Buying a Mac laptop has never been more difficult. It can be agreed that, Apple has not made a good laptop since 2015. The company unveiled the revamped and “innovative” MacBook Pro in 2016 which completely changed its perspective towards laptops. However, its innovativeness has caused users more problems than actually improving the workflow.
lost cause. apple hasn’t made a good laptop in years. Cook Just wants you on iPad Pro + keyboard
— Christopher Mims ? (@mims) March 7, 2019
The 2016 MacBook Pro shot up the price of the “Pro” laptops, introduced its new “butterfly” keyboard mechanism (from the MacBook) which is plagued with issues, and a touch bar which is innovation for the sake of innovation. The company took the same path with the new MacBook Air last year by adding the “butterfly” keyboard mechanism and increasing the price.
MACBOOK AIR FOLLOWS
The keyboard on the new MacBooks received mixed reviews when they were first introduced. However, the people who were forced to upgrade to the only laptop Apple was offering, adjusted. Nonetheless, as time passed by, most users started noticing that, the keyboard would very well stop working in a very short period of time after they had made the purchase.
It was found that, the new keyboard mechanism was unable to deal with dust properly. It having shallow keys i.e less travel, would make in non-usable when even a little amount of dust entered the keyboard. Well, if that happened during the warranty period, the user would have to pay no amount but it still is a headache, having to go for a week without the laptop (unless Apple provides a backup laptop).
FIND A BETTER KEYBOARD MECHANISM
However, if the laptop had crossed the one year mark, the user would have to pay something around $700 just to fix a single key. It’s because of the way the new MacBooks are designed; a single key gone wrong would mean the replacement of the whole keyboard and some other parts. Apple’s design philosophy with the new MacBooks allows it to create striking designs which are thin and compact but in the process they add a huge burden to the user.
Well, the other option would be indulging in Apple’s Protection – Apple Care. It adds additional two years of warranty to the laptop but its not cheap. However, if you do have to buy any of the new MacBook and plan to use it for more than an year, Apple Care is definitely worth it, considering the amount of issues the MacBooks are plagued with.
FLEXGATE: A $600 HEADACHE
![Uneven lighting at the bottom [Flexgate]](http://www.ilounge.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/macbook-pro-flexgate-lighting.jpg)
iFixit also added that, the flex cable is loosely wrapped around the display, which is why after repeated usage, the cable could just snap. If a user faces the “uneven lighting” issue on their MacBook, they could very well be looking forward to a complete display failure in the near future. The issue has been named “flexgate” and laptops which are out of warranty would require a $600 deposit to fix the display.
The future of the MacBooks
It has been more than two years since Apple unveiled the current MacBook Pro design and it’s high time that, Apple realise its mistakes and fix them. Apple did add layer of protection to the “butterfly” keyboard to fix some of the dust related issues but its not perfect. The company is expected to announce new MacBooks in October this year when it usually releases new Macs and iPads.
For the next MacBook Pro, we expect Apple to find a better keyboard mechanism without shooting up the price of the laptop. Also, it’s a known fact that, the TouchBar hasn’t been able to live up to the hype and Apple should consider killing it or at-least offer non-TouchBar models with all configurations and not just limit them to the TouchBar.
