It’s been a normal working week, and I’ve typed many thousands of words. I switched fully over to the new MacBook the day it arrived – a week ago, as I write this – and I’ve been using it solidly since then. Our usage profiles are also probably quite different. Marco is a discerning and thoughtful person, and his words carry weight with me. We’re each allowed to have our own opinions. Marco Arment doesn’t like it, and that’s fine. It was with a lot of uncertainty that I recently took delivery of a new 2015 model MacBook 12”, with Retina Display. I feel a great deal of affection for that trusty little device.īut I’m not immune to the lure of what’s new. The only less-than-stellar aspect is the non-retina display, and its relatively low resolution, but I managed just fine with it. It’s the finest laptop I’ve ever owned, and it was hard to see what was left to be improved. I can live without them.įor the last four years, my evening machine – and also my main machine, for the last eighteen months – has been a MacBook Air 11”, my most recent being the 2013 model.
#BEST MAC FOR WRITERS PORTABLE#
I can work on pretty much any machine – but I do have some requirements.Ī keyboard that’s comfortable to type on for long periods.Įnough battery life to last through the day, under light load.Īs portable as possible: small, light, and sturdy.Įveryone has a list of other features they’d like to have (mine are: a beautiful display, an aesthetically pleasing machine, and the ability to charge from battery packs as well as mains power), but they’re not deal-breakers. And storage doesn’t matter, because my entire body of work and constantly-needed files fit comfortably into my Dropbox, which is all of five hundred megabytes.
Ports don’t matter – I can’t remember the last time I even plugged a USB key into my laptop. I don’t play games on my laptop, or edit big Photoshop files, or anything like that.
Performance doesn’t really matter, either for about ninety percent of the day, I’m just typing. Screen size doesn’t really matter to me I keep my font sizes large, and my workspace focused. And I like to be able to move around throughout the day. My laptop runs near-idle most of the time, with occasional bursts of light activity in one or two well-behaved apps. I don’t edit video, or have a big photo library. When I’m writing, I’m usually only running either BBEdit or Scrivener, to avoid any distractions. My actual productivity apps are BBEdit, Scrivener, OmniFocus, and OmniOutliner. I run a browser for the web and email, a Twitter app, and Slack for the chatroom I’m in all day with my closest friends from university. I’m a writer now, and my needs are modest indeed. Things changed overnight when I quit my career. I didn’t code, or design, on the evening machine if I could possibly help it – and since I work from home, the big desktop was always within reach.
#BEST MAC FOR WRITERS SOFTWARE#
I used to be a software developer, and my computer use was split between my desktop machine (a big iMac with the maximum amount of RAM, upgraded processor, extra display, and all kinds of attached gadgets), and my “evening or travel” machine. That’s been true for years now, but the reason has changed. When I buy a laptop, my main concern is portability. The original article remains below, as published. It’s a very poor situation, and not one I’ve encountered with Apple before.Īt time of writing this update, just over two months since receiving the replacement, the 2016 model is working as desired. The repair process also requires being without the machine for a week each time, due to the highly integrated nature of the components. I’m stunned at how readily the keyboard becomes intermittently unresponsive on certain commonly-used keys, like the spacebar and the left Command key. I’m by no means tough on my laptops - indeed, I treat them with the utmost respect and care. From my experience (which isn’t isolated I’ll leave you to search online for others’ stories), there seems to be a fundamental design flaw with the new keyboard. I must now advise that you do not buy the 2015 edition of this machine.
#BEST MAC FOR WRITERS FULL#
Update, October 2016: The 2015 MacBook is a very attractive machine in most respects, but after a series of problems with the reliability of its built-in keyboard - including three warranty repairs on my 2015 model, and a full replacement with the 2016 model as an apology - for the first time in my history as an Apple user, I am withdrawing my recommendation of this Mac.
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