I just thought about it more...imagine if the 12" had an M1 chip in it......oh one could dream...
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Former 12" MacBook owners who now on the M2 Air: Has the new M2 Air helped fill the void that the 12" left behind?
- Thread starter Jacoblee23
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Agreed. I gave up and bought the M2 MBA when it was on sale a few weeks ago at BBY. It's great, far better than any iPad option but not quite what I want (which is an Apple Silicon 12" w/ 20 hours of battery . . .)
maybe I'm weird, but I never use the touch screen on my work computer. In fact, nothing peeves me more than a coworker pointing something out on my screen and leaving a smudge or finger print.
Not weird - I don't ever touch the screen when using a device with an attached keyboard and trackpad. However, if it separates and I'm just holding the tablet and using a tablet app...
My wife and I went on different paths after our 2017 12" MBs. She went to a M1 MBA and I went to a 14" M1 Pro MBP and an 11" M1 iPad Pro. I absolutely loved my 12" but wanted a little bit more screen real estate. If I need something super portable, I just grab my iPad.
The problem is that iPadOS is a horrible OS for work beyond a bit of word processing and reading PDFs. Even PowerPoint lacks essential features on the iPad. Not even to mention the professional software I need daily in my working environment. Thus, the iPad is undoubtedly portable, but without macOS not a suitable alternative.
I would buy a 12'' Macbook with whatever M processor in a heartbeat!
I would definitely buy one with an M1. Heck Woot says it has brand new 2017 models and I’m tempted to get a backup.
Right, I can definitely see that.
Although I think in order for a 12" formfactor to truly be great, a smaller fabrication process, such as 3nm is needed, to bring the efficiency to a level where there would be little compromise for the base level M2/M3 chip in that small of a chassis. I actually liked the keyboard, could have something to do with the fact that it never broke on me (fortunate, I guess). But I generally prefer shorter travel for keys, and hate mechanical keyboards, so your milage might vary. I wouldn't mind if it had the same MBA keyboard today though.
The webcam is horrendous. Although I only use it occasionally to do some zoom calls, it's not much of a deal breaker. If I do a proper zoom / stream session, I would be at my desk with a real standalone camera and a condenser mic sitting on an adjustable boom. Almost all camera / microphone on laptops and phones are far below what is acceptable for a proper call / stream.
I would agree. I to do not mind the keyboard as it WAS needed for the small form factor. It just takes time learning to type on it. M3 MAY be the wait for Apple for a smaller form factor if it is in the plans.
But I would suspect that the numbers were not has high as they wanted, so probably a "no-go" for a 12". This was probably Ive's pet project or whomever before they left. Lightest, smallest, etc. A transitionary product until the M series was ready.
The Air is NOT light or to me really an Air and is still heavy to lug around, but of course not AS heavy as MacBook Pro. Oh well...try to keep my 12" MacBook alive as long as possible.
iPads look like what Apple wants customers to buy for a smaller form factor. buy the attachable keyboard and it acts like a laptop.
But...no macOS. I DON'T want an iPad or a touch screen with macOS. No Microsoft mentalities please...
I have the M1 air 8/8 1tb 16gb. The air is a fabulous laptop its really fast and apart from ram, graphics and external screen support its better than my 16" 2019 i9 2.4 32gb 2tb in almost every way.
It still doesn't come close to the 12" for me. The 13 "air" although the smallest now and being called air... It is so much bigger and heavier. The air to me is a normal weight laptop but it's not what I would call and ultra portable.
M2 MacBook Air 1.24 kg (2.7 pounds)
M1 MacBook Air 1.29 kg (2.8 pounds)
12" Macbook 0.92 kg (2.03 pounds)
Half a kg is a lot. the 12" MacBook was a magical little device, there was no penalty to taking it everywhere. It had lots of drawbacks... one port, very limited power and the keyboard (I had a 2015 I sold it in 2020 never had an issue).
I have always had a powerful desktop and a light but not super fast laptop. Both for different purposes, the MacBook was fine for content consumption, email etc but that was about it.
The trade off now is that the M1/M2 can replace both powerful desktop and lightish laptop. The drawbacks of its size and weight are made up by its usability.
There will never be a perfect device but the main drawback for me is one external screen which is ridiculous.
My ideal would be a 15" version of the m2 air with multi screen use but doubt apple will give us this.
The 14 and 16 are just too big and heavy imo.
It still doesn't come close to the 12" for me. The 13 "air" although the smallest now and being called air... It is so much bigger and heavier. The air to me is a normal weight laptop but it's not what I would call and ultra portable.
M2 MacBook Air 1.24 kg (2.7 pounds)
M1 MacBook Air 1.29 kg (2.8 pounds)
12" Macbook 0.92 kg (2.03 pounds)
Half a kg is a lot. the 12" MacBook was a magical little device, there was no penalty to taking it everywhere. It had lots of drawbacks... one port, very limited power and the keyboard (I had a 2015 I sold it in 2020 never had an issue).
I have always had a powerful desktop and a light but not super fast laptop. Both for different purposes, the MacBook was fine for content consumption, email etc but that was about it.
The trade off now is that the M1/M2 can replace both powerful desktop and lightish laptop. The drawbacks of its size and weight are made up by its usability.
There will never be a perfect device but the main drawback for me is one external screen which is ridiculous.
My ideal would be a 15" version of the m2 air with multi screen use but doubt apple will give us this.
The 14 and 16 are just too big and heavy imo.
There are rumors about a 15" Air and that would be interesting...but does not make sense to me. Too many laptops near that category; plus if there was a 15" Air, it would not have fans and would be heavy; why call it an "Air".
Ideally, I prefer a powerful Desktop (like a studio) and a powerful light laptop. But Apple seems to not want to do that, and always make you buy a few in their category (one does not have what the other has).
Keeps business and $ coming in. They could do this...but they want you to buy a mini and studio and Pro and Air and a studio display for different purposes.
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I am laying on my couch, typing, surfing and doing light work on 12" MacBook 2015. ideal.
I push my gear really hard and there isnt much the M1 cant do. Ye its not ideal for all tasks but considering the 2019 MacBook Pro took 20 mins to export a 10 min 4k clip and the m1 can do it in 7 mins and the pro can do it in 5 and the max in 4 we are reaching levels of diminishing returns.
Previously it was pointless buying a high end light laptop as they were so thermally constrained that the £3-400 chip upgrade made no difference as it would hit TDP really quickly. The 12" MacBook and the 13" air were both victims of this then they would also eat through the battery which made them really difficult to use. The base models were the obvious choices because the chassis couldn't deal with the processors. With Apple silicon this is much less of an issue and even the base models out perform the top end pro machines in most tasks which makes them 10X the performance of their equivalent predecessors.
The 15" light laptop absolutely makes sense as not everyone needs the high end specs of the 16" but may like the bigger screen as you can make it scale, say if you have less than perfect eyesight, more screen real estate. A lot of companies now won't offer a desktop for use, rather a laptop because of flexible working. Someone may have to go from having a pluggable desk set up at work with a display but may not at home so every inch counts.
Say you go from a 24-27" display at work but then have to go down to 13" at home it's a big difference, this is why many like the larger laptop. My work gives every employee 2x 24" displays as a base with a lockable set up.
The other key thing is the 16" starts at £2700 which is a huge amount of money if you're only wanting the larger screen over an entry point of £1200 with the 13" MacBook Air. Say it was £16-1800 it would fill a gap a lot of people find themselves and would be capable enough for 90% of people.
It's really funny how in the first gen of apple silicon the M1 was literally a game changer. My £5k MacBook Pro was loosing out in most cases to a £1500 MacBook Air. That level of power is unprecedented in terms of capability, in fact my £5k iMac spec 10 core i9 the m1 MacBook Air isnt far behind. The powerful chips are here they just need to make another ultra portable.
Yeah, the MBA, even the latest iteration, is noticeably heavy, sort of a compromise between a portable and a desktop replacement. The latest iteration is somewhat noticeably more portable, being slightly lighter and more balanced.
Eventually, there will be something that's just as light as the 12", as formfactors gradually shrink down.
I think 90%+ of the people care little about performance beyond a certain baseline. It's generally the small group of youtubers that try to make that an issue.
iPads are generally DOA for actual serious work of most types. I'm with you; I have tried numerous times, but the hit on productivity is very drastic each time. Mobile OS generally cannot be used for professional work, except the occasional edge case.
Although I think I would be very intrigued by an iPad that can also boot into MacOS, that might be enough flexibility for a machine on the go, to perform routine mundane tasks, and perhaps do some light research on. With a real OS and a good trackpad, I think iPad could be much more useful. It will largely depend on the implementation though, like you said, the MSFT idea of touch on desktop OS is pretty horribly executed.
If you can get away with the 12” now then great, 2 years ago mine was frustratingly slow to do anything and the battery didn’t last long so I was pretty much stuck in the house with it which makes an ultra portable laptop pretty pointless.
Obviously I don’t know your use case but I’m a graphic designer, photographer and videographer and the m1 can do everything I need within reason. Ram is a factor for me as I can max the 64gb in my iMac relatively easily so have to be careful with how many apps I’m using. Saying that the memory swap isn’t noticeable and it just cracks on!
Tbh the m1 is like more than 10x gain in performance and the extra 0.5kg is worth the trade off imo although i would like another 12” the reality there isn’t one to choose and would rather have a laptop that suited my needs now than wait for a unicorn that may not exist again.
Why not find a good used one to plug the gap then get a 12” when they finally update.
I can’t overestimate what a game changer that chip is. You can literally do almost anything with it with very little compromise bar the 0.5kg but you get used to it pretty quick.
I do audio, graphic arts and video work, but NOT on the MacBook. I use the 12" MacBook to putts around on the internet, do basic graphic stuff and iWork's and MSOffice stuff etc. JUST basic stuff. I use the power house MacBook Pro 2021 basically for everything else (though I have multiple older Macs etc. for other tasks).
Yes, it is slow...but the resent update to Big Sur seemed to make it a little more "snappy", but still slow. Again, not bad for internet stuff and basic stuff. I like using it better than the iPad actually. Battery still has some juice, so I am good.
I sold my M3 Macbook 12 inch 2017 in summer and went for M2 Air stock configuration. While Macbook was a great computer overall, I just needed all day battery life, something which Macbook couldn't provide and I went for some time with a power bank. But I finally gave in to M2, right now of course, battery life of m2 is very good, no worries for a day.