Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
No, I was actually looking for photos from real people in real lighting conditions, not glitzy apple lighting or lighting specifically for reviews on the review sites... Not W10 at all. I was looking to guage the gold color on normal light is all. :)

Mine's not Gold, but fwiw here are a couple of photos of the Space Gray:

IMG_8523 (1).jpg IMG_8532 (1).jpg

As @Quddy says about the Gold, the same thing applies here: the lightness/darkness of the gray definitely changes with lighting conditions and viewing angle. I actually edited the above photos to make the color look closer to what it looks like in real life. Just to illustrate the point that any photo can be misleading, my original edit made it look a good bit darker:

IMG_8523s.jpg IMG_8532s.jpg


Will also mention: another week in, I'm getting much more used to the keyboard. Not really a problem at all.
 
Here's some photos of my Gold Macbook (apologies for the quality, I'm no photographer). With indoor lighting the gold looks stonger but with natural daylight it looks more pale gold. This is at home. Outdoors and in cafes etc it looks different again.















That last photo was taken with my crappy mobile phone camera. Cafe in Bangkok.

Actually it's impossible to show realistically what it looks like as there are too many factors that affect the photos: lighting, angle, surroundings, camera setup, display setup on which you are viewing etc.

I was deciding between Gold and Space Grey, both look great. Eventually decided on Gold but would've been happy with either to be honest.
 
  • Like
Reactions: macintoshmac
Mine's not Gold, but fwiw here are a couple of photos of the Space Gray:

View attachment 644884 View attachment 644885

As @Quddy says about the Gold, the same thing applies here: the lightness/darkness of the gray definitely changes with lighting conditions and viewing angle. I actually edited the above photos to make the color look closer to what it looks like in real life. Just to illustrate the point that any photo can be misleading, my original edit made it look a good bit darker:

View attachment 644886 View attachment 644887


Will also mention: another week in, I'm getting much more used to the keyboard. Not really a problem at all.

The gray is a fine color in itself, I especially like the contrast of the backlight from the keys versus the keys and the notebook chassis itself. However, too corporatey for my taste. I'd either go for gold or the classics. I have a champagne gold 5s, and I like that shade a lot. But I read somewhere that they don't call it champagne gold anymore and for good reason as it is darker gold now?! Can't say.. Thanks for the photos and the thoughtful edit!

By the way, is the screen running at 1440x900 or default?
 
Here's some photos of my Gold Macbook (apologies for the quality, I'm no photographer). With indoor lighting the gold looks stonger but with natural daylight it looks more pale gold. This is at home. Outdoors and in cafes etc it looks different again.















That last photo was taken with my crappy mobile phone camera. Cafe in Bangkok.

Actually it's impossible to show realistically what it looks like as there are too many factors that affect the photos: lighting, angle, surroundings, camera setup, display setup on which you are viewing etc.

I was deciding between Gold and Space Grey, both look great. Eventually decided on Gold but would've been happy with either to be honest.

Thank you for the photos! Gold definitely looks great as well and doesn't look "gaudy" gold at all. I have the 27xi version of your monitor.... :)

What about your screen res... Default or 1440x900?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Quddy
Thank you for the photos! Gold definitely looks great as well and doesn't look "gaudy" gold at all. I have the 27xi version of your monitor.... :)

What about your screen res... Default or 1440x900?

Using Mac OS with the laptop screen I left it at default as everything looks great.
Using Windows 10 with the laptop screen I use the native 2304 x 1440 resolution with 125% dpi scaling, with the external monitor I use native 1080p resolution with default 100% dpi scaling.

I don't use dual-monitor as Windows does not handle that well at all.

:) The 25xi is a nice general purpose monitor, served me well! I intend to replace it sometime this year though with a 2K display that has a USB Type-C port and integrated USB hub. That way I no longer have to use the dongle/adapter.
 
Last edited:
Gosh, that looks stunning! I bought the silver one because I love the plain aluminum, but that gold one sure is sexy as hell! :)

Have had the MBP 2011, so yeah, silver. I might just try the gold this time round. However, I think I should wait for one more processor and graphics refresh to the MacBook.. and that will make all the difference ... eliminating the borderline performance dispute and catapulting it into a moderate workflow computer with authority.
 
Edited to add TLDR: 2016 M3 MacBook performance was on par with 2015 i5 MacBook Air, UI perfectly snappy without stuttering. Obviously not as fast as my top-end iMac
Its a nice computer, provided you use it, inline with its strengths, which is high mobility and don't expect to get fast results from PS, rendering huge files, or wanting to play Fallout 4 at maximum resolution ;)
 
By the way, is the screen running at 1440x900 or default?
I'm using 1440x900. It's a nice improvement in real estate, without making stuff too small. Well, most of the time... My eyes aren't as young as they used to be, and I do find myself holding the screen closer from time to time. :oops:;) Most of the time when that's necessary, however, scaling content in the app works really nicely.
 
  • Like
Reactions: macintoshmac
There is the 11" Air where I never heard anyone saying they were holding it close. Now we have this 12" but Retina.. so we are 1" larger in size, yet almost all of the people who are using it for really long periods of time at a stretch, are reporting having to hold it closer.. I wonder if a trip to the Apple Premium Reseller store here will let me figure out why..! I intend to use this computer as my travel partner for 4 weeks in a year, and as office partner for the remainder of the days.. I wonder if it is going to be an issue. I have a 15" MBP 2011, so not Retina, and I can't stop thinking that this computer might just become my only computer once buy it, just because of the screen quality (not size). Hell, it looks like I could buy this, and get one of the new Pros next year..if during the period I find that I am not satisfied with it as my only driver and need a larger screen expanse.. :oops:
 
Alright, finally while visiting a mall, checked out the MacBook. There were two on display, the gold and the grey. gold looked deeper, more definite gold in that lighting. grey looked lighter, and much better. So I started working with the grey, opened safari, started opening some tabs, opened Microsoft word, opened notes and tested out the keyboard. Didn't like the tip-tip sound of the key hitting the floor, but other than that, it was okay for me.

Snappiness was okay. Nothing blistering, but nothing that felt slower than what I am coming from, which is a Late 2011 MBP 15 2.4GHz Core i7 with 256GB SSD and 16GB RAM. With those apps open, the RAM usage was 3.48GB out of 8GB, and I found it okay. Realistically, this computer shall be my work computer, travel partner, so if it is at par, I am cool.

Then I checked the model, and it was 1.1 GHz 2015 Core M. Now, I think, if that model was working fine for my use of that notebook, which will not include gaming at all, then the 2016 m5 will rock it for me..

One more thing. The screen. Wonderful for that size. It was on default and I loved it. Against my 1440x900 MBP 15, that "default" resolution did not for once feel like less real estate. It did not feel cramped to me at all. On the other hand, when I tried More Space, that resolution felt awry, I could feel some flicker if that is even possible. But yes, eyes felt cramped in that mode. Text was readable perfectly, resolution was usable, but the screen felt like it was flickering, like I said. So no way I can use that mode, but default mode, for my work and travel requirements, is perfect! I can't imagine what this little powerhouse that I tested (2015, Core M 1.1GHz) would be in its 2016 m5 iteration, and what it would be in 2017. I am now eager to try the m5 version.

As I was saying earlier that I might like to wait a bit till 2017 and grab that version, it seems that I could any day pick this notebook if I wish to pull that plug and go for it.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Quddy
Performance check please.

Anyone running xcode on either the 2015 or the 16 m3/5 while connected to an external 1080p monitor with tons of Chrome tabs open? Itunes should be playing as well. Sample code, flappy swift on github.

How's the UI animations? And the ios simulator performace?
 
...
As I was saying earlier that I might like to wait a bit till 2017 and grab that version, it seems that I could any day pick this notebook if I wish to pull that plug and go for it.

Yeah, I was thinking the same until I got a good hands on with it and realised it did everything I wanted perfectly. So I just bought it :D.

I've heard Macs retain their value pretty well so if the 2017 version has any significant upgrades then can always sell this and put it towards a new one. Problem is, the longer you wait the more it makes sense to wait for the next version. This year's Macbook is still pretty new though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: macintoshmac
Performance check please.

Anyone running xcode on either the 2015 or the 16 m3/5 while connected to an external 1080p monitor with tons of Chrome tabs open? Itunes should be playing as well. Sample code, flappy swift on github.

How's the UI animations? And the ios simulator performace?

I can't make an official comment on the performance, just what I think - these notebooks were meant to be used as travel companions for light use, that might mean that if you are using Xcode, use just Xcode, don't use tons of chrome tabs AND Xcode ... and you should be very happy. These kind of notebooks are not really meant for powerhouse multitasking, IMO. :)

I had tested the Core M 1.1GHz 2015 model yesterday and was happy with its performance against my 2011 MBP 15" with 2.4GHz Core i7/ 16GB/ 256GB SSD. For the kind of portability it offers, this thing (2015 base model!) was working just fine, and I can only imagine that the 2016 m5 would be a serious step up!
[doublepost=1471625711][/doublepost]
Yeah, I was thinking the same until I got a good hands on with it and realised it did everything I wanted perfectly. So I just bought it :D.

I've heard Macs retain their value pretty well so if the 2017 version has any significant upgrades then can always sell this and put it towards a new one. Problem is, the longer you wait the more it makes sense to wait for the next version. This year's Macbook is still pretty new though.

Here in India, we have issues selling Macs because people are not very stoked about Apple in general. Most here are really Windows people. Macs are bought for status, or some real necessity for most of the times - as with anything Apple, even the iPhone. Few are those people that buy an Apple hardware here for the experience of using their software.

About the MacBook, yes! I am fighting that urge.. it is almost end of August, so it is mid cycle. The revamp for rMB is still 7 months away. And I do not have a "pressing" need for a new computer "right now". So, I guess, for the time, it will be my iPad for work and MBP at home as desktop. I was looking into a travel computer to not carry 8 SD cards and 1 wireless HDD for backup of photos, but I think that that might just be a better investment anyway.. still debating in my head.

Quddy, did you "need" the new notebook or was it "rather" an impulse purchase because of irresistibility? :D
 
  • Like
Reactions: Quddy
...
Quddy, did you "need" the new notebook or was it "rather" an impulse purchase because of irresistibility? :D

Ha ha, bit of both actually. Not an impulse buy but it was irresistible!

I previously had a desktop pc and a tablet for travelling. I rarely did any significant work whilst actually on the move so desktop pc at home and office was fine, the tablet for leisure and basic email and surfing.

However, whilst travelling for work and leisure, sometimes I did miss having access to my files and missed having a more productive OS. Also, in the near future, I will be travelling a lot more so it made sense to replace my desktop with a notebook.

The first dilemma I had was whether to replace both desktop and tablet with a 2-in-1 such as the Surface Pro 4 or Samsung TabPro S or a more traditional notebook. I definitely needed something portable and I value lower weight, overall size (not necessarily just the thickness), and battery life. I did a lot of research and visited a lot of stores to play around with the devices. The Surface Pro had great build quality and many configs but was quite expensive. The TabPro S was super portable, had beautiful display, and good battery life but the keyboard was mediocre and only one config with 4GB + 128GB SSD. Eventually dismissed the 2-in-1 idea as the keyboard setups were just annoying and I realised that I would not miss the touch functionality.

So, decided to get a notebook. Initally I hadn't even considered a Macbook as I have always been a Windows guy. But the more I looked the more I realised that every Windows notebook I considered had some compromises for my requirements. I wasn't looking for a cheap netbook or a super powerful desktop replacement but just a good all rounder that was small, light, powerful enough for my needs, good display that's not too reflective, 8GB ram, at least 6 hours battery life, and good build quality. I didn't mind paying a bit extra for what I wanted.

- Samsung Notebook 9 13" was freakishly light around 800-900 grams, reasonabley compact, average battery life, good value, nice display but wasn't available to buy in Singapore
- Asus have gazillions of models but most were just average with large bezels or too heavy or terrible displays or too large. And I really dislike their signature shiny glossy spun-metal design (personal opinion). Very good value though!
- Lenovo becoming more like Asus with their consumer line with some strange designs but have the weird watch-band hinge that is actually quite innovative.

Hp, Acer... pretty much all the brands have cheap notebooks with basic specs and terrible displays or really expensive notebooks with 4K overly reflective touchscreens and poor battery life.

Was really hard to find just a good all rounder until I looked into the new Macbooks. Immediatley I loved the design, build quality and portability. I researched a bit and found a few articles regarding using it with Windows 10 and read that Boot Camp is pretty good and battery life was great even if slightly lesser than Mac OS. The display was magnificant, hi res, beautiful colours, effective anti reflective coating, and 16:10 ratio was a god send. The display alone won me over!

I was a bit worried about the keyboard but tried it out a lot in the stores and was ok with it. I found out that I could transfer my existing W10 license so no need to pay for OS, this was a big factor as Windows is expensive. I needed to ensure that single USB Type-C port could connect to everything I needed at home and as you may have seen from my previous photos, it does via an adapter.

Just lots of little things with the Macbook ticked all my boxes that the Windows notebooks couldn't. I took my time thinking about it, did lots of research and made a decision to buy it. I'm glad I did. It's perfect, hasn't put a foot wrong and has been a pleasure to use so far. Hopefully I'll get the chance to use Mac OS a lot more and become familiar with it.

End of story... and the colour still makes me smile :D
 
  • Like
Reactions: macintoshmac
Ha ha, bit of both actually. Not an impulse buy but it was irresistible!

I previously had a desktop pc and a tablet for travelling. I rarely did any significant work whilst actually on the move so desktop pc at home and office was fine, the tablet for leisure and basic email and surfing.

However, whilst travelling for work and leisure, sometimes I did miss having access to my files and missed having a more productive OS. Also, in the near future, I will be travelling a lot more so it made sense to replace my desktop with a notebook.

The first dilemma I had was whether to replace both desktop and tablet with a 2-in-1 such as the Surface Pro 4 or Samsung TabPro S or a more traditional notebook. I definitely needed something portable and I value lower weight, overall size (not necessarily just the thickness), and battery life. I did a lot of research and visited a lot of stores to play around with the devices. The Surface Pro had great build quality and many configs but was quite expensive. The TabPro S was super portable, had beautiful display, and good battery life but the keyboard was mediocre and only one config with 4GB + 128GB SSD. Eventually dismissed the 2-in-1 idea as the keyboard setups were just annoying and I realised that I would not miss the touch functionality.

So, decided to get a notebook. Initally I hadn't even considered a Macbook as I have always been a Windows guy. But the more I looked the more I realised that every Windows notebook I considered had some compromises for my requirements. I wasn't looking for a cheap netbook or a super powerful desktop replacement but just a good all rounder that was small, light, powerful enough for my needs, good display that's not too reflective, 8GB ram, at least 6 hours battery life, and good build quality. I didn't mind paying a bit extra for what I wanted.

- Samsung Notebook 9 13" was freakishly light around 800-900 grams, reasonabley compact, average battery life, good value, nice display but wasn't available to buy in Singapore
- Asus have gazillions of models but most were just average with large bezels or too heavy or terrible displays or too large. And I really dislike their signature shiny glossy spun-metal design (personal opinion). Very good value though!
- Lenovo becoming more like Asus with their consumer line with some strange designs but have the weird watch-band hinge that is actually quite innovative.

Hp, Acer... pretty much all the brands have cheap notebooks with basic specs and terrible displays or really expensive notebooks with 4K overly reflective touchscreens and poor battery life.

Was really hard to find just a good all rounder until I looked into the new Macbooks. Immediatley I loved the design, build quality and portability. I researched a bit and found a few articles regarding using it with Windows 10 and read that Boot Camp is pretty good and battery life was great even if slightly lesser than Mac OS. The display was magnificant, hi res, beautiful colours, effective anti reflective coating, and 16:10 ratio was a god send. The display alone won me over!

I was a bit worried about the keyboard but tried it out a lot in the stores and was ok with it. I found out that I could transfer my existing W10 license so no need to pay for OS, this was a big factor as Windows is expensive. I needed to ensure that single USB Type-C port could connect to everything I needed at home and as you may have seen from my previous photos, it does via an adapter.

Just lots of little things with the Macbook ticked all my boxes that the Windows notebooks couldn't. I took my time thinking about it, did lots of research and made a decision to buy it. I'm glad I did. It's perfect, hasn't put a foot wrong and has been a pleasure to use so far. Hopefully I'll get the chance to use Mac OS a lot more and become familiar with it.

End of story... and the colour still makes me smile :D
Hi Quddy, thanks for your words, very useful!

Can I just ask, how did you transfer your Windows 10 license to the MacBook? It's something I am also interested in doing.

And how is Windows 10 on the MacBook? Does it run smoothly? Your photos looked great!
 
Hi Quddy, thanks for your words, very useful!

Can I just ask, how did you transfer your Windows 10 license to the MacBook? It's something I am also interested in doing.

Regarding the license, my previous desktop pc had Windows 7 Pro x64 originally but I couldn't remember if it was a OEM or Retail license as I built the pc myself. Since then I paid for the Windows 8 upgrade, got the free Windows 8.1 upgrade and then got the free Windows 10 upgrade. So I was a little worried about the license situation.

When I got the new Macbook I ran Boot Camp to partition the SSD and then installed Windows 10 Pro using the latest ISO file from Microsoft. It was a very simple process, the installation was smooth and required little intervention from me once the installation started (I skipped when it asked me for a Product Key).

Once installed (Windows was NOT activated) I ran Boot Camp again to install all the necessary drivers and then Windows Update. Plugged in all my external peripherals (Logitech MX Revolution mouse and wireless keyboard, ext. HDD, monitor, speakers etc), installed my critical applications (Office, Firefox, Chrome, Visual Studio, VPN, Kaspersky AV etc), and then checked to make sure everything ran ok.

After I was satisfied that I could use the Macbook as my sole computer, I went back to my desktop pc and deactivated Windows by running "slmgr /upk" in an elevated command prompt (actually I think this step only removes the Product Key from that installation and I don't think the step is actually required).

Final step was to use a Product Key to activate Windows on the Macbook. I had three choices here, use the Product Key from W7, W8 or W10. After each upgrade the Product Key changed so I wasn't sure. I did a bit of research and realised that it was best to use the W8 key. I paid for that upgrade so the key was unique to me whereas the W10 upgrade was free and the key seemed to be generic, i.e. lots of people seemed to have the same key after W10 upgrade (I think Microsoft changed the way activation works with W10). Anyway, I entered the W8 key and tried to activate. I expected to have to phone Microsoft hotline to complete the activation but to my surprise it activated first time automatically online.

Short version: I used my Windows 8 Product Key to activate a fresh Windows 10 installation :D

Note that I completed this before the free W10 upgrade period expired. Not sure what would happen now if you try to install W10 from scratch having upgraded for free previously.
[doublepost=1471675855][/doublepost]
Hi Quddy, thanks for your words, very useful!
...
And how is Windows 10 on the MacBook? Does it run smoothly? Your photos looked great!

Windows 10 runs great on the Macbook (Core m3) and looks beautiful with the hi res display.
+ Drivers are stable (not had any crashes or reboots)
+ Power saving, standby, wake all work as expected
+ Windows itself is snappy and lag free (I don't use the Metro interface or many of the apps)
+ Battery life is great. Light usage (emails, MS Word, browsing web sites with Firefox) gets me 10-12 hours. Medium usage (as above but with some videos, VPN, Skype) gets me 8-10 hours. Heavy usage (as above but with light coding in Visual Studio, charging phone whilst using it as a hotspot, spreadsheet work, web applications) gets me 6-8 hours.
+ Touchpad feels and works great. Very responsive but you lose all the advanced gestures from Mac OS. There's a utility called Trackpad++ that is meant to provide all the same gestures from Mac OS under Windows but I have never tried it. Seems a bit suspicious to me.
+ Auto keyboard backlight works (I mostly leave mine off though)
+ Auto display brightness works
+ Wifi reception, connectivity and speed has been fantastic, no issues at all (I don't use the bluetooth so can't comment on that)
+ I'm no audiophile but the speakers are surprisingly very very good compared to the majority of the Windows laptops I have used before and headphone quality is great to my ears.

- Keyboard layout took some getting used to (kept hitting FN instead of Ctrl) but not a problem now
- Scaling using dual monitors is a bit daft (this is a Windows issue though and not specific to the Macbook). I use 125% dpi on the notebook and 100% dpi on external monitor. Windows remembers the per monitor settings which is great but when using both displays at the same time the notebook display scales up to 125% and looks fine but the external display scales down from 125% to 100% and looks fuzzy.
- Occasionally, browsing gets laggy when using adapter with all the peripherals plugged-in. I don't get any lag when using the Macbook alone doing the same things. Only when plugged-in at home and even then it's quite rare and only lasts for a few seconds. I suspect it's either the USB-C port is getting saturated (strange as it's only a 1080p monitor) or more likely that there's a bug in the adapter I'm using (j5create)

Simply, it's just as good as any other Windows notebook (even better in some cases) provided that the performance meets your requirements and the single USB port won't cause you any issues.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JohnnyGo
Regarding the license....
Thanks very much for your detailed text! Sadly for me I just did the free upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 so I didn't have the purchased Windows 8 in-between. Thankfully, it's not entirely necessary for me to use Windows 10 on my Macbook and in the UK with a student discount, Windows 10 is not too expensive.

Good to hear it all works though and on the base model m3 as well!
 
Thanks for posting this thread and your thoughts it's helped me move off the fence.

Been looking at replacing a rMBP I recently bought refurbished (wasn't entirely happy with condition so returning), 2011 iMac and iPad Air 2 to consolidate some devices as I needed a notebook/laptop for university for writing papers and researching but felt that on top of the Mac and iPad was overkill. It'll hopefully take the place of my main computer (hooked up to a Samsung monitor I still have), portable computer and iPad replacement (alongside my IP6+). All it will be doing is browsing, watching YouTube videos, writing papers and researching and will hopefully do it well!

So I've ordered a 2016 MacBook m3 in space grey arriving on Tuesday! Sold the other devices to fund it and hopefully reduce some clutter!
 
About the color. I basically RAN home today from the store to cancel my order after seeing the space grey in person.

I know its a very popular color, but to me it looks like one of those slim PC:s desperately trying to look like a mac. Its just WAY too dark. I just dont get that premium Mac feel from it.

I own the space grey iPad air and love it for me the macbook just NEEDS to be silver.

Having said that, I stood and admired the gold for just a little bit too long. That thing looks like a piece of jewellery. Its absolutely gorgeous. However I'm a dude and i just can't see myself owning a gold anything lol
 
  • Like
Reactions: Quddy
My Macbook is the only gold thing I own :) So you ordered the silver one or tempted by the new MBP?

I love my rMB. It's almost perfect for me. Needs one more generation of CPU upgrade to help with the thermal throttling but other than that I can't think of anything I would want to change... except maybe the price!
 
My Macbook is the only gold thing I own :) So you ordered the silver one or tempted by the new MBP?

I love my rMB. It's almost perfect for me. Needs one more generation of CPU upgrade to help with the thermal throttling but other than that I can't think of anything I would want to change... except maybe the price!

Actually, in the end I decided to go with the new touch bar MBP after thinking long and hard on what i ACTUALLY need and not just be blinded by the irresistible beauty and coolness of the macbook :) Here are my thoughts if it helps someone decide:

- Portability. When i travel i mostly do light surfing and movie watching, my iPad Air is perfect for that. Plus I'm more comfortable going on vacation with the 2 year old iPad than a 1700 dollar laptop. Portability is nice, but in reality the macbook would rarely (if ever) leave my house or even my desk - I use my iPad for causal browsing from the couch.

- Screen size. I want to do photo editing, video editing and garage band. 12´is on the small side for that.

- Power. Im keen on getting back into strategic gaming and the MBP will run those better.

- Touch bar / touch ID. Future tech that i just can't wait to try out being a sucker for new and innovative things.

- The new MBP is still pretty light and portable. So it wouldnt be a huge pain if i want to bring it ot a friend or whatever.

- The joy of getting the absolute latest model. :)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.