Switching back to a 2010 MacBook Pro for a week in 2018

One day I walked into my office and a co-worker was leaning over his laptop calmly sopping coffee he had spilled next to his computer. I was taken aback because he was experiencing my worst nightmare, and doing so with untroubled aplomb. I’m still lucky enough to say that I’ve never spilled liquid on a computer (and yes, I knocked on wood immediately after I typed that), but nine days ago I did something far worse to my beloved laptop.

I absentmindedly left the poor thing in a tray at an airport security checkpoint and proceeded to fly 495 miles away before I realized it was missing. To say I lack business-travel savvy is an understatement. And yes, it was my work computer.

To the great credit of the LaGuardia TSA agents, my computer was amazingly returned to me via FedEx unscathed — after a great number of phone calls, incident reports, and police filings were made by me, of course.

When the whereabouts of my 2013 13″ MacBook Pro were in question for over a week, I was forced to rely on my old computer, a 2010 15″ MacBook Pro. It had been sitting in its box for over two and a half years untouched. The last time I had used it, I powered it up and its touchpad and keyboard were completely unresponsive. I couldn’t log in or anything. I put it away with a heavy sigh, and groaned at the thought of ever having to deal with it again.

Thankfully, when I reopened that old Apple box in a panic nine days ago, the mischievous machine booted up without issue. Going from the egalitarian MacOS 10.13.4 High Sierra to the wildcat OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard with its “lickable” blue buttons was a total trip. The software was a big step backward. The hardware, on the other hand, had aged painfully well.

How far we haven’t come

Many people rightfully complain about the butterfly keyboards that are used in all current Apple laptops. They’re so easy to break that if I were forced to buy a new laptop today, I would bemoaningly get a 2015 MacBook Pro. Apple sincerely screwed up every single one of their portable computers, and they know it. Even though I totally LOVE the keyboard on my aging 2013 MacBook Pro, I think the one on my 2010 machine is better.

Typing on my old MacBook Pro was a joy. The keys feel slightly softer, they have a deeper throw, and best of all they’re noticeably quieter. The backlight on them isn’t as good as it is on my 2013 MBP, but besides that I liked them better. This realization threw me for a loop, because the keyboard on my 2013 MBP is just wonderful.

One thing that didn’t take me by surprise was how great it was having wealth of ports on the old machine. I mean, just look at this thing! MagSafe 1, chunky ethernet, FireWire 800, Mini-Display Port (pre Thunderbolt), two USB A, SD card slot, line-level audio input, and a headphone jack:

That line-level audio input still baffles me. I’m an audio nerd, and even I never, ever need that thing. That input was on most Apple computer models for a very long time. Why, Apple? Why.

Not having a Retina display = Surprisingly okay

In 2012 Apple started putting “Retina” displays in their MacBook Pro computers, which are essentially high-resolution screens. But they do more than just render photos, graphics, and video better. Much of the graphic muscle is used to render text. The result is a vastly improved computing experience. Your eyes quickly get used to reading vector-graphic quality words and sentences, which leads most Retina users to say “Once you go Retina, you can’t go back.”

The first few hours that I was forced to stare at that prehistoric 1680 x 1050 display were noticeably less pleasant, but the feeling soon faded and the screen became normal. I am a believer in Retina, and I do not want to go back, but being forced to give it up wasn’t nearly as painful as I assumed it would be. Now that I have my old 2013 MBP back, I’m loving every second of using it, and the display is a big part of that. But living happily without Retina was one of the more surprising revelations of the week.

Give your computer a brain transplant

Here’s a quality to this computer that’s very appealing: the RAM is easily user upgradable. It has the stock 4GB, but I can still buy the 8GB upgrade and install it myself. Humorously, I looked up the current price of the RAM I needed, and it was $199. Shortly afterward I found an old file on the computer named “Stuff I want to buy,” and the very same RAM stick was on the list, and the price was $199. Days later I did some more digging and found an 8GB RAM upgrade for $94, but it was still funny.

My old MBP has a noisy 7200RPM internal hard drive. But, if I wanted to, I could replace it with an SSD myself in 20 minutes. That’s an upgrade I never considered in the old days because it was far too expensive. Now I can buy compatible a 1TB SSD for $199, or a 500GB for $110. Part of me considered making this upgrade. The machine would be much faster, and I could put a much more modern Mac OS on it.

Living without emoji = NOT OKAY 😿

One of the hardest parts of the week was not having emoji in my life. It made me realize how often I rely on them communicate. On my 2010 MBP running Snow Leopard they simply were not available. Whenever I would encounter other people trying to use emoji on the web, I would just see a sad, lifeless square. ▢ It totally sucked.

Using such a dated operating system and browsers was truly odd. Certain things just didn’t work. A screen on Google Analytics would render perfectly for a moment, then 3/4 of the screen would just go blank. The version of Chrome I was using, 49.0.2623.112 (64-bit) to be exact, could not be updated (my 2013 MBP is running version 67.0.3396.87 (Official Build) (64-bit), in case you’re wondering.

Here’s a perfect example of the oddness. The profile picture for my Google account looks normal in some screens, but in others it looks like this:

That mannequin head totally creeps me out.

The situation on Safari (version 5.1.10) was far worse. Most sites simply would not display. Even Apple.com looks totally weird on this version of Safari, as all of the hero products are halfway stuck on the left side of the screen:

Not everything about the hardware was refreshing to see again. Remember the light on the front of Apple laptops that would slowly fade in and out, to mimic the act of sleeping? My old MBP has this, and while I used to think it was cute, today it just seems pointless and goofy. I like a completely dark room to sleep in, and that dumb light was something I had to trouble myself to obscure at bedtime.

But man, pressing the physical button on the side to illuminate the battery indicator lights was great. It was such an elegant feature, and an example of how Apple computers used to be more user-focused with their hardware. Today Apple prioritizes minimalism over user experience. They collectively don’t realize this is the truth, either.

If you read my blog, you may be wondering why I didn’t choose use my up-to-date Chromebook Pro instead of my ancient MBP.  As decent as that Chromebook is, the keyboard is nowhere near as good as a Mac, and the trackpad is shamefully bad. Plus, I needed to do some basic photo editing, and my old Mac had an old copy of Gimp 2 on it. They successfully enabled me to do everything I needed to do at work.

Now that my 2013 MBP is back in my possession I use it constantly and have no desire to pick up my rather heavy 2010 MacBook Pro. But as slow as it was, and for as many hiccups as it had on the internet, it truly impressed me. The thing got me through a busy week at work without issue. You can get a model like mine for around $385 on eBay today. With a fast SSD and the 8GB RAM upgrade, it can be a legitimately great daily-driver computer, eight years into its life. Eight years from today, in distant 2026, I don’t imagine the same will be said about my plastic Chromebook Pro.

But, I could be wrong. I’m dumb enough to leave my computer behind in a TSA tray. Don’t listen to a word I say. 🙃