Walking past an Apple store without glancing at the MacBook Pros is a very difficult task for me. Almost at every one of those instances, I end up entering the store and start admiring them. The current generation MacBook Pros are a delight to look at: precision cut edges, dashy, and that Space Grey color is hot.
The MacBook Pro that Apple sells currently is an amazing machine, no doubt about that. However, a small demographic of the MacBook Pro users (2016-2018) have reported various issues with the laptop. The major issues that stood out were problematic keyboard, display blacking out, and TouchBar going haywire.
While not all the users of the 2016 to 2018 MacBook Pro have reported all the issues. Most of them have reported their laptop to have been plagued with keyboard issues. Following these events, many have taken to the internet to spread the word that “the 2015 MacBook Pros are much better”.
Where to find them?
But is it practically viable to buy a laptop from 2015 and where to find them? The 2015 MacBook Pros can be found at Apple’s refurbished store for a very low price. For few hundred dollar more than the base model 13 inch Pro (2017) which is powered by dual-core i5 coupled with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD, you could get the 15” MBP with quad-core i7 coupled with 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD.
However, its difficult to compare a machine from 2015 with the one from 2017 because the 2017 version uses newer and faster tech. For example, the 2017 MBP uses 2133MHz RAM compared to the 1600MHz RAM found on the 2015. Also, the processor on the 2017 is much more power efficient compared to the 2015 version.
All that said, the 2015 MacBook Pro which could be found at Apple’s refurbished store is definitely a good choice. By no means its a laptop that will stop receiving software updates in the near future. So, which one should you buy? It all comes down to you: is the design and compactness of the new MBP important to you or the used and tested keyboard mechanism on the 2015 MBP with more power (in some ways) your thing.
