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Best Buy Pulls 12-Inch MacBook, Fueling Hopes for April Refresh

I didn't really like those 12-inch MacBooks. And now they're already overdue for a refresh.

I'll take a look at the change when I'm at Best Buy looking for a cheaper-but-more-powerful-than-a-Macbook Windows laptop that I'm about to see here in a minute.
 
13 inch Macbook Air and retina Macbook models in the UK are the ones with longer delivery dates
 
tkukoc said:
I use the entry level of last years model for every day use, have had zero issues with it. I edit photos, videos and even screen capture material from my phone. Depending on what they change I may pick up this years and sell last years. People should try these out, they aren't "slow" like the reviewers make them out to be.
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True, but for more intense tasks like software development, a more powerful laptop is necessary. I definitely think the "new Macbook" has a niche, but I just can't justify the $1300 price.
 
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Almost one year into ownership, I still love my 12"MBP. The only problem I've had with it is occasional unreliability with wi-fi. I haven't seen any official confirmation of it, but I think they need a firmware or hardware improvement for its wi-fi adapter or antenna design.
 
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Dayv said:
Almost one year into ownership, I still love my 12"MBP. The only problem I've had with it is occasional unreliability with wi-fi. I haven't seen any official confirmation of it, but I think they need a firmware or hardware improvement for its wi-fi adapter or antenna design.
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Whats the issue with wifi.. does it disconnect occasionally or something else?
 
chrismail627 said:
True, but for more intense tasks like software development, a more powerful laptop is necessary. I definitely think the "new Macbook" has a niche, but I just can't justify the $1300 price.
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yeah it's too pricey. They need to bring it close to the MBA to make it an overnight success
 
kevinkyoo said:
It was also horrible with ports. It was a "trap door" mechanism that barely had anything - similar to the rMB.
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Right and then we came to the point where the MBA and MBP were colliding and outside of thickness and weight there wasn't a lot of difference between the two. The rMB doesn't live in a vacuum. It's entirely possible this year that th3 rMBP sheds weight and becomes the rMBA everyone wanted. And eventually the rMB will come down in price just like the MBA did. At that point the MBA will be gone (I wouldn't be surprised if the 13" goes away this year).

yaxomoxay said:
yeah it's too pricey. They need to bring it close to the MBA to make it an overnight success
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Again the rMB doesn't live in a vacuum. If they make it more like the MBA it's basically a rMBP. It seems quite obvious that the rMBP is going to become more like the MBA in terms of thickness and weight.

I'm not convinced the rMB will get a second port. Apple already experienced that with the MBA yet still chose to give it only one port. That tells me that these these models are not going to collide and if you need ports and power you get the rMBP. If your main concern is weight and portability (and no fans) that's what the rMB is for. I'd love to see statistics on how many people actually use multiple ports compared to how many say they have to have them. If you look at the decline in PC sales I'm convinced most people don't need all the power and ports they think they do.
 
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Dayv said:
Almost one year into ownership, I still love my 12"MBP. The only problem I've had with it is occasional unreliability with wi-fi. I haven't seen any official confirmation of it, but I think they need a firmware or hardware improvement for its wi-fi adapter or antenna design.
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I also suspect issues with wifi. Airplay with iTunes does not work properly for me on my rmb and sometimes I have to disconnect/reconnect to access shared drives. I have multiple macs on my network and this is the only showing such issues.
 
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chrismail627 said:
True, but for more intense tasks like software development, a more powerful laptop is necessary. I definitely think the "new Macbook" has a niche, but I just can't justify the $1300 price.
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It's not really a machine for "intense software development." That's what the MacBook Pro was literally designed for. The 12" MacBook is for those that want solid performance in typical everyday use apps. It does this very very well. With decent battery time in a very small and light package. For the money (and it is pricey, I admit.) it absolutely does that. For me this has been the best Apple laptop ever made. Though I will be interested to see what any possible refreshes might add/change since I have a relative who has committed to buy mine whenever I want to sell it.
 
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levitynyc said:
Great, now put a quality processor in there and drop the price to a reasonable level.
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I don't think it's fair to call Intel's Core M "not a quality processor". The whole point of the 12" Macbook is to make a 5 watt laptop. If you use a cpu like the 15watt ones in the Air, you'll have a machine as large/heavy as the air (which many people want and that's fine). If someone wants a 2 lb laptop with no fans, it's probably going to contain something like a Core M. Show Apple a better 5 watt chip and I'm sure they'll use it. (I'm sure the skylake flavor of the core M is going in the refresh of course...)

Ok maybe you'll argue there's some laptops around 2 lbs that have faster CPUS -- like maybe the LG gram right? Well it's over 10% heavier, it's skylake and has about half the battery life. Also it uses magnesium and Apple isn't set up to mass-produce magnesium laptops.

If you want a REALLY small/light machine at some point you WILL compromise on performance. Acting like Apple made some kind of mistake with the Core M is foolish. That machine is not a Netbook. It can play 4k youtube video with no frame drops. It's pretty damn good. I personally can't wait for the skylake refresh.
 
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Man I remember when we all had hope for a new MacBook Pro

Looks like dinky little macbook retinas from now on...
 
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Dayv said:
Almost one year into ownership, I still love my 12"MBP. The only problem I've had with it is occasional unreliability with wi-fi. I haven't seen any official confirmation of it, but I think they need a firmware or hardware improvement for its wi-fi adapter or antenna design.
Click to expand...

I also have issues with wifi. It seems patchy at times.

Are you in the UK? And do you notice this on 2.4GHZ and/or 5GHZ networks?
 
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Minor update but would be interesting to see what new features MacBook 2016 will have...
 
SSD-GUY said:
A poster on the MacBook subforum also pointed out that in the UK, the rMB is available on wednesday whereas all other Macs are available to shop from tuesday.
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Dutch Apple lists all Macs as available on Wednesday, which might be simply because it's 7:14pm here.

Edit: checked and iPad Pro is also delivered on Wednesday, so I'm officially not excited about that.
 
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