I have a 15inch ~mid 2014 model that works very well still! The only problems I've had were the battery losing juice, and the screen went out suddenly. The original screen also had peeled a bunch which turned out to be a manufacturers defect from the 2014 models. I took it in to apple and ended up spending ~$500 to repair the battery and the screen, and I'm almost certain that they gave me back a brand new 2015 model a few days later. It's like a brand new laptop. I really like this model and plan to keep using it as long as I can.
I am generally not a lucky person, but after hearing all these horror stories of 2016+ MBPs, it's obvious that I really lucked out when I bought my 13" MBP in fall of 2015, which I'm using right now to make this post. I've only had to service it once to get the "logic board" replaced, which cost me something like $600 last winter, but it was pretty obvious that it was still the best option after comparing to the newer MBPs and many other laptops. I'll be a sad panda when this bad boy becomes unrepairable.
I don’t mean to dunk on you, and I’m sure you really aren’t a lucky person (as you say), but this just stands out to me as a reason people look at us tech workers and think we’re a touch entitled: anyone who can afford a new MacBook at any point in the past few years is almost by definition lucky.
Well, since you brought it up... My MBP was actually one of the most expensive things I had ever bought, at that time. I've been pretty poor my entire life (e.g., sometimes had to skip meals as a kid because we had nothing to eat), and I worked harder than you can probably imagine for many years to be as good with computers and tech as I am now. I bought the MBP using a few thousand dollars that I had saved up from some odd freelance jobs, which was the most money I'd ever had, and the purchase of the MBP took a significant percentage of it. However, I knew that the MBP would be a good investment (and I'm now aware of just how good of an investment it was, compared to newer models) to help me find more work, be more effective, and make more money. I am very lucky to have chosen this path, for sure, but don't assume things about people.
I have 2017 13" and am quite happy as well. Hardware wise, only bigger downside is the cooling. The laptop can't do much work otherwise it starts to get really noisy and then slow after a while. Overall the worst part is definitely the crappy OS. Not that there is any really good one out there.
why are you buying apple laptops if you don’t like the OS? you can buy equivalent windows laptops and not have to pay the macos tax. the entire reason to buy a mac is because of the OS
The 2015 models are great, but their graphics card (which these days is an integrated Intel Iris chip, not a discrete GPU) is severely underpowered. An external 4K screen at "retina"-type resolution will result in noticeable visual lag.
That's what I'm replacing with the 16" now. I work with external displays and the Intel Iris is the weak link for me. Other than that I've been really happy with the 2015 13"!
Speaking of macs and external monitors: I continue to enjoy my 2012 mbp 15r, but gave up on non-mac external monitors years ago, because of text blurriness. Is this a solved problem?
I have been using macs with external monitors for years without a problem with the text being blurry. if you mean the DPI isn’t as high then it really depends on the monitor. if you buy a 4k then it is almost equivalent in DPI.
I bought the same in 2016. Last year the speakers got fried and since few months back it has started to shut down abruptly. The max time I can use it now is only around 30 mins :(
Mine was like that even when on the charger until I replaced the battery, after that it was like new again. Well worth the money!
Another thing to do is opening the bottom an removing as much of the dust buildup as possible, that shit alone explains a lot of the “my computer gets slower with age”.
