A few months ago, I wrote about how my one-year-old MacBook Pro's keyboard keys stopped working if a single piece of dust slipped under there, and more importantly, that neither Apple nor its Geniuses would acknowledge that this was actually a problem. Today, Best Buy announced it is having a significant sale on these computers, marking them hundreds of dollars off. Interesting. Still, I’d suggest you do not buy them.
Since I wrote about my experience, many have asked me what happened with the new top half of the computer that the Apple Geniuses installed, with its pristine keyboard and maybe-different key switches. The answer is that after a couple of months, I started to get temporarily dead keys for seemingly no reason. Again.
I still had my 2013 MacBook Pro around, so I sold my 2016 MacBook Pro back to Apple’s refurb program, and now I just use the 2013 as my laptop (I used the recovered money to build a PC, lord help me). This old MacBook Pro is still fine, and most importantly, all the keyboard keys work. The new MacBook Pro is gone. When I started working at The Outline, I was offered a choice of a new MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air for my work computer, and I chose the MacBook Air, with its good keyboard that doesn’t break from dust. I’m fully committed to this bit.
Apple still hasn’t said anything about this, save for the strange tech support page that tells you how to use a can of air on your non-functional keyboard. Since that time, plenty of other people have messaged me about their dead spacebars and V and N keys, sometimes pointing knives at them because there is no other way on this earth to cope. I sympathize.
what am i supposed to do when the space bar stops working. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING WITH THIS F⚠️CKING KEYBOARD pic.twitter.com/tFHsLYT49T
— Casey Neistat (@CaseyNeistat) April 7, 2018
@caseyjohnston got a new macbook, remembered your keyboard article, and was like “i’ll just be really careful.” got a dead key 36 hours in
— Jon Bois (@jon_bois) December 16, 2017
.@caseyjohnston have you gotten an external keyboard yet? I'm seriously almost at that point https://t.co/A8kS43SFSK
— Louise Matsakis (@lmatsakis) October 18, 2017
My MacBook keyboard broke-just out of warranty. $700 for new keyboard. only solution @apple tried replacing keys. Seems like a systemic prob
— Scott Wright (@Scott_Wright1) October 18, 2017
My personal failure rate with the butterfly keyboard is 100%, and at the prices Apple charges, I am unwilling to take that chance again. (Went to Surface Pro instead.)
— Marko Kloos (@markokloos) April 14, 2018
When the time came to upgrade, I got the (still available) old body style of the MBP 15" with the tried-and-true keyboard instead of the new thinner butterfly keyboard model. I partially blame @caseyjohnston. pic.twitter.com/yI69hghM2y
— Marko Kloos (@markokloos) January 9, 2018
Also since that time, other manufacturers have started using extremely low-profile keyboards in their notebooks that look troublingly like the MacBook’s and MacBook Pro’s keyboards. At the risk of being too overzealous, I’d say don’t buy those either. What should you buy instead of all these bad computers? I have no earthly idea.
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