# Apple MacBook Pro

928 Hacker News commenters recommended Apple MacBook Pro and 688 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 13 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 5 years (248 owners).

**Verdict:** Apple Silicon models stay fast for years, have long battery life, practical ports and enough memory to run local AI models; some dislike macOS and find the 16-inch heavy.

## Why people recommend it

- Runs large local AI models (6 comments): "The answer is a 16" M5 Max 128GB for $5k. You can run much bigger models than your setup while being an awesome portable machine for everything else." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47474905)) "In the context of an M5 Max with 96GB of VRAM, it's a bargain compared to the price you'd have to pay for an Nvidia GPU with 96GB of VRAM for AI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578160)) "my consumer-grade Macbook Pro (M1 Max, 64GB) runs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B fast enough to be very usable for regular interactive coding support" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48087978))
- Performance holds up for years (5 comments): "My machine is aging like a fine wine, I’m acknowledging how resilient their custom silicon is despite the world demanding more and more compute." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47232755)) "is only 4 years old, has a fairly OK keyboard, and is still in striking distance of current high-end ultrabooks when it comes to performance" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47062244)) "I'm not even starting to begin to get to the point where I start thinking about replacing this thing which I'm frankly astonished by." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49940712))
- Long battery life (3 comments): "there is literally no laptop on Earth as nice as the MacBook Pro. Extremely long battery life, insane CPU & GPU performance, unmatched trackpad - but it runs MacOS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49442111)) "My M-series MacBook pro is fantastic. The battery life, suspend resume, the track pad, the audio quality, it's all really good hardware." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47004451)) "The Touch Bar/butterfly keyboard era of MacBooks was a total disaster." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50280898))
- Practical built-in ports (3 comments): "HDMI+SDXC+magsafe built-in is more practical than a fourth generic port and fishing around in your laptop bag for dongles." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50289412)) "The real improvement was the number of displays supported and, in some cases, removing the Touch Bar and adding HDMI/SD." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47241652)) "Apple's approach of supporting Thunderbolt 4/5 on every USB port of the MacBook Pro is the only sustainable way forward." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47901258))

## What people warn about

- Stuck with macOS (3 comments): "there is literally no laptop on Earth as nice as the MacBook Pro. Extremely long battery life, insane CPU & GPU performance, unmatched trackpad - but it runs MacOS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49442111)) "macOS is basically discount Linux; it's tolerable, but only if the gulf between a MacBook and the next best hardware is wide enough to justify it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47866143)) "I would still have to be OK using a proprietary OS I can't control, designed by people who just want to keep extracting my money ultimately." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47853951))
- Past Touch Bar, keyboard missteps (3 comments): "The two issues I have had in 20 years of Apple laptops is the butterfly keyboard and the GPU causing discoloration of the screen" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50120265)) "It got us ending the incredibly successful Macbook Air for the too-compromised 12" Macbook (1 port, remember?), the pointless Touch Bar and the terrible butterly keyboard" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47850048)) "a part of the screen dedicated to be the spot to tap to start changing the volume taking away from the other useful parts of the screen" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47850812))
- 16-inch model is heavy (2 comments): "I love my M1 16" but it's a giant heavy cinder block that I have dragged with me to more places than I can count, always grudgingly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50284571)) "The biggest reason is I move around a lot and the 16" MBP has weighed on me. It's a really chunky and heavy laptop." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48681294))
- External display quirks (2 comments): "Unfortunately with most monitor settings the GPU power consumption would produce enough heat to run the fans even if the rest of the system was completely idle!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48309691)) "Quite messy and wonky as in Linus Tech Tips testing. Require plugging displays in right order to get desired resolution / refresh rate." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50266237))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Apple MacBook Neo](https://hackerapproved.com/p/macbook-neo.md): 707 recommend
- [MacBook Air](https://hackerapproved.com/p/macbook-air.md): 633 recommend
- [Apple MacBook](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-macbook.md): 499 recommend
- [Framework Laptop 12](https://hackerapproved.com/p/framework-laptop-12.md): 83 recommend
- [Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon](https://hackerapproved.com/p/thinkpad-x1-carbon.md): 77 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Apple+MacBook+Pro+laptop&tag=YOURTAG-20) (affiliate link)
- [Official site](https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Apple MacBook Pro", https://hackerapproved.com/p/macbook-pro/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).