn't classify myself as having "light touch", but I don't think I'm hitting the keys any harder than I did the previous MacBooks. Back when butterfly keys didn't exist.
The butterfly keys are in fact the first time I have ever had a keyboard fail on me, on any computer/laptop/keyboard, etc...
It's just anecdotal. Some people don't seem to have any problem, and that's great. I have kept all of the repair notes and receipts for all of these computers and I can show them if you'd like to see. And the reason why I even bothered to keep upgrading was because I kept eating the "it's better this time" promise that Apple seems to hint at. I'm still hopeful that at least my 13" MacBook Pro will survive, but let's say... I'm cautiously optimistic.
Yeah... I actually do have an LG Gram 15 because... gotta keep recent with "the other side". I got it after getting the Gram 17 for my dad and experiencing first hand "what could be". The Gram 15 is lighter than my 13" MacBook. Huh...
But that aside, I honestly find the butterfly keys to be just fine (not mushy, not short travel, or anything like that). It's just the occasional failure that has prevented me from truly enjoying the computer as my sole companion, and that's where the Gram comes in.
Windows is... certainly okay for my use. I keep most of my coding and development work on the Mac, though, as having a Unix-ish system underneath is nice, and no one can ever convince me Windows UAC is not broken, at least for coding.
Wow really? I'm impressed. I've had 3+ Dell Keyboard failures (replaced with a Dell keyboard, which failed again, so I bought a $10 Ebay Chinese keyboard - that held up for years and years). I've had a Lenovo keyboard fail and a Toshiba keyboard fail. One other dell keyboard went bad but it was used when I got it so after taking it apart it looked like coffee had been spilled on it at one point in time.
I didn't like this keyboard (butterfly) when I first got it. Took a month to get used to it and type on it correctly. I found getting a Magic Keyboard 2 really helped my fingers adapt to it vs using other keyboards which had a lot longer throw.
Thanks for the offer of showing the receipts. You don't have to do that for me - I would just love to know why some people have no problems and why some have tons (in your case 7). I don't like not knowing. But I don't think Apple is going to change that anytime soon with Apple Store results, lol.