One of the best tech decisions I made over the course of the last year was go get a Keychron K7 to use with my aging MacBook Pro.
The laptop is an Intel-based 13” model from 2017. While it is noticeably slower and worse on battery life than my two-year-old M1 work laptop, it’s basically fine for everything I use it for, which—let’s face it, is entirely text-editing at this point. Unfortunately, it’s one of the MacBooks with a really terrible internal keyboard—miserable to type on and to add insult to injury, the R key is constantly coming loose and falling off.
I had been planning to replace it but decided on a whim to try an external keyboard. I have a couple of other Keychrons that I like; they are all big chunky keyboards though, and not great for lugging around with a laptop. The K7 is low-profile and gets generally great reviews, so I got one.
And guess what—it’s great! It’s the perfect size to sit atop the built-in keyboard when the laptop is open, it is easy to toss in a bag when I’m headed out somewhere, and it a delight to type on. I feel like the laptop has a whole new lease on life, plus it gave me a reason to get another mechanical keyboard.