I paid $3,000 for my MacBook Pro and got emotional whiplash

Technology

Down: The Trackpad

Apple made its new trackpad huge, and I can’t figure out why. What does that get you?

What it gets me is accidental clicks, caused by my left thumb as it hovers while I type. My cursor or insertion point suddenly pops into the wrong place or the wrong window.

Apparently, this problem is much worse if you’ve turned on Tap to Click (which requires only touching the trackpad, not actually clicking down on it, to register a click).

I’ve solved the problem by taping a piece of cardboard to the trackpad, in essence shrinking it. Real classy.

Up: The Keyboard

The key travel has gotten dissed for its shallowness, but I can really fly typing on this keyboard. It’s crisp and firm. Loud as hell, but crisp and firm.

Neutral: The adapter thing

Of course, switching into MacBook Pro Land means getting adapters for everything that normally plugs into USB. Sometimes, that just takes the form of a $6 replacement cable; sometimes, you need a $3 plug adapter.

Everybody talks about how many dongles they’ll need, but that’s not been my experience. I still have one Fitibit cord, one MiFi cord, one digital camera charging cord, and so on; it’s just that some of them have an adapter plug on the end.

I did have to buy a new Lightning-to-USB-C cable for my iPhone. Apple’s version is $19, which is absurd. I found this awesome one on Amazon (AMZN) for $9. It has a sturdy, non-tangling nylon fabric outer shell, available in three metallic colors to match the three MacBook Pro colors.

I’ve read here and there that cheapo Chinese USB-C adapters and cables can be glitchy. But all the ones I’ve picked up on Amazon have worked like a champ, except for the Dell dinging-power-cord thing.

Down: No card slot

I deeply, deeply miss a memory-card slot. Used to be, transferring photos from a camera was as easy as popping out its memory card and slamming it into my MacBook Air. Now I have to go looking for my $8 USB-C card reader, or hook up the camera with a cable.

I no longer have any video-output jack, either—like VGA, HDMI, or Mini-DVI. So for $45, I bought a multi-jack dongle that offers both VGA and HDMI—and Ethernet and a regular USB jack. So I’m covered there.

Up: One-cable docking station

I spend a lot of time doing book layouts, so I sprang $524 for the LG UltraFine 4K 21-inch monitor. What’s amazing about it is not just the gorgeous image; it’s that one USB-C cable connects it to the MacBook. That single cable charges the laptop, carries audio and video to the monitor’s screen and speakers, and conducts data both directions (there are four USB-C jacks on the back of the monitor).

I used to hook up my MacBook Air to a docking contraption every time I came home from the road. Now, I plug in one cable, and my entire desktop system is ready to go. It’s fairly awesome.

Down: Shorter battery life

Apple says this smaller laptop has a smaller battery than the MacBook Air—and yet that it still gets the same 10 hours of work time.

That’s baloney.

There’s been a lot of confusion and analysis about why the MacBook Pro does or does not get the battery life it’s supposed to. But this much I can say for sure: You get better battery life if you install the latest Mac OS version, 10.12.3. And if you keep the screen dimmer than full brightness. And if you don’t do heavy-lifting work like Photoshop, video editing, and games.

This much I can also say for sure: No matter what you do, you won’t get as much life out of this battery as you would doing exactly the same work on the MacBook Air. It’s a 33% smaller battery; it’s not going to have the same capacity. I usually get six or seven hours from it.

I wasn’t ready for that, and it’s a real drag. Thank goodness I’ve got chargers all around me.

Whiplash

If you’re a Mac person and can’t afford to switch to Windows, then the new MacBook Pro is it. Apple doesn’t intend to update the MacBook Air or the older MacBook Pros anymore. The future is this or nothing.

But you know what? This really isn’t a MacBook at all.

I mean, it doesn’t have the same anything. Screen, jacks, power cord, keyboard, battery, trackpad…it has almost nothing in common with previous Apple laptops.

It’s much better in some ways, and much worse in others. You’ve been warned; keep hands and feet inside the tram at all times.