2017 - The modern Mac: 13" MacBook Pro

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My 2017-era Apple laptop isn't actually from 2017, it's from 2016 - and it's not even mine, it's my wife's.

Prior to this, she had a 2015 12" MacBook which was the final Apple laptop that I ever bought new (and ever intend to). How I regretted that purchase! I thought 512 GB of storage would have been sufficient, but it turned out that we really need 1 TB in order to keep all our files available offline and not compromise on the apps we want installed. The 12" MacBook, while beautifully light at only 2 lbs (< 1kg!) and thin, was chronically underpowered; and became very slow, very quickly. It now is the EthicsGrade pool laptop, the one that we post to people in case of emergency like if someone were to spill water over the keyboard of their personal M-series MacBook, or leave the replacement on the train (you know who you are, Luke)! So, my wife got an upgrade, and I now put much more thought into what I buy from now onwards.

 But perhaps not quite enough thought. Having now used this 2016 model MacBook Pro whenever working from home and my wife's home-office is available, and done a tonne more research for this piece - I'd have bought the 2017 model (13", 4- ports) if 1 TB storage was sufficient, or the 2018 version with 2 TB if I needed more space. You see, the inability to upgrade these machines is their critical weakness.

It's not just about upgradability either, it’s about repairability. While the 'Winchester' hard drive in my Duo is still going strong some 30 years since being vacuum-sealed in the factory, it's unlikely that any of these solid-state drives will last 30 years. The data retention rate for NAND chips is about 10 to 20 years, which means if you put your device in storage as my Duo was for about 20 years, it's unlikely that any data will have integrity when you fire it back up. And that's the lab conditions which is a far cry from the abuse that my Duo faced during its long hiatus. But what about constant use? Well, had my Duo been my daily driver for the last 30 years, I'd probably be on my 5th or 6th hard drive by now. But that's OK, hard drive failures are things you can see coming generally, and if you have the appropriate alerting in place, then you can plan for them with ease like you would a car through its regular safety inspection. But with NAND chips, they wear out after a certain number of cycles - much like a mechanical hard drive would - but as these chips are soldered directly onto the motherboard of modern MacBooks, this makes the wear-life of the computer likely to be about 10 years before data-loss occurs. The best years of our MacBook Pro are thus already behind it.

 The modern era of MacBooks have a radically different port configuration to anything that came before. Gone are the array of specialist sockets for specialist solutions, like USB, Firewire, Thunderbolt, and ethernet on my 2012-era MacBook Pro - instead you get four uniform USB-C sockets (or 2x if you buy the 'budget' version), each of which offers the same capabilities. From a practical perspective all this makes great sense. It's super easy to plug in any device as they are all hot-swappable. I can charge the laptop from the left or the right side (although apparently there might be some issues with the 2022 models overheating depending on the charger/ accessory configuration), or have a single cable plugged into it from a dock and be able to grab the machine quickly from desk-based work and into the bag for a business trip somewhere. USB-C also carries the Thunderbolt 3 capability which is backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 2, although the video pass-through of the Thunderbolt 2 era isn't available. While irritatingly you had to wait until the 'trash-can' cylindrical Mac Pro before you got desktop Thunderbolt ports in a stock Mac; I've actually used a non-standard third-party upgrade on my 2012 Mac Pro to Thunderbolt in order to use an eGPU and thus drive an array of screens (3x ultrawide screens, in fact) that enable me to work productively from my home-office setup.

 This is another example of freelancers doing the job that Apple should be doing themselves. The third-party Thunderbolt card is from the company Gigabyte and while designed specifically for their PC motherboards, some chap in Germany kindly flashed the firmware for me so it would work in my 2012 Mac Pro. My Mac Pro now chugs along quite happily with its overkill 2x 6-core processors (OK, not a lot compared to today's beasts, but still more than enough for anything I'll foreseeably ever throw at it). Where it blows modern machines out of the water though is with its massive 128 GB of RAM. Nothing in Apple's latest M1 or M2 range that it makes today even comes close. But this is not a review of workstations, but of laptops - so let's get back on track:

The point here is that if you want to run a laptop as a desktop (I don't recommend it, as I'll point out later) then an eGPU is a must. Not only do you get the ability to run a much more powerful graphics card than Apple will ever likely fit in the limited chassis of a portable device, but a critical limitation of the modern-era MacBooks will be overcome, namely, the inability to drive more than a single external screen. While our 2017-era Macbook Pro has 4x USB-C ports, regardless of how many HDMI or Display Port connectors there might be on the dock, only one external screen can be utilised at a time - and if there are two present, then one simply acts as a copy of the other. In my wife's case, she has a stand-up desk with a screen that she wants to keep as a mirror for the main screen on the wall above her workstation. But this would be too limiting for me - as I find a triple screen layout the minimum for true productive work. Why three? Well, dual-screen layouts suffer from having the screen bezel directly in front of you, so you're never facing the screen square - you're always crooking your neck to the left or right. You won't even be aware of this for a few hours; but after a few years of this procedure, I suspect it will play havoc with your posture. So, for best results, have a screen straight in front of your eyes - as wide as possible, preferably; and then if you need more screen estate to put apps that you'd like to keep in view but not necessarily in front of you, then a screen either side will complete your experience. I'm often teased about my seemingly excessive setup, but I'd argue that the productivity gain it gives me more than makes up for the electricity overhead of having 3x 49" LED arrays powered on for 8+ hours a day. Maybe this is just another example of these little lies we tell ourselves to ease our conscience...

 So, what of the 2017-era MacBook Pro's other qualities? Well, the keyboard is thoroughly crap - but that doesn't bother me much any longer as I've since convinced my wife to use an external keyboard. I can't remember whether it's this model or the 12" MacBook for which Apple had to recall a bunch of devices where the keys literally fell to pieces, but I wouldn't be surprised if the mechanism on this keyboard is the first thing to break. It's not just a reliability issue; it's also an unpleasant experience to type on it for an extended period either. Also on my complaint list is the built in webcam, but this isn't so much directed at this particular model but Apple's entire range. I find it mystifying that a company that is clearly quite proud of their imaging prowess (just look at how they advertise their phone and tablet ranges) compromises so greatly on the quality of the cameras in their laptops. I can't think of any engineering or commercial reason for this either. The space constraints of a phone will have made it possible for Apple to have sufficiently miniaturised cells and lenses sufficiently to make a decent laptop webcam. Surely? My best guess as to the cause of this is that the executives at Apple don't actually use their MacBooks for video conferencing themselves and prefer to use their iPads or desktops with quality external cameras. We have a proper external webcam on our 2017-era MacBook Pro too, so this irritation is only an infrequent one.

It's not all bad though with the 2017-era MacBook Pro. The battery life is 6+ hours, which is more than enough for any of our needs, and the ability to charge from USB-C means that a small battery pack (I like the range from Anker) can give us an entire full charge again for larger trips. We also like to charge our Anker powerpack from a solar cell in a backpack. They are called 'Sunny Bags' and I swear it will be the last backpack I'll ever buy. The machine is also very thin, doesn't get too hot, or too noisy when it does - it also is fully supported by the latest current version of MacOS (correction – it was when I was writing these words back in August, but it's sadly not true any longer), so you won't run into any planned obsolescence problems (well, at least for now). My guess though as I've already mentioned is that the keyboard will be the first thing to fail (although that risk is somewhat mitigated as you know by our use of an external one), but when the hard drive fails it will be terminal. I doubt you'll be reading many guides to classic MacBooks in 2047 that will feature this generation of device. That’s how long this laptop would have to last to be the equivalent of this Christmas' series that goes as far back as my fully functional and original 1992 PowerBook Duo.

It just ain't going to last that long.

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