12-Inch Retina MacBook Receives Mixed Reviews From Early Adopters

[mi7chy]

Okay, so if you can get the Lenovo at the price, it's the same for the two machines, so let's return to the key differences in the specs:

Add the mandatory $79 dongle to the rMB price. Size is irrelevant since LaVie has a bigger more useful 13.3" display at a lower weight (12" is too small for productivity) and built in ports so you don't have to deal with the bulk and hassle of a dongle that's easier to lose. Supposedly there's a model without multitouch that's even lighter at ~1.72# and less costly. The much faster CPU gets more work done per battery hour. Camera is 720p vs 480p. LaVie Z wins over the Macnetbook.

 

[bobob]

Supposedly there's a model without multitouch that's even lighter at ~1.72# and less costly.

The HZ750 weighs 2.04 lbs and starts at $1699 for the base 4GB/128GB model.

 

[mi7chy]

The HZ750 weighs 2.04 lbs and starts at $1699 for the base 4GB/128GB model.

Is English not your primary language? Just curious because what you linked is the version with a 360 degree hinge that transforms it into a tablet so that's why it's heavier and costlier. $1699 LaVie Z 360 comes with 8GB/256GB.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/lavie/lavie-360/

The regular LaVie Z has a 180 degree hinge so it can lay flat unlike the restrictive 12" Macnetbook.

 

[bobob]

Is English not your primary language? Just curious because what you linked is the version with a 360 degree hinge that transforms it into a tablet so that's why it's heavier and costlier. $1699 LaVie Z 360 comes with 8GB/256GB.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/lavie/lavie-z/

The regular LaVie Z has a 180 degree hinge so it can lay flat unlike the restrictive 12" Macnetbook.

That's the one we've been discussing all along.

And again, I'm quoting MSRP's, not discount prices.

Also Lenovo wasn't able to come through on their original proposed spec of 1.72 lbs - - the shipping model weighs 1.87 lbs.

 

[mi7chy]

Also Lenovo wasn't able to come through on their original proposed spec of 1.72 lbs - - the shipping model weighs 1.87 lbs.

Can you get someone to read to you what you linked?

http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/Lenovo%20LaVie%20Z%20Spec%20Sheet_1%201%2015%20FINAL.pdf

HZ550 is the non-touch display version and weighs 1.72#. The touch version is 1.87# and the touch with 360 degree hinge version is 2.04#.

 

[Dayv]

Add the mandatory $79 dongle to the rMB price.

"mandatory"

I expect that the majority of MB users will not be buying one. The USB-C to A adapter is far closer to being mandatory, but some users will still get along fine without one.

The only truly mandatory accessory is a power supply. Oh look, there's one in the box!

 

[Truefan31]

"mandatory"



I expect that the majority of MB users will not be buying one. The USB-C to A adapter is far closer to being mandatory, but some users will still get along fine without one.



The only truly mandatory accessory is a power supply. Oh look, there's one in the box!

Don't worry he is just about always downing all apple products

 

[johngordon]

Add the mandatory $79 dongle to the rMB price.

Why is is mandatory?

 

[bobob]

HZ550 is the non-touch display version and weighs 1.72#. The touch version is 1.87# and the touch with 360 degree hinge version is 2.04#.

The model number of the Lavie Z 360 is HZ750 - - what is the model number of this "touch version" you keep referring to?

 

[bingeciren]

So much variety in opinions here...

Curiosity brought me to the apple store yesterday, just for a few minutes. This thing is unbelievably beautiful, light, tiny... Feels almost fragile in my hands and almost too light.

I am not shopping for one yet (I have rMBP 13"), but my initial thoughts were: I wish Apple would have made it one millimetre thicker (without sacrificing still being very tiny...), to make it a bit sturdier, and so maybe have a room for one more port, and/or still a bit bigger battery, and/or a bit better camera, and/or a stronger processor...

Still, rMB 12 is unbelievable machine!

They will do many of those you mentioned. But not now; NEXT year #

The marketing trick is, never offer the round wheel immediately. First a square wheel, then a pentagonal shaped wheel and call it "improved", then a hexagonal wheel which would be "the advanced", and so on and so forth.

Look at the evolution of the Air. First Air was just as bad as the new rMB; only one port, underpowered CPU, slow disk, etc. The next version had two ports but dropped the keyboard light. Then after that they re-introduce the keyboard light, added the Intel i series CPU and made us happy again.

The moral of the story is to wait. I'm sure in a few years, the rMB will be closer to being a rounder wheel than a square one right now.

 

[Dayv]

Look at the evolution of the Air. First Air was just as bad as the new rMB; only one port, underpowered CPU, slow disk, etc. The next version had two ports but dropped the keyboard light. Then after that they re-introduce the keyboard light, added the Intel i series CPU and made us happy again.

The moral of the story is to wait. I'm sure in a few years, the rMB will be closer to being a rounder wheel than a square one right now.

Or, if you're in the market for a new laptop and this one suits your needs, buy it now. No matter when you buy a computer, now or five years from now, if you wait a few years, there will be better ones available. It's called progress.

 

[sracer]

They will do many of those you mentioned. But not now; NEXT year ��

The marketing trick is, never offer the round wheel immediately. First a square wheel, then a pentagonal shaped wheel and call it "improved", then a hexagonal wheel which would be "the advanced", and so on and so forth.

Look at the evolution of the Air. First Air was just as bad as the new rMB; only one port, underpowered CPU, slow disk, etc. The next version had two ports but dropped the keyboard light. Then after that they re-introduce the keyboard light, added the Intel i series CPU and made us happy again.

The moral of the story is to wait. I'm sure in a few years, the rMB will be closer to being a rounder wheel than a square one right now.

The thing to remember is that those changes wouldn't have come to the MBA if people rushed in and bought the first generation and didn't make noise about the limitations.

As much as people like to think that Apple marches only to their own tune, they DO listen to customers... not necessarily their faithful customers, but the customers of their competitors and ex-customers.

Whether it is 7" tablets, phablets, or (soon to be) 2-in-1 hybrids, if customers are buying something else in sufficient quantities (because Apple doesn't provide it) Apple will produce it.

 

[bobob]

The thing to remember is that those changes wouldn't have come to the MBA if people rushed in and bought the first generation and didn't make noise about the limitations.

Sure the various secondary features evolved, but does no one else remember what it was like to see the MacBook Air for the first time when Steve introduced it on January 15th, 2008?

It was a whole new design, a whole new form factor for notebook computers.

 

[drsmithy]

The 12" retina MacBook with the addition of Apple's USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter offers pretty much the same functionality of the hypothetical 11" retina MacBook Air.

Except you have to carry a dongle around...

As I've said elsewhere, the obvious solution for the rMB is to have built a basic port expander into the power brick. This would have been true even if they'd used a proprietary connect - USB-C as the power connector only makes it *more* painfully obvious.

The weight of the 12" retina MacBook (2.03 lbs) + the weight of the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter (0.13 lbs) = 2.16 lbs which is less than the weight of the current 11" MacBook Air (2.38 lbs) which would certainly have had to increase to include the bigger battery needed to drive the retina screen. Plus you get a 12.5% larger screen with a better aspect ratio.

This makes no sense.

The 11" MBA has a larger case. Obviously, the same effort put into shrinking its logic board as went into the rMB would result in greater internal volume for greater battery capacity.

Similarly, the bezel of the 11" MBA is huge. The 12" panel in the rMB will fit into the 11" MBA's case as is.

The conclusion to anyone bothering to think about it objectively is crystal clear. With equivalent (and arguably quite a bit less) engineering, the 11" MBA chassis could comfortably house both the rMB's LCD panel and a faster CPU, while its greater volume would have allowed a battery with even more capacity than the rMB has. Ie: we could comfortably have had our 11" MBA with a Retina screen, and possibly longer battery life as well.

 

[bobob]

The conclusion to anyone bothering to think about it objectively is crystal clear.

That's funny - - that's exactly what I was going to write regarding your churlish demeanor.

 

[drsmithy]

Sure the various secondary features evolved, but does no one else remember what it was like to see the MacBook Air for the first time when Steve introduced it on January 15th, 2008?

Image

It was a whole new design, a whole new form factor for notebook computers.

FFS, the bubble that surrounds Apple fans is weird.

Multiple PC vendors (Toshiba and Sony, maybe others ?) both had smaller Ultrabooks out months before the original MacBook Air was announced, or within a month or two of its announcement.

A decent small notebook, it was. "A whole new design, a whole new form factor for notebook computers", it wasn't. Crikey, who could try and argue with a straight face that "smaller and lighter" for laptops was some sort of revolutionary idea ?

 

[KPOM]

Sure the various secondary features evolved, but does no one else remember what it was like to see the MacBook Air for the first time when Steve introduced it on January 15th, 2008?

Image

It was a whole new design, a whole new form factor for notebook computers.

Fake. Steve Jobs would never have release a notebook with only one USB port and no upgradabity. It goes against everything that Apple stands for. This MacNetBook should be $129. That's all it's worth. /s

----------

Except you have to carry a dongle around...

As I've said elsewhere, the obvious solution for the rMB is to have built a basic port expander into the power brick. This would have been true even if they'd used a proprietary connect - USB-C as the power connector only makes it *more* painfully obvious.



This makes no sense.

The 11" MBA has a larger case. Obviously, the same effort put into shrinking its logic board as went into the rMB would result in greater internal volume for greater battery capacity.

Similarly, the bezel of the 11" MBA is huge. The 12" panel in the rMB will fit into the 11" MBA's case as is.

The conclusion to anyone bothering to think about it objectively is crystal clear. With equivalent (and arguably quite a bit less) engineering, the 11" MBA chassis could comfortably house both the rMB's LCD panel and a faster CPU, while its greater volume would have allowed a battery with even more capacity than the rMB has. Ie: we could comfortably have had our 11" MBA with a Retina screen, and possibly longer battery life as well.

Except the only suitable CPU for the shrunken down logic board and fanless design is the Core M. The next step up are the chips in the MacBook Air that use 3 times as much power. Hence they would need a thicker battery to accomplish the same battery life. And as you point out it would be a bigger case.

I wonder if the people calling this a netbook or complaining about it have actually used one.

 

[bobob]

At least drsmithy comes by his MacBook Air antipathy honestly - - check out these remarkably similar sounding posts from a thread discussing the launch of the MacBook Air in 2008...

I do travel a lot, and the weight reduction of 0.9kg is insignificant. *Especially* in the fact of a) how much functionality is lost to gain that weight; and b) other laptops which fit the "portability" requirement far better.

If you can handle the functionality cut of the MBA, you can certainly handle the (relatively smaller) functionality cut of the Vaio TZ or Toshiba R500 and have a much more portable machine due to their smaller footprints.

To this day, I cannot grasp why Apple did not use the Black MacBook, specced up with a discrete video card, etc, to replace the 12" PB.

A 13.3" MBP, with a docking station, would be damn close to laptop nirvana, especially for corporate customers. WHY THE HELL DOESN'T IT EXIST !?

Comparing the MBA to the MBP is like comparing the Mac Mini to the Mac Pro. It's just silly. The MB is the real (and better, IMHO - especially if you install your own SSD) alternative.

The TZ also has 2/3 the footprint. Certainly, it's thicker, but I'm pretty sure people whose primary interest is portability are happy to sacrifice that for width and length reductions. They certainly do in my experience.

The only major problem the Cube suffered from was its ridiculous pricetag. The iMac and Mac Mini (both less expandable than the Cube) clearly demonstrate lack of "expandability" won't kill a product (especially a Mac).

With that said, however, I think there's definitely a parallel. The Cube was clearly targeted at people who were prepared to pay for something that's primary design goal was to look cool. Given the MBA's relatively insignificant advantages - and substantial price premium - over the regular MB, it's hard not to see it as being aimed squarely at the same demographic.

There's a lot more people around with money (or pretend money) to spend on "toys" these days, however, so they might get better mileage than they did with the Cube.

 

[burgman]

This is the kind of comment that makes me think there's a bias on the part of the reviewer. MacBook has 226 ppi, MacBook Pro has 227. To say either looks "fuzzy" suggests an agenda to me.

For course the different GPU's might make a difference. Is this just your bias showing??

----------

Fake. Steve Jobs would never have release a notebook with only one USB port and no upgradabity. It goes against everything that Apple stands for. This MacNetBook should be $129. That's all it's worth.

Of course he won't because with USB you need a separate charging port. Can't wait for the day posters here will stop the "What would Steve do" nonsense as if they have a clue what the man would do or why.

 

[newellj]

Lenovo LaVie Z just made Macbook 12" obsolete.

Lighter 1.87#
More powerful i7-5500U CPU
Optimally sized 13.3" 2560x1440 multitouch display
Keyboard looks like it has more travel unlike the horrible membrane like Macbook keyboard
Built in USB 3.0 x 2 and HDMI ports so no dongle needed

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/lavie/lavie-z/

So, have you ordered one yet? How does it work as a Hackintosh?

----------

bobob, you really think that the key differences are in size (1.5", 0.61" and 0.15") and battery life (1-2 hours) and not the following:

Intel HD Graphics 5300 vs Intel HD Graphic 5500
2304x1440 display vs 2560x1440 multitouch display
Intel Core M processor vs Intel Core i7-5500U processor
1xUSB-C port vs 2 x USB 3.0, 1x HDMI-out, SD card reader
480p FaceTime camera vs 720p HD webcam.

If you consider this minimal size difference of utmost importance, then maybe the 2.03 pounds (rMB) vs 1.87 lbs (Lenovo LaVie Z) is also an essential distinction in weight.

The only difference I see there that's of any potential significance to me is the i7 CPU, which is going to gobble the much smaller battery up in a flash.

----------

The thing to remember is that those changes wouldn't have come to the MBA if people rushed in and bought the first generation and didn't make noise about the limitations.

As much as people like to think that Apple marches only to their own tune, they DO listen to customers... not necessarily their faithful customers, but the customers of their competitors and ex-customers.

Whether it is 7" tablets, phablets, or (soon to be) 2-in-1 hybrids, if customers are buying something else in sufficient quantities (because Apple doesn't provide it) Apple will produce it.

Equally, though, if NO ONE had bought the Gen 1 product, there would never have been a Gen 2. There's a creative tension there if things are going to move forward.

 

[sracer]

Equally, though, if NO ONE had bought the Gen 1 product, there would never have been a Gen 2. There's a creative tension there if things are going to move forward.

That's not "creative tension". It's simple economics. The consumer has no obligation to help a company out because the company decides to take a gamble and push the envelope. People either see value in the product at the pricepoint or they don't. (well that's the way it should work, though with Apple and their customers it is a bit different)

It is pretty silly for someone to purchase a product that they're not satisfied with based on the hope that if they purchase the current gen, that the company will be encouraged to improve it for the next gen.

 

[djbuu]

Add the mandatory $79 dongle to the rMB price. Size is irrelevant since LaVie has a bigger more useful 13.3" display at a lower weight (12" is too small for productivity) and built in ports so you don't have to deal with the bulk and hassle of a dongle that's easier to lose. Supposedly there's a model without multitouch that's even lighter at ~1.72# and less costly. The much faster CPU gets more work done per battery hour. Camera is 720p vs 480p. LaVie Z wins over the Macnetbook.

I've taken the time to bold the language you've used to hedge your position and sensationalize almost every aspect of the Macbook. I'll address each individually.

1. Mandatory - In no way shape or form is the dongle mandatory. I received by Macbook on 4/15 and haven't found the need for a dongle yet. I use my Macbook literally every day, exchange files, do work for my business, and speak with clients all through this machine.
2. Size is irrelevant - Size is absolutely relevant. Size is THE more relevant aspect of computing today. Even Microsoft understands this and it's highlighted by their recent announcement of having a full computer right from your phone. The ONLY aspect in computing nowadays is size, and the numbers and sales all prove it.
3. more useful - This language has been added completely for emotional reaction. You, in no way, can define how much 1.3" of space can be "more useful" just as I could not say how it's not. It's because this language is throw away language.
4. 12" is too small for productivity - There is no measurable way to validate this. Who's defines productivity. Writers in Hollywood make hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for screenplays, all which could be written on a 12" display. But this display wouldn't be good if you were doing CAD work. Productivity cannot be defined by the size of your screen. See #3.
5. bulk and hassle - See #1. The dongle is completely unnecessary and frankly, will be even less useful as time goes on and USB-C becomes more ubiquitous.
6. easier to lose - By this definition, the LaVie Z being less weight that the MacBook is easier to lose. It's a wonder you aren't constantly losing your keys. They must be incredibly easy to lose.
7. more work done - See #3 and #4. Work is always measured by the speed of your CPU. Most people can do an incredible amount of work and use 1% of their CPU.
8. Camera is 720p vs 480p - You made 3 full points about PRODUCTIVITY and then you compared the most irrelevant part of the computer for productivity. At this stage, it was pretty obvious you were running out of steam.
9. Macnetbook - And you're out of steam.

Now that I've deconstructed your post piece by piece and highlighted how completely asinine it is, I'll share one last thing. I did it all on a 12" MacBook.

 

[mi7chy]

I'll share one last thing. I did it all on a 12" MacBook.

Pat yourself on the back and enjoy the 12" toy. People can do the same on their phone but not by choice like trying to do productivity on a 12" toy. 12" is for consumption and light productivity. 13.3" or greater is for extended productivity. Plus, that horrible membrane-like keyboard.

 

[Truefan31]

I've taken the time to bold the language you've used to hedge your position and sensationalize almost every aspect of the Macbook. I'll address each individually.

1. Mandatory - In no way shape or form is the dongle mandatory. I received by Macbook on 4/15 and haven't found the need for a dongle yet. I use my Macbook literally every day, exchange files, do work for my business, and speak with clients all through this machine.
   
2. Size is irrelevant - Size is absolutely relevant. Size is THE more relevant aspect of computing today. Even Microsoft understands this and it's highlighted by their recent announcement of having a full computer right from your phone. The ONLY aspect in computing nowadays is size, and the numbers and sales all prove it.
   
3. more useful - This language has been added completely for emotional reaction. You, in no way, can define how much 1.3" of space can be "more useful" just as I could not say how it's not. It's because this language is throw away language.
   
4. 12" is too small for productivity - There is no measurable way to validate this. Who's defines productivity. Writers in Hollywood make hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for screenplays, all which could be written on a 12" display. But this display wouldn't be good if you were doing CAD work. Productivity cannot be defined by the size of your screen. See #3.
   
5. bulk and hassle - See #1. The dongle is completely unnecessary and frankly, will be even less useful as time goes on and USB-C becomes more ubiquitous.
   
6. easier to lose - By this definition, the LaVie Z being less weight that the MacBook is easier to lose. It's a wonder you aren't constantly losing your keys. They must be incredibly easy to lose.
   
7. more work done - See #3 and #4. Work is always measured by the speed of your CPU. Most people can do an incredible amount of work and use 1% of their CPU.
   
8. Camera is 720p vs 480p - You made 3 full points about PRODUCTIVITY and then you compared the most irrelevant part of the computer for productivity. At this stage, it was pretty obvious you were running out of steam.
   
9. Macnetbook - And you're out of steam.
   

Now that I've deconstructed your post piece by piece and highlighted how completely asinine it is, I'll share one last thing. I did it all on a 12" MacBook.

Don't mind him again he downs most everything apple.

 

[avensis22]

The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, too, has a platform improvement and uses the new Core i5 and i7 Intel. The autonomy would also be extended to 10 hours. It is also now equipped with the same trackpad as the MacBook 12-inch.




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