Say hello to my little friend

So I know it was not that long ago that I posted that I had kept my 13″ MacBook pro longer than any other computer I’ve ever had (turns out that would be 53 months).  But for a long while now I have been keeping my eye on the 15″ MacBooks. For the last 6 years I have been using my laptop as my primary PC especially since I travel so much, and to be honest 13″ was starting to feel very cramped.  I know that I could hookup an external monitor etc. but that would not meet my goal.  My goal is to have a laptop that can kick ass, do everything I need it to do but still be easy enough to take with me anywhere I wanted to go.  

Then Dammit Apple released the biggest spec bump to the 15″ MacBooks in the last several years, then best buy sent me my 10% off birthday coupon, then I found out I could sell my old MacBook on gazelle for $384!

You can see where this is headed, so as the title states “Say Hello To My Little Friend!”

It seems really stupid but I can’t tell you how much difference a couple more inches of screen real estate makes.  I had my concerns about the keyboard, but I have to say I really don’t have any issues with it. It has a bit of a different sound but overall its plenty nice to type on.

The base model had everything I had been missing to fill some gaps in my needs and although larger it is still plenty light to carry around.  I’ve been running the laptop for a couple of weeks so here are my initial thoughts:

• %^$#*! is this thing fast
• The screen is gorgeous, I have been leaving trutone on and I find myself liking it on a bigger screen.  
• Touch bar did seem like a gimmick but its really useful (for me anyway) and I like it.
• The addition of Touch ID is super nice
• The extra 8 gigs of ram makes playing with virtual machines a whole lot nicer. 
• The keyboard is different but it does not bother me.
• The speakers on this thing are pretty incredible. 
• Only having USB C connectivity did not bother me anywhere near as much as I thought it would.  Yes I bought a couple of adapters but they are really cheap.  USB C is the future and we are all going to be dragged there one way or the other. 

If I were to log one complaint its that it takes 87 watts to charge and that does kill off a lot of third party charging options. 

But, all in all I’m pretty pleased with my purchase and I am looking forward to the next several years with my new little friend.