Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

The laptop part of a laptop

I’ve owned this fantastically engineered Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (M1 Max) for two and a half years now. The laptop has spent most of that time docked to an external monitor. On a recent curious check with the coconutBattery app, this very MacBook Pro I am typing on has only got 14 battery cycles on it. Perhaps I should have bought a Mac mini instead…

Ah yes, I remember why I bought a beefy Mac laptop instead of a desktop. If life situation ever changes, and I need to move in quick order, a laptop is far easier to haul around with me. My entire digital life in a four and half pound machine. I would sell the monitor and the extra nice-to-have peripherals, and take just the MacBook Pro.

It used to be that it’s superbly unhealthy for laptop batteries to be constantly plugged into power. At my work, I’ve seen plenty of bulging batteries due to users never using their laptops as a laptop. However, in recent years, Apple has done a tremendous job in managing its laptop batteries - automatically - within the operating system. MacOS learns the usage pattern and adjusts the charge levels accordingly. My MacBook Pro is kept at a 80 percent charge at all times, because I never take unplug it from the monitor.

I was pleasantly surprised to read in the same coconutBattery report the battery still has 96% of its design capacity. To put it another way: it has only degraded 4% from new. I am very happy with that. Barring some unexpected monetary windfall that probably should go towards investments, I plan to use this M1 Max MacBook Pro for many more years. It’s good to see the battery is self-managed for maximum longevity.

What the heck are you doing, Windows laptop manufacturers?

Village life.

Equilibrium

Finally. After six of the longest week in my human history, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip has arrived on my desk. Never before have I waited so long for a piece of hardware. The chip shortage is real. God speed to my fellow travelers in the massive Reddit thread of people awaiting their orders.

50 days. I’ve gone 50 whole days without my main computer. In order to pay for a specced-out brand new MacBook Pro, I had to trade-in the old one (I say old; it was a 2019 model, which is still plenty fresh and capable). With the gift card in hand, then I was able to put in an order for the new unit. The last time I did this, I was only without a computer for about a week. This go round, the wait for truly awful.

The mighty supply chain, man.

I’m the type of person who hates the in-between times of things actually getting done. Especially something as crucial as replacing my main laptop, the one with my entire digital life on it. Compounding the frustration is the fact I can’t control any of it. What can I really do if Apple can’t build their latest MacBook Pros fast enough? At least with something like a broken appliance I can stay up all night if necessary to fix the problem. And I’ve done it. I can’t go to sleep knowing my monitor isn’t functioning correctly!

So yeah, it’s been a rough six weeks. I couldn’t get into the groove of life at all. Something just wasn’t quite right until the new MacBook Pro was in my hands. Soon as the backup was done transferring over from the Time Machine disk, I felt mentally whole again. Everything in my life is back to an equilibrium (selling the family’s leased Hyundai Tucson was another big thing on my plate), and I can simply get on with it.

The new deck.

The chip shortage

The global semiconductor chip shortage is no joke. I ordered a new 16-inch MacBook Pro with the “M1 Max” processor during the preorder period back in the last week of October. The laptop isn’t scheduled to arrive for another month. The delivery timeframe given by Apple is the first week of December. The struggle is real, the direst of first world problems.

I am very anxious to get my hands on these properly “pro” laptops with the vaunted Apple silicon. For work, I’ve handled the regular “M1” Macs, and their speed is always amazing. The M1 Pro and the M1 Max chips should be yet another significant leap forward. More exciting for me is the mini-LED display of the new MacBook Pros: full local dimming with variable refresh rate up to 120Hz. It’s basically the $5,000 Pro Display XDR, but in a laptop-sized package. Delicious.

Too bad it’s four week out. I’m hoping Apple will surprise me and get it to me much sooner than early December. I’m taking the entire Thanksgiving week off from work and it would be lovely if I have the brand new MacBook Pro to play with.

Or perhaps a PlayStation 5. Sadly, after one whole year since launch, I still cannot simply walk into a Best Buy or click on Amazon to buy one of these next-generation consoles. I’m far too old and don’t care about gaming enough to play the lottery game or wait in lines (virtual or physical). Good thing there isn’t really a new game that’s impelling me to buy a PS5 now. We’re closing in on nine years since the release of Grand Theft Auto 5, Rockstar Games; how about a new one, eh?

The waiting game continues.

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