With the improved keyboard, how many of us are moving back to MBP?

[hajime]

You're basically saying (and have implied in other posts) that every computer maker in the world is incapable of producing a proper laptop. This is where you need to start taking some personal responsibility.

While it's certainly possible to get a defective unit, it seems rather out of the realm of possibility that someone would continually receive so many defective laptops across computer models, and manufacturers. I don't know anyone on this forum or in real life that bought and returned soo many laptops because of defects.

We've all tried to help and I'm sure will continue, but this does feel like something from the movie groundhog day where you're living the same day over and over. Didn't you start looking for a laptop back in 2015 or 2016? You seem to be right back where you are 4 years ago.

For example, my MBP 16" has popping sound issues as many other have reported. It is not my fault. I don't know what is wrong with getting a blank screen often when waking the machine. It is also well known that Lenovo uses cheap screens on their top of the line P-series computers which resulted in poor back light bleeding. The P-series is very expensive. It is their fault that they use cheap screens to ruin the experience. Many users including me also received unit that cannot sit flat. How could this happen for such high-end product? I do agree that I have returned quite a few already. Perhaps being an Apple user for so many years increased my OCD level. Perhaps 20-30 years ago, computers were made in the USA or Singapore so better quality?


I recall that I was the only one who had a laptop computer in the entire schools. I don't recall having to return laptops made 20-30 years ago. These days, almost everybody has a laptop at schools. Queen6 is correct that manufacturers just mass producing things. For example, my 3-year old TV have issues. When I talked about the problems. Sales just told me that these days TV are not meant to last long. We are supposed to change to a new TV every 1-2 year!

I am not abusing the system. If I were, I would not have spent so many times on different forums asking so many questions. Now it is like my full time job to ask questions on different products. I would have just bought a machine, used it and returned and repeated without spending so much time asking so many questions if I were playing the system.

 

[Queen6]

LOL

I think we have given OP an option to even get a pre-delivery QA check that can be customized re HIDevoloution

Maybe OP just enjoys playing at someone else expense and must be running out of OEM's tolerance on returns

I think it was quoted at $3b it costs OEM's for these easy returns policies and what annoys me is if you live in counties where it does not exist you still pay the same or more for the same product regardless of exchange rates etc

I recall some wag thought it was right to exchange 20 12"MB looking for perfection

Any relation ?

Exactly there's always a price to be paid for such returns and that's simply passed onto the customer...

Q-6

 

[Queen6]

For example, my MBP 16" has popping sound issues as many other have reported. It is not my fault. I don't know what is wrong with getting a blank screen often when waking the machine. It is also well known that Lenovo uses cheap screens on their top of the line P-series computers which resulted in poor back light bleeding. The P-series is very expensive. It is their fault that they use cheap screens to ruin the experience. Many users including me also received unit that cannot sit flat. How could this happen for such high-end product? I do agree that I have returned quite a few already. Perhaps being an Apple user for so many years increased my OCD level. Perhaps 20-30 years ago, computers were made in the USA so better quality?


I recall that I was the only one who had a laptop computer in the entire schools. I don't recall having to return laptops made 20-30 years ago. These days, almost everybody has a laptop at schools. Queen6 is correct that manufacturers just mass producing things.

I am not abusing the system. If I were, I would not have spent so many times on different forums asking so many questions. Now it is like my full time job to ask questions on different products. I would have just bought a machine, used it and returned and repeated without spending so much time asking so many questions if I were playing the system.

Notebooks have always been mass produced barring a minority specific use systems at extreme cost. You need to work out what you need and what your willing to compromise on. ThinkPad's have never had top of the line display's. For that you need to look more to high end Dell's Precision line or HP's EliteBooks, they too will have their own quirks as do all marques, and likely higher price tags.

As suggested if you want a greater level of assurance on a standard notebook, purchase from a reputable third party who will validate all aspects of the system prior to shipping, equally you as others have done will be expected to pay a premium for the service. The time waste involving all these notebooks is simply something I would never accept, if I was so very concerned I would have opted to pay the premium, months if not years ago. Yet everyone expects highest spec at the lowest price, something has to give...

$6K for a personal computer isn't cheap by any means, however for a portable workstation around the middle ground at the best.

Q-6

 

[maflynn]

For example, my MBP 16" has popping sound issues as many other have reported. It is not my fault. I don't know what is wrong with getting a blank screen often when waking the machine. It is also well known that Lenovo uses cheap screens on their top of the line P-series computers which resulted in poor back light bleeding. The P-series is very expensive. It is their fault that they use cheap screens to ruin the experience. Many users including me also received unit that cannot sit flat. How could this happen for such high-end product? I do agree that I have returned quite a few already. Perhaps being an Apple user for so many years increased my OCD level. Perhaps 20-30 years ago, computers were made in the USA or Singapore so better quality?

I'm not saying your 16" MBP issues are made up, but I do think you look for defects and then obsess about it. You've had many other laptops that were fine, but you were nit picking to such a fine degree that you worked yourself up to a point where you convinced yourself that the laptop was not for you.

I am not abusing the system.

I'm not saying you are, but my point is that its almost 2020, and you still have found a laptop. You're moving on 4 years, and there's little to any hope that you'll willing to settling for any laptop. This isn't a quality issue at this point.

 

[hajime]

I'm not saying your 16" MBP issues are made up, but I do think you look for defects and then obsess about it. You've had many other laptops that were fine, but you were nit picking to such a fine degree that you worked yourself up to a point where you convinced yourself that the laptop was not for you.



I'm not saying you are, but my point is that its almost 2020, and you still have found a laptop. You're moving on 4 years, and there's little to any hope that you'll willing to settling for any laptop. This isn't a quality issue at this point.

4-year time to look for a laptop is very long. I was going to order a high-spec MBP 16 but then because of the popping issue, I keep it on hold to avoid the possibility of needing to return again.

I think you mentioned somewhere in the forum that the T2 chip has other issues. What are they?

 

[maflynn]

I think you mentioned somewhere in the forum that the T2 chip has other issues. What are they?

Causing crashes and the inability to install linux on an internal drive.

 

[hajime]

Causing crashes and the inability to install linux on an internal drive.

Is "causing crashes" still going on with the MBP 16"? I haven't seen any report about this yet. Perhaps it is too new.

 

[jeyf]

i hate to say this;
I own a 2017 MBP but apple Inc has to some degree killed the MBP. They could have done an engineering or marketing intervention and kept market reputation. A lot of negativity over years and years on generic news outlets; Wall Street Journal for example. I did not know how to respond to the poll associated with this thread as I already own a late 2016 MBP that has gotten very little use because of the kb. I am not in the market for another MBP. I waited a while with hope apple would replace re engineer the warranty keyboard and just months ago elected to have the machine re worked. Same style keyboard. After the re work family peeps still dont want anything to do with it. Go figure.


abuse the system
i bought a up scale LED light fixture from Amazon and returned it. I researched it a lot and it should have worked out but not. It had a dark plastic lens that dissipated a lot of the light.
I have a schedule to keep for this project and it takes time effort to baby sit Amazon. I re-purchased a low cost LED fixture that worked as needed for a fraction of the price. We are waiting in a HomeDepot ck out line as i type this and likely not likely buying expensive Amazon light fixtures for some time.

moral of the story; the up scale stuff, customers will take on a 2x or 4x price increase but the product needs at least medium performance.

 

[soulreaver99]

Is "causing crashes" still going on with the MBP 16"? I haven't seen any report about this yet. Perhaps it is too new.

Yup, that and the popping issues. Wait another 4 years

 

[hajime]

Last week I met a software engineer from IBM by chance. Interesting, he told me that they use the Mac rather than Thinkkpad for software development. He mentioned the risk of not being taken care of by Lenovo in case the computers need repairing.

 

[jeyf]

Last week I met a software engineer from IBM by chance.

i dont work for IBM or Apple,
myself headed to a job with some door frames today.

I would be very careful to buy anything Apple these days after my excellent late 2016 MBP and the free warranty work performed.

lately bought an iPhone off craigslist. We met at the Apple Store for the exchange. This approach seemed to work.
give enough personal time I would consider a dirt cheap laptop that i would install LINUX on.

 

[maflynn]

Last week I met a software engineer from IBM by chance. Interesting, he told me that they use the Mac rather than Thinkkpad for software development. He mentioned the risk of not being taken care of by Lenovo in case the computers need repairing.

So?

IBM has embraced using Macs, this isn't about what one organization chose to do. My company decided to switch to Dell, instead of HP ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh and many of the faculty use Macs where I work, it really doesn't matter what they do, but rather what you finally decide.

 

[SteveJUAE]

The best thing OP can do is buy at a price point that does not trouble him

I think we have exhausted our fun and advice and it's time for therapy now via beer or whatever is your poison as we have exceeded the boundaries of logic and sense

 

[Queen6]

Last week I met a software engineer from IBM by chance. Interesting, he told me that they use the Mac rather than Thinkkpad for software development. He mentioned the risk of not being taken care of by Lenovo in case the computers need repairing.

The likes of IBM would have onsite repair with local IT support so that makes no sense at all. The likes of Lenovo, Dell, HP are very different at the corporate level. He likely uses Apple for the OS and dev environment, nothing more nothing less. Apple is near non existent in the Enterprise. I know engineers that once used SPARCbooks, equally the vast majority of the other 140K employees were firmly on Windows, as likely will be IBM's.

Q-6

 

[soulreaver99]

The best thing OP can do is buy at a price point that does not trouble him

I think we have exhausted our fun and advice and it's time for therapy now via beer or whatever is your poison as we have exceeded the boundaries of logic and sense

Back to my advice - get one Mac and one PC with an extended warranty. No need to dwell on what one can do and the other can't as well as look for problems on each platform.

 

[hajime]

$6K for a personal computer isn't cheap by any means, however for a portable workstation around the middle ground at the best.

Q-6

Perhaps buying something at around $3K and be done with it is a good suggestion. If something goes wrong, I don't lose $6K+tax.

 

[Falhófnir]

And now we get the mini LED/late 2020 rumour, I wonder if that will be a full redesign, new design language etc or just a screen upgrade? It's unusual to get significant hardware feature additions outside of full redesigns, though not unheard of (like force touch trackpads in 2015). That little carrot certainly will make it a bit easier to keep my powder dry until late next year as HDR is definitely something I'd like to have. With the iPad releasing alongside it that might get a bit expensive though xD

 

[Spudlicious]

So many people are coming down on Catalina, is it a bad/buggy OS?

There can be issues. Anyone with a largish Steam library is going to hit bumps, and many apps, even if 64 bit, become a problem for the OS. I'm an electronics hobbyist and I find Arduino and Teensyduino (microcontroller compilers) have become a challenge. My MBP I only use for Office and browsing is fine with Catalina, but I'm keeping my iMac on Mojave for now.

 

[Queen6]

Perhaps buying something at around $3K and be done with it is a good suggestion. If something goes wrong, I don't lose $6K+tax.

That's exactly what I do as my notebooks are dragged all over the world, via land sea & air, left in hotels etc. with the potential for damage or loss ever present. I opt for mid tier gaming notebooks with a lot of performance and thermal headroom. The other factor is that no matter how much you pay you'll upgrade sooner or later.

I don't see the point in dropping $6K-$8K on a portable workstation only to upgrade again after 24 months, as the performance gains are in general worthwhile at that point. As you've seen the gaming solutions performance can and does exceed and that's what more important to me, This Asus exceeds 3100CB on Cinebench R20 and it just a base 8th Gen 2.2GHz i7.

Sure some do need specific requirements such as Xeon & ECC RAM, I don't. IMO these "Pro" portable workstations are priced for large companies. I buy for the spec, format the drives and install my own SW, use it for a couple of years, then gift it as owes me literately nothing in no time.

Would a Precision or an EliteBook be a nicer notebook? Yes, would they be 2-3 times better, absolutely not, nor guaranteed to offer greater performance, longevity or reliability.

Q-6

 

[soulreaver99]

I'm keeping my iMac on Mojave for now.

I have a bootable version of mojave an an external SSD for those 32-bit apps. Mojave was really stable, I am getting random beach balls at least once a day on Catalina. Not THAT bad but annoying. Might try a clean install or wait for more updates.

 

[c0ppo]

I think it was quoted at $3b it costs OEM's for these easy returns policies and what annoys me is if you live in counties where it does not exist you still pay the same or more for the same product regardless of exchange rates etc

I live in one of those countries. Only HP is officially in my country. Apple? Lenovo? Dell? Well, everything is handled by 3rd party repair shops.

And imagine my surprise that in the last 15+ years, I've never had issues with those shops or repairs in those shops. Sure, they last way longer then in USA or Germany, but they are always repaired.

So by going with hajime logic, I had two choices:
1) Move to another country or even continent.
2) Don't use computers at all, since they will break eventually, and there is no official support.

 

[hajime]

Why can't they make a laptop that can sit properly?

 

[Queen6]

Why can't they make a laptop that can sit properly?

The obviously do, however some slip through the net including Mac's. Nor does one know the physical stress the notebook has been exposed to.

Last few years I've been using 17.4" notebooks for my primary system, they frequently travel internationally, and both sit perfectly flat.

Sometimes being overly rigid is not as benifical as one would think, similar to the belief that heft always equates to quality...

Q-6

 

[SteveJUAE]

The obviously do, however some slip through the net including Mac's. Nor does one know the physical stress the notebook has been exposed to.

Last few years I've been using 17.4" notebooks for my primary system, they frequently travel internationally, and both sit perfectly flat.

Sometimes being overly rigid is not as benifical as one would think, similar to the belief that heft equates to quality...

Q-6

Yep, carbon fiber laptops spring to mind and are far more expensive to build than one piece ali shells but conditioning to ridged shells made them less popular

 

[maflynn]

Why can't they make a laptop that can sit properly?

The easiest answer? Don't buy one. I've not researched the P53, and I have no idea if this is very common or not, but you're looking for reasons NOT to buy a laptop these days instead of finding something that met your needs.