(semi-rant)

The new MacBook Pro's front is NOT metal. It's made out of some plastic despite looking like brush metal.

I learnt this the hard way when i accidentally ran my keys across it and gave it a nasty scratch.

Every time i see it, i feel an irritable itch that i can't scratch.

Luckily, i have the perfect bandage.

@irene I imagine the pain being expecting nothing to happen. And then getting a fat scratch on your booky.

@irene Keys on metal don't do shit without pressure. Keys do however do shit with plastic.

@irene it doesn't make the computer any worse. Same thing as getting a nasty scratch on the side of your car doesn't make it go any less faster.

Still quite an eye sore though, considering how damn expensive Apple has made their laptops nowadays, and knowing that you won't be able to fix it without spending a fortune.

@beggarboy that's exactly it. You'd expect the lid of the laptop to shrug off key damage, but nope. Off the plastic goes on the lid.

@irene you don't need to fix the scratch on the laptop.

All you need is the awesome devRant sticker, and... What scratch?

Car will "rust" not "just" :)

@Alice an unfortunate effect of "put your keys and laptop in the same bag".

"Every time i see it, i feel an irritable itch that i can't scratch."
Have you tried using your keys for that? :D

@irene @Fabian brutal lmao

Aluminium is a soft metal and will get scratched by metal keys, even with relatively low pressure. Metal gets scratches too, not just plastic 🙁

In fact it is made out of aluminum, not plastic.

Actually... For the new MBPs, some parts are made of plastic, not aluminium.

The only part that is made of aluminum is the keyboard base part.

Even the bottom is made of plastic, screwed on as a separate sheet underneath.

@kileak Thats just cheap

@kileak Do you have a source for that ? Because AFAIK, it's been aluminium ever since they started their unibody thingy

@kileak @beggarboy From Apple's own material, the whole chassis is made of recycled aluminium. Plastic is used mostly for vents, keyboard mechanism and speakers.

I'm never buying Apple products again for many reasons, but build quality and materials are not part of those reasons.

I hate Apple's business practices just as much as the next guy, but let's try not to spread false information, yeah?

Then again, if you have a source, I'm open for it :)

@CptFox mee too thought it was all metal, or he got a fake one :)

Not metal? I don’t believe this. Pic or didn’t happen

@CptFox I do not own a MacBook or anything alike do I can't say and I've got my own reasons as to why I am not appealed by apple products in the slightest.

I just took his word for it and assumed it had to be plastic because his keys scratched the back plate, which seems weird.

Tho, I am leaned back on this as you are, so I'd like material confirmation aswell.

@beggarboy Either he has a counterfeit, or he's just unaware of how soft aluminium really is. It's so soft that in engineering, you treat like wood as far as screw length goes.

Plus, the Space Grey colour of his MBP isn't aluminium's natural colour. Most likely, the colour is applied by plating. And if you've ever seen gold plated jewellery, you'll know how brittle plating can be. I wouldn't be surprised that the key scratched off some plating, revealing the much brighter aluminium under it. I can see how that could be mistaken for a plastic scratch.

@CptFox Sherlock.

@CptFox i don't have an official source, but you're right that i would have misgauged how easy it was to scratch aluminium.

In any case, after looking at it more closely, it feels more like this - the front lid and back panel (underneath of the laptop) are plastic base that is coated with aluminum. It's definitely not full aluminum; try knocking on the new MBP and old MBP, you'll feel the difference.

Also, compared to the base of the keyboard, it somehow feels different in terms of density and... Coldness. No idea how to explain this. Have a look in the showroom and look at those 3 areas.

Hope it's not me being paranoid but that scratch on the lid made me look at it differently now. I'd tear away the sticker to show you guys, but then i wouldn't have another sticker to cover it.

Somehow i feel Apple's been cutting a lot of corners. The only reason why I'm actually using one is that I've to develop for IOS.

@kileak Might be slight paranoia, we tend to let things get to our head when we get mad about our toys being damaged 😖

Since Apple hinges a lot of their marketing on premium materials, they'd open themselves up on charges of false advertising by cheating there.

The keyboard part is stiffer because it's thicker and has more structure to it, while the other parts are thin sheets, these can be quite pliable.

On the feeling of coldness, we feel temperature as the speed at which heat leaves our bodies. Thicker aluminium will transfer heat away faster, and thus feel colder than a thin sheet where the heat hasn't got as much room to escape to.

Identifying materials is oddly harder than we feel like it should be, lately my step father mistook a black iron teapot handle for wood 🙃

@CptFox hearing you loud and clear. :)

Here's a picture of said scratch by the way, the white part was what made me think that it looks to be plastic.

I'm no material engineer, and stand corrected that it should be aluminum.

(but faith in Apple products isn't particularly high nowadays...)

@kileak Oh damn that's a bad one, I get why you're mad 😰

As a former Apple fanboy (don't blame me, I fell into it as a child, my family's been using Apple products exclusively since the fucking Lisa), I now have a love to hate mind towards more recent Apple products. But the one thing I haven't feel betrayed with yet is the build quality.

(arguably, my Mac is one of the last non-plated ones, so scratches on it are rarer and camouflaged by the brushed finish instead of amplified)