Add this to the COVID-19 checklist but I no longer own a notebook computer in 2020. A week ago, I realized that I had not touched my MacBook Pro since starting this work from home scenario with my employer 11 weeks ago. Seriously….3 months without using my computer. This is a $3500 laptop that sat in my bag downstairs by the front door for 3 months without being used. Apple actually has documented guidance about this sort of thing and how to store a MacBook when not being used for 6 months or more:
If you plan to store your device for longer than six months, charge it to 50% every six months.
Okay, very helpful so plug it in every 6 months to 50%. Keep in mind that technology is a highly depreciating asset. Storing my MacBook Pro until we return to the office in January is simply stupid financially. In July of 2018, I spent 3,589.00 for this computer…fully loaded and unfortunately a lot about this computer became out of date nearly immediately.
Here are the specs:
2.9GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz
Retina display with True Tone
Touch Bar and Touch ID
Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory
32GB 2400MHz DDR4 memory
1TB SSD storage
This is the 3rd generation butterfly keyboard from Apple. The 4th generation came out soon after and I hear that if I ever had keyboard issues, Apple would replace the keyboard with the 4th generation model. There’s still 3 years left on the keyboard warranty at this time. I personally never had keyboard issues but they are rampant. In addition, that Radeon Pro 560X was the top of the line GPU but in October of 2018, just 4 months after I received this computer, Apple upgraded the GPUs to Vega as BTO options. Which were a little faster but ran a lot cooler.
Heat…the biggest enemy of this computer. The Core i9 immediately came under pressure from the Internet with throttling issues with many people saying “just stick it in a freezer” they weren’t wrong and although Apple addressed the throttling with a software update, the issue persisted. This computer was amazingly fast until I really needed it to perform at its peak. I’m talking 5K monitor, transcoding 4K videos in HEVC format and importing Canon RAW images into Lightroom and this thing would slow to a craw. The fan simply couldn’t spin any faster and the casing did not allow for proper heat dissipation. Remember too that 32GB of RAM was larger and used more power so we had a power hungry CPU from Intel, Power hungry GPU and hungry RAM. It didn’t discharge when plugged in but it pulled a TON of power.
As soon as the 16” shipped, I wanted it but I was waiting for the 2nd generation 16” MacBook Pro and I’m still waiting…this Summer / Fall most likely.
The good news is, the 15” MacBook Pro wasn’t pushed hard that often. In fact, it lived plugged in to a Thunderbolt 3 dock at my office desk about 90% of its life. I used my iPad Pro in meetings so the MBP pretty much was always plugged in. I also re-configured my iPad Pro’s setup to allow for motorcycle travel so my MacBook Pro was no longer going with me on trips. The only time it got unplugged was when I did work travel which I did quite a bit of in 2019. Amsterdam, Berlin, Gent, London, Florida (twice) and DC (twice). On those trips, the heat and speed were frankly annoying versus my iMac at home. It would so quickly throttle from heat that the extra premium I paid for CPU+GPU+RAM becomes useless money. This computer WAS super fast but only in ideal conditions and when you didn’t want to push it too hard.
I think Apple’s thinness combined with Intel’s chipsets just made this a terrible combination.
Yesterday, I sold this computer for $2250, a depreciation of $1339 in 2 years. Frankly, fantastic as far as technology goes but a bit less than the computer is worth because I’ve found that while I get more money when selling on eBay, I then get hit with nearly 20% in fees so I sold via a non eBay site with a lot less traffic so I probably netted around the same after eBay / PayPal fees.
A depreciation of about $60 a month isn’t insane. Seriously it’s pretty damn good.
Now, on to COVID and Working From Home. My home setup is fantastic.
After 3 months with this setup and not touching my laptop at all and now selling the laptop, I have an anxiety around this whole thing. Rationally, I will not be using a MacBook Pro this year. No travel, no office, no meetings in person. I didn’t need it and since it’d probably be worth $1500 at the end of this year, there was no point in keeping it but guys…this is my laptop.
I’ve had one for almost 20 years. I got my first laptop in January of 2001, an iBook and I’ve had one since then moving through the various generations.
Part of this transition is thanks to both the amazing quality and price of Apple’s iMac. This is an amazingly fast computer and it’s quiet and fast and takes anything I can throw at it but the real star of the show is Apple’s iPad Pro now affixed to a Magic Keyboard. The iPad Pro was my mobile computer for meetings, in person activities, cafe writing sessions and blog posts like this one. It also is my primary computer for motorcycle travel. I put it in my top box in a Waterfield bag that has an Anker USB-C charger + a few USB-C cables for iPhone and Apple Watch and my iPad is my only computer for trips so far up to 14 days and I don’t need a computer. Sure I need one for media projects and large scale project management but I can get by on the iPad enough that I’m not completely disconnected.
So, thanks to Apple’s amazing iMac and iPad Pro, I can work from home without a laptop this year. Honestly, if I never had to travel for work as in work out of a European office for 3-5 days a few times a year, I actually think I could run a Mac mini at work and then an iMac at home and totally get by. The iPad Pro is fine for meetings when I’m only 75 feet away from my Mac mini. I use Omni-Apps and Office 365 suite and now Lightroom / Photoshop Mobile. The iPad is NOT a laptop replacement but do I really need to spend $3000+ on a MacBook Pro when we go back to the office in 10 months or can I just grab a Mac mini and work that way? We’ll see but for now, I’m laptop less and it’s a super weird feeling.