Netbook market died with the iPad 5 years ago so specs are pointless. Closest thing nowadays is the Chromebook, which is designed for thin client
The Netbook as a concept though = underpowered laptop
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Early Benchmarks Put Retina MacBook CPU Performance in Range of 2011 MacBook Air
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Netbook market died with the iPad 5 years ago so specs are pointless. Closest thing nowadays is the Chromebook, which is designed for thin client
The Netbook as a concept though = underpowered laptop
So in other words, you're just talking hyperbolic nonsense. Got it.
The thing us nerds on the internet (en masse) seem to not realize is that we crossed the threshold of "good enough" for 90% of people's needs (in terms of "power") years ago. Now the only place left is in "showstopper" features, specs, and marketing.
The new Macbook is going to push the industry forward again in efficiency just like the Air forced Intel to drag the industry into the age of the "ultrabook". At the end of the day those bitching about it are going to be happy campers in 2-3 years when the "norm" for laptops is going to be incredibly thin, incredibly light, incredibly long lasting machines. Someone needs to push the industry as a whole there, and Apple has been doing it (and in the case of Intel, literally forcing a shift) for almost a decade now.
Well, as someone else pointed out, there are a number of notebooks priced right around the new MB, with similar specs, so it's not like the new MB is blazing new trails in pricing.
As for the MBA comparisons, a similarly specified Air, with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB flash, costs the same. That means the decision point is display and weight vs. ports and CPU. As I wrote elsewhere, that is a reasonable decision matrix.
If there's anything that most people do that the new MB can't do, no one has identified it yet. It's not made for power - it's made to appeal to a wide swath of the buying public, for whom it offers plenty of capability. Time will tell if it will be "successful" in terms of sales - I think the people drawing parallels with the original Air are on the right track.
Good product for most average users
In my honest opinion this Macbook offers good enough performance for the big audience.
Studends and and business people would have a great notebook with this new product.
If your work demands more power from your machine, off course you need an Air or maybe a Pro.
But if I where a student not using it for any hard work I would choose a new MacBook.
In my honest opinion this Macbook offers good enough performance for the big audience.
Studends and and business people would have a great notebook with this new product.
If your work demands more power from your machine, off course you need an Air or maybe a Pro.
But if I where a student not using it for any hard work I would choose a new MacBook.
so if I call something that performs as well as 4 year old tech underpowered, that's hyperbole?
funny guy
and the future is in convergence and thin clients, not clamshells where they couldn't figure out how to increase efficiency without sacrificing performance
Except it's not old tech at all. It doesn't perform the same as 4 year old technology.
That's like calling your current iPhone old tech because server rooms that took up hundreds of square feet of space could do the same raw computations as your iPhone way back in the 80s!
Your iPhone is 30 year old technology dude.
Funny guy.
The Core M is as cutting edge technology as you can get. And by the way, a computer isn't measured in speed solely by the CPU performance. SSD, Memory Speeds, etc all play factors in overall performance.
Let's be perfectly clear. This Mac does not perform like 4 year old technology. The correct statement is the CPU benchmark is similar to a 2011 i7 (top of the line at the time) chip that runs as a tiny fraction of the power.
I find that amazing
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I love this quote because it's so spot on for so many posts on this forum. I can't even believe people have the gall to call this product 4 year old technology.
Stop looking at benchmarks and ask yourself the question the opposite way.
Could the Macbook, in its current form, have been created in 2011? The answer is a resounding NO. The technology didn't exist in 2011 to make this product.
Stop thumping the hackneyed and contrived end of the world for Apple drum.
And with this brilliant bit we can bring this ridiculous argument to a close! Well done.
Thought we were comparing the performance of a 2015 laptop to a 2011 laptop based on expectations of Moore's Law
Didn't know we were mix and matching totally unrelated product markets that are 30 years apart
I hope you guys go buy this $1300 netbook. Plus another $100 for first party adaptors that cost them $3 to manufacture. Make sure you buy double because you might lose them
Apple needs customers like you to help them expand their margins so don't let them down
Good grief, the exact same computer with one more USB port would have been the computer I need. It really does not have any usb ports once you have the power cord in. The least apple could have done was offer an adapter that was not useless.
It's interesting that you bring up Moore's Law as some sort of expectation benchmark for what technology should be 4 years down the road.
It's interesting because this statement shows us how hyperbolic your argument is. Why? Because you don't seem to understand what Moore's law is.
The tl;dr version is that Moore's "law" explains that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every 2 years. I quoted the word law because it's not a law, it's simply conjecture and is expected to slow down considerably.
It has nothing to do with processing speed.
Now, for the sake of argument, let's look at the CPUs at hand.
The 2011 MacBook Air i7 used a 32nm Sandy Bridge architecture that had ~620 million transistors.
The 2015 Macbook uses a 14nm Broadwell Architecture that uses 1.3 billion transistors.
More than double the transistors in less than half the space.
So now armed with information instead of the absolutely nothing you came in with, I'll ask you this. What's that about your expectations of Moore's Law again?
Please, school us.
I hope producing a computer like this means they intend to further optimize the OS. Compared to Windows, OS X is a fat pig that can only run on relatively recent hardware. That's really my biggest concern with the MB. I'm ok with the level of hardware but is it up to the task of running OS X in its current state? If so, I may buy one to replace my chunky 2012 MBP 13. I would hope to see similar performance with no heat, no noise, and a much better display.
What exactly is this "fat pig" statement based on? It's a bold statement but I don't think its really supported by any fact.
Couple things:
I worked in the semi industry around the time multi-core architecture became standardized. You really don't have to educate me on Moore's law by cutting and pasting from wikipedia
If you're gonna put the literal definition of Moore's Law in a vacuum go ahead, but what do you think is driving the chip industry's product cycle? Do you think Chip MFG'ers double transistors every X months just for the hell of it or is there some kind of benefit to doing so?
As expected. Lots of words. No substance. No direct response to facts presented in posts. Just myopic conjecture and hackneyed responses.
I think we all know what we can expect from you now.
Myopic conjecture = claiming an iPhone uses the same tech servers did 30 years ago. Or not being able to understand Moore's Law beyond the dieshrink
Enjoy your $1300 netbook
If you think I was actually making a claim, then you need lessons in both reading comprehension and the art of derision.
When all your friends come over you can lift up your $1300 netbook and say, you hear that guys? And they'll look confused and be like nooooooo....? And you'll be like, EXACTLY!!! NOOOO FANN!!! And they'll be like NOOO WAYYYYY!!!! OMG!!!!! And then you all can go to the Apple Store and buy your $10000 rose gold watches together
Seriously tho, I hope you enjoy your new netbook
If I were to guess, it's because Windows is getting better on older hardware while OSX seems to be getting slower.
I'll agree with the niche product, and the Air should, would of, had a retina screen but now I doubt it, but the lack of power according to these tests is daft for the money, pure lesson in form over function.
haha, once you go retina... I never never owned an Air but have never been taken with it's screen when I've seen one. So I can see your point, when you get it test it's performance.
Take a chill pill mate! Why are you taking my comment so seriously? And the results in this report are lower then the i7 CPU in the 2011 13" MacBook Air:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/search?q=2011+macbook+air
The underlying operating system Darwin runs on the iPhone.... The restrictions on how far back the operating system upgrades are hardware are supported are architecturally restricted -- not size restricted.
When they left the Power architecture they dropped it after 3 years, and they dropped support in new releases on 32 bit hardware. I am running yosemite on Mac Mini (3,1) (Early 2009 I believe) and on this computer Mac Pro (Early 2008).... The Early 2008 Mac Pro is still running nicely (although I did upgrade the video cards - ATI 5770 x 2 ... 3 years ago and a boot SSD using one of the unused SATA ports).
I feel this, and Apple's views can be summed up quite well in one sentence.
"Products like this are good enough for Apple users"
Apple knows where the mass market money is coming from, and it's simply making things these type of users are happy with as they are good enough for all they need to do.
This is new Apple.
If they carry on this way, I can only see more and more proper, old school loyal Apple fans who want technically good computers, and not "pretty things" will slowly but surely migrate back to PC's.
I know I've read even here some have already, and it's only going to be more and more.
"Products like this are good enough for Apple users"
Apple knows where the mass market money is coming from, and it's simply making things these type of users are happy with as they are good enough for all they need to do.
This is new Apple.
If they carry on this way, I can only see more and more proper, old school loyal Apple fans who want technically good computers, and not "pretty things" will slowly but surely migrate back to PC's.
I know I've read even here some have already, and it's only going to be more and more.
I disagree, they are building computers to fill the needs of different groups of people. If you want power without the need of portability and without balancing it against what you actually need..... by all means go out and buy a 12 core Mac Pro. If you want a powerful portable computer buy a Macbook Pro quad core, if you want an ultra portable buy the new macbook.
Nope. The ULV chip that powered the Air was a processor that Intel shelved for a few years because there was no interest in it. Then Apple came knocking. The success of the air product line caused a dramatic restructuring of Intel's roadmap that emphasized efficiency, which was not what they were aiming at originally.
Additionally, the entire term "ultrabook" was a marketing campaign by intel that heavily subsidized the cost of the chips Apple was using to try to get the rest of the industry to adopt them as well (as they enabled a new form factor that consumers were eyeing). By heavily subsidized I'm talking $300+ million last time I read up on it.
This is one of those few times in tech where the actual roadmap of the industry was shifted to accommodate a new concept (thin and light at the expense of having absolutely the most powerful processors and ports available) by a key player, in this case Apple.
I see the new Macbook as another one of these shifts. I guarantee you that in 4 years time the norm of new laptops for average consumers will focus entirely on extremely light and completely wireless form factors and capabilities.
If any of you think otherwise, I propose a friendly wager. Place an appointment on your calendar for 4 years from now with my name. If the industry hasn't dramatically shifted to extreme portability being the model feel free to PM me and I will gladly eat crow.
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That's funny. I work at a university doing the upkeep for 600+ macs on campus. My work machine is a 2008 iMac (Core2Duo). Right now I'm running 10.10.2 very smoothly (I was shocked to see that even transparency is enabled). We have dozens of machines that are from 2007+ that are all running Yosemite with little issue (now that the booting issue from 10.10.1 has been resolved, thank god).
So what exactly defines "relatively recent hardware" to you? Is my 2008 iMac not sufficiently outdated enough for you?