My computer journey Before I tell you about the MacBook Pro 2019I want to first go over my laptop journey.
It has been over 3 years since I have owned a fully powerful laptop that would allow me to take on any task. It was a 2013 13-inch MacBook Air, configured with an i7 processor and 8 GBs of RAM. It was a solid machine for about 3 years before selling it and almost exclusively going iPad only once the Pro’s started coming out.
I had a couple other stints with other MacBooks and a variety of iPad Pros until I finally hit optimization fatigue. In April of this year I sold my MacBook Air 11-Inch that I was using for browsing and I gave my wife my 10.5-inch iPad. Then I went on swappa and bought myself a used iPad Mini 5 for journaling (with the support of the Apple Pencil) and reading.
I have used the iPad Mini for about a month before I started going back to writing with pen and paper for journaling. I still love the 7.9 inch size for reading so for now it is still a device I keep next to my bed, I might even trade it for a iPad Mini 3 or 4 to save a few bucks.
What I realized in scaling back so much was that I needed a device that would handle any task again. I needed a machine that I could use to do software development, writing, run Windows 10 using Parallels (to remote into work occasionally) and other more difficult tasks. These can all be done on an iPad, except to remote into work since I can’t use my work issued Yubikey to connect to the VPN, but compromising simplicity and constantly looking for workarounds get old.
This isn’t a bash on the iPad, I really do like the platform and I love what Apple has done as far as the iPadOS is concern. But I was foolling myself in thinking that an iPad was the path I needed to keep going down to accomplish the tasks I wanted.
So I bought a
MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019.)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019)
In the middle of owning the MacBook Air’s I did have a 12-inch MacBook for about a year. The retina screen was a massive upgrade coming from the 1400 x 900 resolution. But this MacBook Pro screen is absolutely fantastic.
The high resolution is obviously great but the colors with true tone makes me want to never look away. And the 13 inch screen is the perfect size, it even feels bigger with the smaller bezels.
Compared to the 12-inch MacBook the keyboard feels much more soft with a little more travel. It feels comfortable and I really enjoy typing on it. I was a fan of the new butterfly keyboards since day one, so it is no surprise I would like this one. I’ve not experienced any problem with double, stuck and unreliable keys so maybe my fandom will change with this one if it starts to fail over time.
I’ve no issues with the touch bar as well. It does everything I used the previous function keys for; volume, play, pause and brightness. I rarely used the esc key, so I really don’t have a reason to miss the original function key row.
I am not sold on the touch bar yet, since I haven’t yet found it that useful, but I am excited to finally have it. There have been four generations of the touch bar laptops now but it wasn’t until this model were you able to buy one at $1299 (unless you go used).
The screen, Touch Bar, two USB-C ports, and the new generation keyboard were all things I was looking forward to when I saw this laptop get released at the lower price. The only hesitation was that it “only” had a 1.4 GHz Quad-Core i5 Processor.
After watching various reviews though, the hesitation disappeared. In some other tests I saw in other videos the processor in this MacBook Pro was thrashing last years 15-inch MacBook Pro.
Needless to say, performance on this MacBook Pro will never be a concern for me.
I was a bit surprised of the weight when I first took it out of the box. I think because I have been so used to much smaller MacBooks and iPads that the heft threw me off gaurd. After carrying it around the house and in my backpack the past couple of days, I definitely do not find it heavy.
Overall I am very pleased with this MacBook Pro.
When I went to Apple Store to pick it up, I thought, this would just be a try out to see if this is what I want. I have done this many times when I would bring a new iPad Pro or Windows Laptop home and immediately regret my purchase. This time was different though. As soon as I took it home I turned it on, set it up and immediately started writing.
In my opinion, this MacBook offers true value for your money. There will be reasons for people to pick a more powerful or cheaper device but for the sweet spot that will please just about anybody for a long period of time, MacBook Pro 13-inch, 2019 is a perfect choice.