MacBook Pro 13″ M2 Review

“The new M2 chip makes the 13‑inch MacBook Pro more capable than ever.” … “macOS and M2 work together to bring more speed and responsiveness to all your go‑to apps”

Go-to Apps? … What has happened to the advertising industry?

In my world the notebook computer is a little bit like the Winchester Repeating Riffle was in the late 1800’s… “You ‘gotta’ have you one of ’em” but unlike the late 1800’s and heck all the way up to the late 1980’s there were very few choices. so the question is “WTF one of these things should I buy to get s#it done?”

So I’m supposed to tell you about this particular one and I’m sitting in front of this little computing machine and my mind wanders…

“I’m never going to get an iPhone”

In the beginning of personal computers there was the Macintosh, this little thing that looked a lot like a tiny portable black and white television and burped when you hit the buttons… Then there was the IBM’s, all get down to business beige box that took up half of the desk and then some…That’s where the division in society techie started.

The PC Camp

So in the 80’s I had a second hand IBM XT with a blazing fast 8086 processor that I never actually used for anything except to hone my programming skills in order to, some day, in the near future, use for something spectacular that was going to change the world.

I would push the button on the IBM, then I would push the button on the coffee maker, and about the time that the coffee was done the IBM would be finished bootstrapping… So I could get down to the business of working on something that I could get down to the world changing  business in the near future with. By the early 90’s there came the IBM Clones and most everybody wanted one and suddenly I was The Go to Guy for computer help and advice… I knew everything about computers by that time except for how to actually put on to good use.

As the years went by and the world changes were been made by somebody else I actually began using computers to get work done, cell phones to stay in constant contact so I could get work done 24/7… You know how this part goes otherwise you wouldn’t even be here reading this.

I was completely  entrenched in my preferred brand of tech, being Windows PC and Google Android and because of the industry I was working in I caught no end of crap for it. The people I worked with would say

“Why don’t you just get a Mac, don’t you know it’s a lot easier?”… “Why don’t you get an iPhone so we could Face Time and you could just Air Drop things?”

And my Answer?

“Screw Apple… It’ a Cult”

However… It started with my own Son, he got an iPhone Pro Max and I saw how remarkably good the camera system was and damn the display was crisp… But “no way” I can’t make the iPhone do what I want it to do the way I want it to happen because it’s locked into the “Apple Ecosphere” where the ghost of Steve Jobs oversees everything is done and how it’s done… “Not versatile enough to suit my tase”.

And then my Wife… “If you got an iPhone we could share our locations and I would feel oh so much safer”…

“Neat, so selling my soul for the illusion of security.”

But the real wedge was something rather odd “I have some hacking software, but it will only work on a “Jail Broken” iPhone…

Wait, what? Something that an iPhone can do that and Android can’t? Something that’s complicated and requires hacking and tweaking to get done? Something aggravating AND comes with a better camera and display?… Count me in.

So first came the iPhone Pro Max… And then the second hand Apple Watch because the iPhone rendered my Samsung watch useless… But the big switch?

OS X … Our Way or the Highway

Now that I’ve caved in to the fringes of the Apple Ecosphere I’m stepping into the Abyss… Let me tell you a little bit about what you should know before plunking down a wad of cash on the latest MacBook Pro

Important note: if are switching from a Windows based Notebook PC to a MacBook running OS X:

Everything on a Mac is backwards and upside down… If you are looking for a button, icon or what have you go strait to the last place you would expect to find it and if you are trying to scroll and nothing happens try rolling the wheel the other way.

Don’t even bother to set things up to suit yourself because it’s not going to happen… You will be better served if you spend the time learning how a Mac does it and go along to get along before you start tearing out your hair and throwing s#!t.

*Oh… And don’t bother taking it apart because there isn’t a damn thing you can do to it.

Back to the Business of a Review:

The MacBook Pro 13″  On the upside is pretty much one of the nicest looking and feeling “Ultra Compact” Notebook computers I’ve had the pleasure or misfortune depending on my attitude for the day of using for work. What it does, it does fast and the display is clean, clear and crisp edge to edge, corner to corner.

Typing is alright, the keys give a fair positive tactile feedback and the relational position of palm rest, trackpad, keyboard, Touch Bar to screen works for me and quite honestly it’s made doing what a do easier which is kind of the whole point of any tool… However there are things I don’t like about it at all that don’t have anything to do with how it functions so much as how most tech corporations function.

*The Down Side and this is a really big one for me: There is absolutely nothing that you are not dependent on Apple you can do with these things and that’s been true pretty much since 2017. You cannot upgrade or replace s#!t after the purchase of your kind of overpriced machine. Everything is soldered to the logic board including the SSD and of course the RAM etc. Battery replacement will also require the level of skill and tooling beyond most any end users capability and I’m betting that the cost benefit by the time it gets that far into it’s service life will be Zero.