MacBook Pro 13" 2017 Review - After 1 day

[Ashleyyyy]

I want to disclose 2 things first.

Number one is that I traded a Windows laptop and an ssd for this MacBook, no money changed hands during this trade, just a laptop I didn’t use anymore and an ssd I can live without. so in my eyes it couldn't really turn out wrong.

Number two, when I refer to my old MacBook Pro, by that I mean that I’m coming from a 13” Mid-2012 MacBook Pro, that’s what I’m comparing to if I refer to my old Mac. I wanted to disclose that to give you my perspective. 

 

(i'm not runing Yosemite, it's just the wallpaper lol)

 

Looks

It’s to my eye about half as thick as my old Mac, and I have mixed thoughts on that. I didn’t mind the thickness of my old Mac and I don’t find the thin chassis of this one amazing. I don’t really care about looks, and subjectively I find both of these laptops good looking, even though my old Mac is 5 years older than this one. 

 

 

Performance

This laptop definitively feels faster than my old Mac, but not by as much as you might expect. I do notice a certain type of speed, if I click a link in safari it basically goes poof and it’s loaded, whereas with my old Mac I’d need to wait for a second for it to load. 

 

The soldered ram and storage is a bit annoying, since it only has 8gb of ram and 128gb of storage, but I can live with it. 

 

 

Keyboard and Trackpad

Let’s start with the trackpad. It’s awesome. Force touch is really cool, especially for previewing links in Safari, and the extra size compared to my old Mac is nice for gestures and being able to use the trackpad without even moving my wrist from typing position. 

 

But now, let’s move on to the number one headache with these models, the keyboard. This one isn’t perfect, you can tell it’s been used for 3 years. The “z” key is mushy and needs more force when pressing down to make it work, and the left shift, enter and backspace are mushy as well. 

 

As far as typing and feel of the keyboard, I got used to it surprisingly quickly. I don’t prefer it over the keyboard on my old Mac and I especially miss the travel the keyboard on my old Mac has, but overall I can deal with it and it’s not the end of the world. I do still miss keystrokes more often than I do on the 2012, but I can live with it. 

 

 

Display

The display on this laptop is simply amazing. It’s 2560x1600, and simply gorgeous even close-up. My eyes are absolutely horrible, but even so I can tell a difference between this and my old Mac. Text is razor sharp and even when running this screen at 1680x1050 it’s amazingly clear. 

 

 

I/O

I’m not a fan. The good thing is that most of the things I’d plug into it are type-c, being my phone and the main usb drive I use has a type-a and type-c port, so I won’t have to break out the dongles a lot, but I still don’t like MagSafe being gone. 

 

 

Conclusion

I’m really liking this laptop so far, and I hope that I can get many many more years out of it. I’ll likely do another piece on it after using it for a week or two, to see if my views on it have changed. 

[Helhound]

Since you traded this device, and it looks to be in good condition, what would you estimate the value to be now if someone were to buy it off of a refurb and/or renew site? I'm thinking of selling my Dell to get a Mac, but I'm not a fan of the prices.

[Ashleyyyy]

4 minutes ago, Helhound said:

Since you traded this device, and it looks to be in good condition, what would you estimate the value to be now if someone were to buy it off of a refurb and/or renew site? I'm thinking of selling my Dell to get a Mac, but I'm not a fan of the prices.

it looks to be in good shape because I did some good cleaning, it was filthy when I got it. 

 

I'm not exactly sure of the value, I didn't pay attention to these as I told myself I'd never buy one due to the keyboard, but this was a thing I couldn't pass up. 

[Helhound]

Ok. What's wrong with the keyboard? Sorry, I don't pay attention to Apple very often.

[Ashleyyyy]

Just now, Helhound said:

Ok. What's wrong with the keyboard? Sorry, I don't pay attention to Apple very often.

the keyboards on the 2016 to 2019 MacBook Pro's suffer form a LOT of problems. keys get stuck, stop working or feel mushy due to dust getting under the keys. 

 

this particular MacBook Pro has 3 mushy keys, and the z key is very mushy and doesn't work all of the time.

[Helhound]

Well, that's stupid. It really isn't that hard to make a keyboard. Thanks for the info, I'll take it into consideration, probably look at 2019 models or wait for now.

[Ashleyyyy]

Just now, Helhound said:

Well, that's stupid. It really isn't that hard to make a keyboard. Thanks for the info, I'll take it into consideration, probably look at 2019 models or wait for now.

2019 models are also affected by the problems. 

 

Apple has redesigned the keyboard on the MacBook Pro 16" and the 2020 MacBook Air, so either get one of those or wait for the 13" MacBook Pro to get refreshed with the new keyboard. 

[Darkseth]

On 3/22/2020 at 5:30 PM, Helhound said:

Well, that's stupid. It really isn't that hard to make a keyboard. Thanks for the info, I'll take it into consideration, probably look at 2019 models or wait for now.

Well, in 2016 (2015 for the 12" Macbook) they "reinvented" the Keyboard with the Butterfly Mechanism.
The thought behind it was: Thinner than the previous Scissor Switch, allowing for thinner devices.

 

It turned out, they failed alot. Even after the 4th Generation Butterfly Generation (the latest 2019 one), it probably didn't stop. So they went back to Scissor, and optimized it.

So, it's the Scissor again now, but at least a bit thinner than 2015 and earlier.

 

Maybe for the Good all that... If the Butterfly switches didn't fail and were reliable, i'm sure they would not have went back to Scissor, and kept Butterfly. Which i really really don't like typing on (it feels like i can't distinguish each button, because it's soo flat)

 

 

@Twilight Have you thought about letting Apple replace the Keyboard, before their 4-year programm runs out for your Model?

If i'm right, they will replace the Keyboard with the latest Generation, and put a brand new Battery inside.

 

My air has the 3rd generation, and i once had the chance to type on the 2017 Pro model (2nd generation), and it feld alot worse to me kinda.

[Ashleyyyy]

1 hour ago, Darkseth said:

@Twilight Have you thought about letting Apple replace the Keyboard, before their 4-year programm runs out for your Model?

If i'm right, they will replace the Keyboard with the latest Generation, and put a brand new Battery inside.

that sounds interesting... I know they replaced they keyboard, but tbh, aside from the z key which I barely use it's fine. however the battery is also not the greatest... I'll look into it now. thanks for telling me. it's a 2017, and it's battery was made in April 2017 so I have like a year left at least considering that. plenty of time to look into it. thanks again!