You think 90% of consumers only do Internet, email and streaming Youtube? If that were the case, $200 Chromebooks and $300 bottom end Windows laptops would be huge sellers. Thats not the case though. The vast majority of consumers do a lot more than what you claim on their laptops.
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Apple Confirms Retina MacBook Build-to-Order Pricing for 1.3 GHz Processor
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You think 90% of consumers only do Internet, email and streaming Youtube? If that were the case, $200 Chromebooks and $300 bottom end Windows laptops would be huge sellers. Thats not the case though. The vast majority of consumers do a lot more than what you claim on their laptops.
It's also noticeably larger and heavier. I'm surprised that some of us are having a hard time grasping this.
Low weight/size, fast processor, high quality screen: Pick any two.
Since when was first gen ever a bargin? 
First gen Air: Insanely expensive when upgraded to a usable product.
First gen 15" Retina: Introduced forced Apple-prices-upgrades.
First gen 13" Retina: Probably the worst value in the history of Apple computers.
First gen 12" rMB: Not cheap, but still a more usable product than many base-models before it.
4GB/128GB was still the base PRO last year..
That was basically cellphone-specs in a "pro" machine..
First gen Air: Insanely expensive when upgraded to a usable product.
First gen 15" Retina: Introduced forced Apple-prices-upgrades.
First gen 13" Retina: Probably the worst value in the history of Apple computers.
First gen 12" rMB: Not cheap, but still a more usable product than many base-models before it.
4GB/128GB was still the base PRO last year..
That was basically cellphone-specs in a "pro" machine..
OK. I'm sure Apple couldn't possibly do it if they wanted to do so.
The only way this new laptop could come to market was with only the specific technology involved exactly as Apple utilized it. Meanwhile I remember smaller, lighter "netbooks" from years ago that Apple dismissed as junk back then when they didn't have a directly-competing alternative. They were too underpowered and lacking much utlity to do meaningful computing tasks even if they were cheaper-to-much-cheaper than traditional laptops.
Now they do have such an alternative at a premium price and they- and many of us- can rationalize modest power & reduced utility at a premium price for "light computing" needs... mostly in the name of thinner & lighter. What changed other than who makes the computer?
Do you really believe there is enough extra space in the new MacBook for a Broadwell Intel Core i7 processor and the requisite battery and thermal diffusion capacity to support it?
Bingo. The battery in the new Macbook and 11" Air are about the same capacity. Had Apple thrown a retina screen into the MBA casing, they would have still had to use the Core M. It's a trade off to retain battery life.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I grasp it just fine. However, ejecting some weight to adapters doesn't necessarily make it that much lighter if those adapters still need to be carried along.
At this price, it seems mostly "thinnest & lightest" vs. "utility and power". See: http://www.apple.com/mac/compare/results/?product1=macbook&product2=macbook-pro-retina-13 It is dramatically different. If we favor the thinner & lighter enough we can pit it against the much cheaper Air which is barely thicker and barely heavier, at the cost of a retina screen which seemed to barely be an issue until we needed to rationalize this laptop against it.
It would take a lot of adapters to bring the rMB up to the weight of the 13" rMBP that you recommended above. Plus, I don't really even need any adapters. I run almost everything off of the cloud or my internal SSD.
The screen of the 11" MBA was an issue for my work, which is why I returned it.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Do you believe that the mighty Apple couldn't find an Intel chip (who says it has to be an I7?) that would either give them something more comparable to Air and/or rMBP horsepower and utility that would fit a thinner & lighter (case) than the Air & rMBP cases out now? Even if they couldn't quite get this thin and/or this light, any thinner and any lighter would allow them to lay claim to "thinnest & lightest Apple laptop" for marketing purposes.
The problem here is it's priced up at or above the pro laptop from Apple and yet it jettisons a lot of that pros utility and significantly cuts the power. The gain is "thinnest & lightest", a new color, butterfly and force touch mechanisms, etc though "lightest" might be in question if one will pretty much need the adapters to use this mobile computer in mobile situations.
It seems one has to really burn for this "thinnest & lightest" benefit (but no so much that they make an iPad or iPad + keyboard suffice) for the price to work well. It's competition trades some of that for other laptops also made by Apple that cost the same or less but come with much more horsepower, utility and/or the adapters built in.
I don't hate this product. I just don't get the pricing of it for what it is. IMO, "thinnest & lightest" work best as additional marketing punch when it comes with other tangible benefits. If it's the primary punch and it drives a premium price, (at least) I struggle with being very excited about it. Nobody has to agree with me on this topic as it's just my own personal opinion but at "pro" prices, I'd like to see more "pro" features... OR I'd like to see lower pricing befitting the lack of those features. At least for me, "thinner & lighter" as a huge benefit is waning fast in pretty much all of Apple's offerings... especially as the way forward seems to involve jettisoning utility and or protruding parts that can't be as thin.
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The price where I am in Europe is the equivalent of $1450 for the base model. Considering that this is Tax included, that's really not that much more expensive than the US price, which is $1300 + ~$120 (a pretty average sales tax of 9%).
I think a lot of people don't consider taxes when they say 'lol
products are so much cheaper in the US'.E: Actually wow, it's a good ~$1550 in both Eurozone and in the UK. Well, in parts of Europe it's the same price as the US.
So, you want to give up battery life? Again, the 11" MBA and new Macbook have the same battery life, and same sized battery. If you add a battery hungry retina screen, you have to give up something somewhere else. Either battery life or processing power.
You should work for Apple marketing. Convey value by comparing it to something that came out 10yrs ago.
lol
Look at Intel's product line. The next chip up from the 1.3GHz Core M (at 4.5W) is a 15W processor (a 2.0GHz Core i3). That would have all the power disadvantages of the Air and require a thicker battery while not being appreciably faster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadwell_(microarchitecture)
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You should work for Apple marketing. Convey value by comparing it to something that came out 10yrs ago.
lol
The point is that it was still $1000 more expensive than the comparable MacBook at the time. The premium for the new MacBook is much smaller.
Agreed. Asus has figured it out but Apple can't? This Zenbook is packed with everything from a QHD touchscreen display (larger than the MB) and an i7 to an 8 hour battery and all the ports you could want and its only 3 pounds and barley bigger than the MB. In fact, its thinner than the MB at the front.
http://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_ZENBOOK_UX301LA/
Shockingly, some people actually have different needs (or rather, wants) than you! The 13'' Air is substantially heavier than the Macbook, at 1.34 kg versus 0.92 kg for the new retina MacBook. If you don't think 400 grams, or a ~33% weight decrease is a big difference, then good for you. Almost a full pound off the weight of a 3 pound device is a huge difference, and a pound and a half versus the MBP you're linking to. You'd need a ton of dongles to come anywhere close to making up for that difference in weight.
Reselling every ~2 years, which means a good resale value, plus being covered by AppleCare for most of the time I own a notebook. Another nice benefit of being in the Apple ecosystem.
I want to say, in a good natured way, that this cracks me up. It's very archaic. Hell, it's analog. And they're in every iOS box that Apple ships.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
iPad Air with retina screen has more battery life than either. Yes, that's not an Intel chip inside but I don't think the hit to battery for a retina screen must be as huge as you imply. Perhaps a better CPU, retina screen and this tiered battery technology in a not-quite-as-thin but thinner than the Air case could have covered that concern in full?
Personally, if I love this exact thing, what I give up is price. If it's priced as it seems it should be, I think it is the new "entry level" Air replacement.
That Zenbook that you linked isn't even in the same universe as the new Macbook, in terms of size. It's a pound heaver, and noticeably larger. It's actually larger than the 13" rMBP, but a half pound lighter.
Slow and small. I think it was 80gb HDD and 2GB RAM. Think what today's crowd would do that that machine (and it cost $1800, IIRC).
I expect that the rMB will have a similar arc over the next year or two. Probably gets another USB C port in lieu of the headphone jack.
Probably gets configurations that will bring the price down. Might get an upgrade on the FT camera to 720p. There's room around the margins to silence the nay-sayers. ----------
Ehhhhhhh. My wife had an Asus ultrabook. It was nice, for an hour or two. Honestly, the build quality didn't even approach Dell XPS or similar. It was in no way comparable to an MBA or MBP.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I fully agree that people have different wants and regularly pepper my posts with "IMO", "Personally" and so on with respect to that. I 100% do not expect every person to see it exactly as I do, and vice versa.
That said, we'll see. What is the weight of the 2 dongles from Apple? You don't know and I don't either. I concede that this MB with a dongle or two will "win" on the "thinner & lighter" want for those that put that as very important in their wants list. However, there's a cost for that in this product that meets or exceeds a little more weight and a lot more power with dongles "built in". I have a rMBP myself. I don't know that I would actually notice the difference in weight of the 33% you reference. Maybe? But I wouldn't want to give up the horses in that rMBP for this MB even if that number was 50%... and I travel a lot (and thus carry a laptop bag a lot).
For those who love it, GREAT! I'm happy for you. Instead of seeing me trying to talk you out of it, my "gripe" is that you can't get it for a few hundred dollars less. I think it's cool, it's definitely thinnest & lightest, it looks great, etc. But for it's computing power, it seems like it is trying to be the new MB Air at MBP pricing.
Running 4x as many pixels certainly takes noticeably more battery life, certainly more than tiering the Air's battery would help with, even if they got rid of all of the Air's ports to add more battery.
I generally buy Macs refurbished about a year or so old, but, occasionally I buy a first generation product, if it ticks the boxes of what I'm looking for, so I'm not worried about a few hundred bucks either way. If it was a $3K computer, then I'd be more hesitant.
My biggest complaint is the crappy FaceTime camera on the new Macbook.
Like?
I sold computers for two years right at the tail end of the netbook boom. I always started by asking what they were looking to do. Those were the answers I got from nearly everybody except the gamers who knew what they were looking for. Best Buy customers are the "average consumer".
I'd be glad if you could fill me in on what other uses the average user does.
In fairness, the L3 cache on the processor also stepped up from 6MB on the 2.6GHz (i7-3720QM) to 8MB on the 2.7GHz (i7-3820QM). The recommended price from intel is also $190 higher for the 2.7GHz.
Source:
http://ark.intel.com/products/64889/Intel-Core-i7-3820QM-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz
http://ark.intel.com/products/64891/Intel-Core-i7-3720QM-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz
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Noticeably larger? LOL! Its less than an inch wider, less than an inch deeper but includes a WAY better CPU, a larger higher resolution touchscreen display, full array of ports and not much less battery life. Big deal its SLIGHTLY larger, its better in every single way. Oh and if you want lighter, the i5 version only weighs 2.6 pounds. Asus found a way to make small and light laptops without compromising ports or power, its a shame Apple can't seem to.