I HAVE USED more Apple laptops in my life than I can even recall. I owned a second-hand, sticker-encrusted Titanium PowerBook G4 that was stolen during a road trip. I installed Linux on an excruciatingly slow PowerBook G3 for IMDB and Google searches while watching TV. I’ve upgraded, repaired, purchased, gifted, traded, and tinkered with iBooks and MacBooks galore, both for work and for fun.
However, the more recent MacBooks I’ve used have been a mixed bag. Not only are Apple’s last couple MacBook iterations unrepairable and non-upgradeable, but I find that the computing experience has been compromised in some key areas. Apple’s laptops used to be so competitive that I’d recommend them just for use with Windows. But then PC manufacturers started upping their game, and since late 2016, it’s been extremely hard to recommend the Pros. How did we get to this place?
The new 2018 MacBook Pros attempt to atone for some of the line’s recent performance missteps by throwing powerful new processors, tweaked graphics cards, a massaged keyboard, more RAM, and bigger SSDs into a product meant for the professionals who consistently rely on these machines. But over the past week that I’ve been using the new, 15-inch MacBook Pro running on a top-of-the-line Intel processor, I’ve found that what Apple’s offering has a surprising number of caveats—its eye-watering price tag among them—you’ll have to consider.