command_f

To my surprise, my 21.5" LG UltraFine 4K display (the one that Apple has just launched) arrived today. Its delivery was forecast for the last week of December right up to yesterday. Whilst this is great news, my MBP is not due until the second week of December so I can't actually use it (USB-C, don't you know).

The appearance of the display has had a lot of flak. I have to say that, to my eyes, it's a nicely made, generic black monitor. The height adjust is very smooth and ... well, that's all I can say about it. It has a single, unlabelled, sliding switch on the rear that apparently does nothing. The user manual is supposedly on LG's web site but wasn't when I looked I'll just have to wait patiently.

It's one hell of a door-stop.

macwhat said:

its a little ridiculous it took them 3 weeks to have them on display, let alone any reasonable inventory available the day these laptops were released.  Its not like they haven't had ample time since the last update.  Look at the pictures in these articles, showing off this computer like its god's gift to mankind.  I've been waiting to upgrade for over a year, but this whole limited supply BS and inflated pricing is a huge turnoff. 

It would be a little unfair to stack up machines in the physical shops whilst people are waiting for their pre-ordered machines to be supplied. Display units, I agree, would be sensible but perhaps that too is deferring to those that ordered early.

knowitall said:

I find notebook input unusable, adding another bar even further away won't help.
A notebook keyboard is unusable and cumbersome because it's behind a large area used by a touch pad (in Apples case that's huge so keys are unreachable), the touch pad itself is unusable because it's located wrong, it should be to the right (slightly below) the keyboard.
Power (or pro) users know this, a keyboard should be detached and you type with your hands slightly around it, so Apples iMac keyboards (the one without the numerical input) are perfect ...

There's a learning curve, sure, but I think most people are happy with them. The trackpad would be a problem except that Apple's palm detection/rejection is pretty good (on my current MBP anyway): try it.

I can't agree about an off-centre trackpad. I use both hands at different times and some people, I'm told, are left-handed  :-) Centre has to be the right choice.

Nice review, thanks.

I'm hoping for a performance boost despite Intel's priorities being elsewhere: surely that 25% faster RAM and faster SSD will improve real-world performance even if it does less for benchmarks.

The Touchbar I'm reserving judgement on. It could turn out to be just a new place for a window's toolbar but the physical ergonomics sound good to me so I'm hoping that we we see some ingenious thinking to exploit it. I'm convinced that it's a lot better solution than a touch screen and I do miss iOS's text suggestions when typing on my current MBP so there's one small improvement. A very fine display has got to be good and I'm sure, sight-unseen, that I'll be fine with the keyboard. The trackpad looks like another win: quicker to find and easier to use (less thinking about where to put your fingers when you start).

On 16GB RAM I'm relaxed. I upgraded my current MBP to 16GB a little while ago and it's more than I need (Lightroom and Xcode development being my big consumers). Those who are heavy on the video front might disagree but the backing store is so fast that I doubt there'll be too many genuine complaints. And the ports? They're forward-looking. I have an issue with Apple's handling of the interim situation but the ports on the machine are probably right; hopefully in a year or two there will be plenty of choice of USB-C native peripherals and most of us will have had a chance to upgrade some of our key devices.

My BTO 15" is due in the first half of December, I'm looking forward to trying this stuff in practice.

Nice gesture on Armistice Day (end of WW1). We need to remember that these are ordinary people that put their lives on the line to protect our nations' interests.

In UK, this Sunday is Remembrance Sunday and you'll see lots of Brits wearing paper Poppies in tribute to our forces' losses in two world wars and more.