titantiger

That entry level one is what I'd expect for education and to be priced at $1099 or maybe $999.  The $1299 one should not only have the 2 USB 3 ports and gigabit Ethernet, but 512GB of storage.  The $1499 one should have 16GB of RAM and 512GB and the $1699 one should have 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

Sorry, but this is just ridiculous.  

Ok, also, this section highlighted below is some bullshit:



Seriously Apple?  You take away Gigabit Ethernet, only give two Thunderbolt/USB4 ports, and no Touch ID on the keyboard?  These are the sorts of compromises you'd expect on the el cheapo version built for K-12, not for a consumer desktop.

I love everything about it except....once again, Apple is being so stingy with the storage.  256GB for a desktop computer is almost insulting.  For $1300, 512GB should have been the minimum and I wish I didn't keep having this complaint every time there's a big refresh in the Mac product line.  A disappointing skimp on what looks like a really nice update.

I too wish the chin was totally gone, but I suppose we just aren't there yet.

dewme said:

This was a nice balanced review. The only thing I’d add is that choice of case is very critical with the larger phones. I’ve found that Apple’s silicone cases tend to neutralize a lot of “bigness” of the big phones because they impart a feeling of confidence when holding the phone. Apple’s silicone cases seem to have the perfect combination of grippiness versus friction, in other words they feel great in your hands and still slide into your pocket easily. 

I despise hard plastic cases, even on the smallest of phones. My wife has an iPhone 11 in a hard plastic case and I always feel like it’s trying to slip out of my hand.  My iPhone XS Max is in a silicone case and it is much easier and more secure to hold. Heck, I even have an Apple smart battery case for my XS Max that I use occasionally and it’s more comfortable to hold than any hard plastic case. My second choice is Apple’s leather case, but it’s still not nearly as secure feeling as their silicone cases. In my opinion, having a secure grip on your phone is at least 90% of the way towards protecting your phone from damage. 

The thing to do with the leather case is to dampen your hands and rub the leather really good.  Do this periodically and you'll see a patina develop but also it will get a little bit of grip to it.  Not as much as the silicone, but better than the leather right out of the box by far.  

JWSC said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

JWSC said:

Everyone here is bitching about market economics that are ultimately self correcting.  One bitches about Comcast being a monopoly but, in SF Sonic is beating them on cost.  Another bitches about Comcast and then moves to AT&T.  What do you guys want - the Government to regulate everything and stifle infrastructure development?  Come on!

You must acknowledge that a small percentage of households are extreme bandwidth users compared to the rest.  It’s not necessarily fair to the rest that this small percentage take advantage of everyone else’s bandwidth.

We don’t necessarily have to like any of these companies.  But they do spend billions on infrastructure.  Do you want that to continue?  All I’m saying is, be careful what you wish for.  You may get it.

Not everybody has the same options that you do in SF. I only have to go about 30 miles south or west of DC for there to be only one provider -- Comcast.

That sucks.  But alternatives, some with OK service and some extremely bad service such as HughsNet are available now.  And Starlink is coming.  The market is not stagnant.

I admire your tenacious commitment to libertarian market principles, but in this case they don't apply.  HughesNet and satellite services like it suck.  So in effect, in many markets across the country, there is really only one true high speed provider in the area.  You either get 100 Mbps to gigabit service from a Comcast that bends you over on price and data caps, or you get crappy HughesNet where you *might* 1/5 that if you're lucky.  And they also do the data cap thing, but instead they slow you down to about 1.5 Mbps the rest of the month unless you pay extra.  I've lived in both situations - monopoly cable/internet provider when I lived in Nashville, and now a city with multiple providers where I live now.  It's amazing what a difference some competition makes.