First 48 Hours With My New MacBook Pro

So, I got my new MacBook Pro. 15", and fully loaded.

Have spent a couple of days with it. Here are my reactions.

Note: I’m an engineer by trade, training and temperament. So, what’s right for me may not be right for you.

1. The lack of a DisplayPort or HDMI is super annoying. I walk around with my MacBook all day, and often need to present on a screen or projector. It’s totally non-fun having to pull out a dongle. It’s also non-fun having to remember to unplug my dongle and carry it back out with me.
2. The keyboard is annoying with much less “travel”. That’s a big deal for me. I need to not be annoyed by the keyboard. This may be the thing that drives me back to Thinkpad (shudder).
3. I don’t care what anybody says, I miss the physical Esc key.
4. I don’t understand why they made the Touchpad so big. It’s enormous — but my usage of it is no different than it used to be. Yes, you can do 5 finger gestures now, but the only gesture that comes to mind involves just one finger.
5. The TouchBar is OK, but I would have kept the physical function keys from before and just added the TouchBar strip — and reduced the size of the touch pad, because it’s just huge.
6. Form factor doesn’t feel different from my prior MBP. About the same size, about the same weight.
7. I like the fact that the USB-C port carries both power and other things. So, I can use a docking station and be wired up with just one cable. (Note: In Thinkpad -land, you just slide the laptop on to the docking station so arguable it’s even easier).
8. I love the new 2TB SSD. It’s big and it’s fast.
9. Haven’t used the TouchBar all that much, other than changing brightness and volume and such.
10. The absence of an SD card reader is annoying. I use that when I travel, and when I travel I’m trying to minimize the number of things I carry around.
11. I still don’t understand why they kept the headphone jack on this — but lost the USB port. Not complaining about the headphone jack being there, but that’s just strange.