Ended up getting the base model 15" with Touch Bar. So far, I'm fucking loving it.
A lot of reviewers complained about the keyboard in the 2016 model but the 2017 supposedly had some tweaks. I find them both to be about the same and they work just fine. I love the sound it makes too, though I would have been fine if they had kept the chiclet style from my 2010. I do find myself making fewer mistakes on this keyboard, for what it's worth.
Some consider the Touch Bar to be a gimmick. Could have done without it as well but after a few days, I'm finding it pretty sweet to use when streaming video. It seems to only work on Safari, as far as web browsers are concerned, so while I was forced to use Safari for the first few hours after getting it, I've grown to now prefer Safari over the Firefox Aurora Nightly I was using before. Same two extensions I used before, uBlock Origin and Disconnect. Someone also pointed me towards a PiP extension, so now I can stream Netflix, YouTube, etc. in a tiny window in the corner and then switch to another tab and do something else. This will be big once football season starts and I visit gamely threads on Reddit, which have live comment sections.
Battery life is ridiculous too. At least for me; I don't know what numbers some of the lighter ultrabooks are getting but I got about 9 hours of usage since Saturday night and right up until about 9PM last night. That was with streaming a few hours of Netflix, re-downloading and configuring my old programs and settings, and browsing Reddit and Twitter all day yesterday. Apple claims 10 hours and early reviews showed it to be more like 4 or 5. Turns out it was a macOS bug that kept dedicated GPUs turned on all the time once a certain event was triggered. I think I could easily do 10 hours if I just browsed the web. Video playback just sips power. I watched an hour long episode on FX and lost only 7% battery. It doesn't seem right, like the battery isn't calibrated properly, but it doesn't drop off a cliff in the lower numbers either; it remains a consistent drain.
Touch Bar, the only thing I don't like about it is the word suggestion when I'm typing text. Like right now. It's a bit annoying if I pay attention to it but I can usually block it out. I'm sure there's a Terminal command to stop it from suggesting the next word or shitty emojis. I'll get to that if it really bothers me. Otherwise, during video playback, it's amazing to be able to scroll within the website. I do miss having an Escape key, but not the other function keys they took away.
I got an Education discount of $200 and Apple also started the Back to School deal where you get a free pair of Beats. I got the Solo3 and while Beats get ragged on for being Beats, they sound surprisingly good. Much better than what I was expecting. They normally do retail for $300 and I can't say these are $300 set of cans, but they are still very good and they integrate incredibly well with macOS and other Apple devices. Being wireless, the battery life is actually really good too. I can't say how surprised I am with what the internet thinks of Beats and how that can affect an opinion if you haven't even tried them out. I'd never buy them for the price they're sold at but giving them out for free is too generous too. They're solid and feature-packed cans, probably worth $150 tops.
I mentioned Safari earlier. It's just really good. I stayed away after having some issues years ago but I think that was me being an ass and installing dev betas months before they were set to be released. I made the same mistake on my 2010 13" by putting the High Sierra beta on it and having a huge bug with putting the computer to sleep. I'm going to keep this one on a stable release. I've never run a stable release of OSX/macOS since I joined the Lion beta. What was that, 2011? macOS works amazing when you just let it fucking be, lol
The speakers on this thing are great too. Easily the best laptop speakers out right now. I genuinely debate between putting on headphones or listening through the speakers for music. Headphones usually win out so as not to disturb the whole house but the speakers are crisp and probably not something talked much about in reviews.
I bought a Satechi USB-C hub; it's unfortunate we have to do this but its not too big of a deal. I'll be looking at getting a USB-C external SSD and flash drive as well, but that's probably months or even years away. This hub will do just fine for the few USB devices I own. I haven't warmed up to a bluetooth mouse in the past ten years they've been popular; I still use a USB Microsoft mouse from 2006. I bought three of them on accident from NewEgg but that just ended up becoming a happy mistake in the long run. I'm on the second one now and still have the third, sparkling new. I just use it for minor gaming, that's all.
So yeah, pretty happy with it. I was debating on upping the specs a bit but now I'm a bit wiser that I'm not a power user and this set up is also probably overkill for me. There was no need to look to the 2.9 or 3.1 Ghz and 2.8 was just fine.
Here's hoping this lasts at least 5 years. My 2010 just needs a new battery otherwise it might last five more years too.
