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First Impressions of New 12-Inch MacBook: Ridiculously Light, but Thin Keys and Trackpad Take Getting Used To

They'd be better off calling it the iPad book.
What is this fascination apple have for taking out all functionality to make it as thin as possible, then you have to carry a sack full of accessories?
If I want something like this i'll buy an iPad in the meantime I'll stick to my MacBook pro, although even they seem to be going the same way, maybe for us professional users windows may be the way to go in the future.
 
matthewhuk said:
They'd be better off calling it the iPad book.
What is this fascination apple have for taking out all functionality to make it as thin as possible, then you have to carry a sack full of accessories?
If I want something like this i'll buy an iPad in the meantime I'll stick to my MacBook pro, although even they seem to be going the same way, maybe for us professional users windows may be the way to go in the future.
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Except an iPad model that starts @ $1300 would have to be a lot cooler and more powerful than this.
 
CE3 said:
Except an iPad model that starts @ $1300 would have to be a lot cooler and more powerful than this.
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A 256 GB iPad Air 2 would likely retail for $899. Throw in another $100 for a great keyboard case and your at $999.
 
bobob said:
A 256 GB iPad Air 2 would likely retail for $899. Throw in another $100 for a great keyboard case and your at $999.
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You can get a good bluetooth keyboard for a lot less than $100. But your estimate is still $300 cheaper than the starting point of this laptop.

As someone who works in graphic design and photography + makes music in my personal time, iOS does an excellent job of expanding my capabilities and enhancing my setup on all these fronts. I can do a lot more with the powerful iOS apps I use that are designed to run on on limited resources than I probably could with this Core M on OSX. My Air2 certainly doesn't replace my laptop and the apps I need to run on it, but if all I needed my laptop for was basic web browsing, email, video and office applications (which is what this MacBook is designed for) it could.

+You'd be able to have better Facetime and Skype conferences. I can't believe the camera for this MacBook is only 480p.
 
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manu chao said:
They've updates the MacBook Airs today, they have also updated the 13" rMBP today. And not just processor updates, the 13" MBA got faster flash storage (as did the 13" rMBP). The 13" rMBP also got a new trackpad. If they wanted to update the 13" rMBP with something else this year, I'd guess they would have waited with the trackpad update for that.
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Maybe they update port for USB-C and keeping MagSafe on rMBP. I don't know.
 
I'm a bit surprised at the cost....

$1299 is the same starting point for a 13" rMBP with an i5, 8 GB RAM and 128 GB of storage.

Seems like the new MB could've fit in the $1099 starting point - right in between the 11" Air base price and the rMBP base price.
 
jrswizzle said:
I'm a bit surprised at the cost....

$1299 is the same starting point for a 13" rMBP with an i5, 8 GB RAM and 128 GB of storage.

Seems like the new MB could've fit in the $1099 starting point - right in between the 11" Air base price and the rMBP base price.
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The more accurate comparison would be the rMBP with 256 GB of storage.
 
fertilized-egg said:
It seems no one seems to remember those expensive sub notebooks, usually slow and often impractical but sure were beautiful, Sony made a number of them. Compared to those old subnotebooks, the new Macbook is a very practical machine, mostly because we have reached a point where a low voltage processor is fast enough for most things and SSDs are quite speedy.
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Apple have had a "subnotebook" for years: the 11" MacBook Air.
 
APlotdevice said:
The majority? I've gone to three separate colleges in the last two years, and MacBook ownership, though disproportionately high, was never in the majority at any of them, period. Let alone high-end MacBooks. Admittedly Universities could be a bit different, since costs in general are higher and the professors are paid more than at two-year colleges.

Regardless, this particular Macbook still presents issues for many college users. In particular anyone looking to use their MacBooks for photography, videography, or sound editing is going to feel hindered by the lack of ports and processing power.

And let me also point this out again: The new Macbook has the same price tag as the 13" Pro Retina (and that's not including the $79 port adapter). So the question is, how much are people willing to give up to shave off less than two pounds? Especially when they also have the option to get the Macbook Air, which is simultaneously much cheaper and overall better spec'd?
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Went to a jr college to a cal state and everyone uses retina macbook pro. Idk what your point is, if the Macbook isn't suitable for the avg college student, they'll go for MBA or MBP. Those aren't going anywhere..
 
APlotdevice said:
"High-end piece of hardware"? Other than the screen and trackpad, the hardware in this new Macbook is inferior to the Macbook Air, which is $400 less! It doesn't even have a full implementation of USB 3.1... it's only 5Gbit/s, the same as a normal USB 3.0 connector (and there's no Thunderbolt option on this model).

Forget Dells or any other Windows computer. It doesn't stack up very well in Apple's own lineup!
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Yep, it's a high end product and definitely worth the price. If you think Dell's and other Windows PC's are better, go buy one. just because you like Windows better, doesn't make this product inferior.
 
patseguin said:
Yep, it's a high end product and definitely worth the price. If you think Dell's and other Windows PC's are better, go buy one. just because you like Windows better, doesn't make this product inferior.
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Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I do not like Windows. In fact I borderline hate it. W8 was the final straw that pushed me back to MacOS. What I think this product is inferior to is OTHER MACBOOKS. My little Air kicks its *** in every way besides screen resolution, despite currently costing $400 less than what they want for this thing.
 
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This seems to me to be almost the perfect laptop. The only downsides I see are the FaceTime camera, which isn't a deal breaker, and the price, which is.

It makes perfect sense that Apple used this machine to re-introduce the MacBook after a five year hiatus. I only wish they would've hit the MacBook price point of $999.

If I were in the market for a new laptop this year, I'd grab three of these without a second thought, one each for me, my mother, and my sister. Our machines are old but still do all we need, so it'll be a while before we upgrade. Maybe in a few years the price premium for the Retina screens will be low enough that Apple can get back to the sub-thousand dollar price for a basic laptop.

The lack of expansion options isn't a big deal to me. I have a USB HDD that I only use about once a week to watch TV shows and movies on my Playstation 3. I also have an old USB printer that gets used a couple times a month. Both of those use cases could be taken care of by upgrading to current tech, i.e. an AirPrint printer and an AppleTV or chromecast. The $19 adapter would also be just fine. I haven't had a need for DVD-ROM since the Windows XP days, and for the rare times we watch DVD movies our $30 DVD player still works just fine.

I know plenty of people who are the target market for this new MacBook, the only step backwards is the price.
 
chabig said:
Why would you force me and everyone else to pay for an adapter if we decide we don't need one?
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which reminds me i dont use 4, 5 and 9 on the numpad at all really.

who says they would charge extra if included?
 
chabig said:
Why would you force me and everyone else to pay for an adapter if we decide we don't need one?
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Well I think most people will need one, at least some times.
(same as most people will need a sleeve/case for their iPhone 6 as without it it is more slippery than a bar of soap)

But of course they won't include it for free, the margins on the accessories must be at eye-watering levels. When I see how cheap these accessories (cases, sleeves, adapters etc) are here in China and what they are selling for at the Apple store I don't know if I should laugh or cry.
 
CE3 said:
You can get a good bluetooth keyboard for a lot less than $100. But your estimate is still $300 cheaper than the starting point of this laptop.

As someone who works in graphic design and photography + makes music in my personal time, iOS does an excellent job of expanding my capabilities and enhancing my setup on all these fronts. I can do a lot more with the powerful iOS apps I use that are designed to run on on limited resources than I probably could with this Core M on OSX. .
Click to expand...

I think our hobbies quite similar, but I use mostly iMovie and Garageband on Mac, rather than something on iPad. could you elaborate on your apps and workflow in iOS?
 
Huh?

MarvinHC said:
Well I think most people will need one, at least some times.
(same as most people will need a sleeve/case for their iPhone 6 as without it it is more slippery than a bar of soap)

But of course they won't include it for free, the margins on the accessories must be at eye-watering levels. When I see how cheap these accessories (cases, sleeves, adapters etc) are here in China and what they are selling for at the Apple store I don't know if I should laugh or cry.
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Wait, are we talking Chinese knockoffs here or certified accessories?
 
I wonder if Apple would have been smart to make this new Macbook have a detachable display, making it easily convert from a notebook into a tablet. I'd like to see them start to combine the Macbook and iPad into a single product.
 
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