Skylake CPUs for next MB. (merged)

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

skylake is most likely the reason that apple made the bold move of having only 1 USB port. wireless charging and wireless peripherals (WiGig - wireless replacement for USB, HDMI...) would be perfect for the macbook and supposedly coming with skylake.

Unless Apple want to get away from their top spot as a tech company that thinks about the environment, which they really like to brag about, and also dish the aluminum chassis that they just created for the rMB, then they won't do wireless charging.

As with the above poster, I can also assure you that Apple won't go the way of wireless charging in the foreseeable future.

1 bar out of 16. My eyes will incinerate if I go any higher than 12 bars.

I seem to recall someone quoting the rMB screen as taking ~30% of the power of the rMB, which I can surely believe, I am not surprised that you get more battery time that most people. I also prefer a low light screen, which seem to opposite of what most other people prefer.

 

[ZachNathan]

Unless Apple want to get away from their top spot as a tech company that thinks about the environment, which they really like to brag about, and also dish the aluminum chassis that they just created for the rMB, then they won't do wireless charging.

As with the above poster, I can also assure you that Apple won't go the way of wireless charging in the foreseeable future.


I seem to recall someone quoting the rMB screen as taking ~30% of the power of the rMB, which I can surely believe, I am not surprised that you get more battery time that most people. I also prefer a low light screen, which seem to opposite of what most other people prefer.

No, the screen technology just uses 30% less energy as compared to previous designs. There isn't an easily accessible statistic that shows exactly how much power the display is actually using in a percentage.

Same here. I always keep my iPad and iPhone on near minimum brightness, and people always complain about it being so dark. I just don't see the benefit of super bright screens when I can see the content perfectly well at minimum brightness.

 

[UltimaKilo]

I'd buy the 1st generation. in reality, I did, and it was a great decision.

The performance anxiety is definitely blown waaaaay out of proportion. I'm a power user, usually requiring A LOT of tabs in Safari, heavy Pixelmatr use, and near constant iTunes utilization. But I'm frugal with my expectations and how I work the processor, and the MacBook is perfectly perfect for me.

My main concern was battery life, but seeing as I've only charged this thing twice since getting it Wednesday, I'd say that's not really cause for concern. In fact, I've been heavily using this thing for the past 2 hours and I'm still at 92% (13 hours left). :O

"Whaaaaaat?" says you.
"Same," says I. "Tis amazing. Just as with the Apple Watch, Apple decided to once again under present and over perform in this regard."

Taking that into consideration, along with the prestige of being an early adopter, I'd warrant the 1st generation a good buy (especially at 20% off).

You're definitely not a power user, but the product is fine for the light stuff you use it for. Unfortunately, the Core M and its limited GPU is a really big drawback for power users. Maybe they'll finally slap a retina screen and 16GB RAM option on the MBA in November?

 

[deleder]

1/16 is the reason why you get so much extra battery time. I think most users are far away from that.

One thing that baffled me with the rMB is how hot it gets. 5-6 tabs, spotify, uTorrent and on my lap it gets uncomfortably hot. With my old Macbook Air that was never a problem. It also gets slow because it get hot..

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

One thing that baffled me with the rMB is how hot it gets. 5-6 tabs, spotify, uTorrent and on my lap it gets uncomfortably hot. With my old Macbook Air that was never a problem. It also gets slow because it get hot..

You may want to consider what surface you are resting the machine on.

 

[Zach Nathan]

You're definitely not a power user, but the product is fine for the light stuff you use it for. Unfortunately, the Core M and its limited GPU is a really big drawback for power users. Maybe they'll finally slap a retina screen and 16GB RAM option on the MBA in November?

As I said, being "a power user" is tailored to this sort of machine. I came directly from a 2010 Toshiba netbook, on which I largely ran the same thing, just add in Transmission, Chrome along with Safari, dual boot with Linux Mint, and a few games. For these sort of low powered devices, that definitely qualifies as a power user.

I highly, HIGHLY doubt Apple would ever do that. The Air is on its deathbed. As soon as the MacBook undergoes what the Air did in 2009-11, the latter will be all but useless.

1/16 is the reason why you get so much extra battery time. I think most users are far away from that.

One thing that baffled me with the rMB is how hot it gets. 5-6 tabs, spotify, uTorrent and on my lap it gets uncomfortably hot. With my old Macbook Air that was never a problem. It also gets slow because it get hot..

I haven't noticed it getting any hotter than other laptops I've used. It's prolly just a sense of more direct heat due to the MacBook using an anitropic graphite sheet to transfer any and all heat straight into the aluminum frame.

 

[sasha.danielle]

No, the screen technology just uses 30% less energy as compared to previous designs. There isn't an easily accessible statistic that shows exactly how much power the display is actually using in a percentage.

Same here. I always keep my iPad and iPhone on near minimum brightness, and people always complain about it being so dark. I just don't see the benefit of super bright screens when I can see the content perfectly well at minimum brightness.

I was working at the library the other day. At 75% brightness (which I think is entirely reasonable) and the wi-fi off (I don't like getting distracted), I was doing about 5% of battery usage per hour. I was kind of amazed.

 

[UltimaKilo]

As I said, being "a power user" is tailored to this sort of machine. I came directly from a 2010 Toshiba netbook, on which I largely ran the same thing, just add in Transmission, Chrome along with Safari, dual boot with Linux Mint, and a few games. For these sort of low powered devices, that definitely qualifies as a power user.

I highly, HIGHLY doubt Apple would ever do that. The Air is on its deathbed. As soon as the MacBook undergoes what the Air did in 2009-11, the latter will be all but useless.

I don't see the MBP/MBA or MBA/MB being combined into one product anytime soon, although I'll concede that perhaps Cannonlake might make it possible in 2 years. Until then, it would be very difficult to kill the MBA, especially with the current MB being so overpriced.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

In this review they also managed 17 hours of web browsing with the screen set to 50% brightness.. Quite impressive!

http://hothardware.com/reviews/apple-12-inch-macbook-early-2015-tomorrows-laptop-examined-today

And to think El Capitan will most likely only improve on that, eek!

One has to wonder if the large battery differences people see, are due to whatever table they use the laptop with. Proper cooling will improve CPU performance and hence throttling, and thus battery time.

 

[Queen6]

Ive seen my 1.2 register 16+ hours, equally 7-8 is far more realistic, one I get into the field next month then I will really see what the rMB can do, my 2014 13" 2.8Hz Retina set a pretty high bar at over 10 hours working. i don't see my rMB hitting the same equally we will see in good time.

Q-6

 

[Fuzzball84]

I know skylake will improve processor efficiency further, but I think it will be improvements to the retina screen that will have bigger or at least equal impact over the next few years. The processor and display the the two most power hungry components in the macbook, but the processors are already incredibly efficient (for most tasks including video.../considering usage patterns/idle times etc) versus the screen, especially if you are above 75% brightness.

Ive found that for my use you may be doing something like reading a webpage or PDF, once loaded up and scrolled to where you are the processor idles more, but if you are near a window, somewhere really bright etc the screen becomes the major component determining battery runtime...

 

[Serban]

so what we will have in the next Macbook generation 2?
what cpu what gpu, i guess the Ram will remain 8GB standard for all config and the same 256/512 gb SSD

 

[ecommerceedward]

I was in the same boat. I have a 2013 MBA 1.7 i7. It's fast.

I bought the 2015 MB 1.2 /512.

It's slower, it feels about 30% slower, but sometimes it can feel far slower than that. Lagging for the Spotlight bar to appear, cut and paste so slow that it doesn't work, processing video is far slower of course (but I'm ok with that).

It's just enough to get by. For $1499 I would hope it was faster but I'll have to wait for 2016 I suppose. I hope IOS9 helps.

Resetting the Pram and deleting all cache helped (Apple suggested).

Also it might just be the heat, I've noticed it feels faster when it is colder. I use this in Las Vegas NV and Orange County CA.

It's really strange, sometimes it seems very decent or even fast and sometimes I'm waiting for my cursor to catch up with my typing speed. I'm not sure if there's some background indexing task or something consuming resources that I'm unaware of? I check my activity monitor for any bad programs but I haven't found anything alarming or abnormal there.

Playing C&C Generals seems decent on it, but seems faster on the MBA 2013 i7 1.7. Also that game seems to crash more on the MB 2015 than on the MBA, but it's a poorly ported game to begin with.

Another gripe I have about the MB 2015 is the singe Usb Type-C. It's not a magsafe so I'm just worried that if someone trips over the cable and breaks my USB type-c I'll have a $1500 paper weight. Also it seems like an odd design because the dongle's weight is just supported by the MB 2015 when it's on a pedestal, which is most of the time as I use it with an external monitor. The camera on the MB 2015 has the same grainy resolution as FMV on the Sega CD system, ok maybe not that bad it's pretty awful. Luckily I rarely use that feature.

I do love the gold ultra thin housing and the Retina display. The display is a huge improvement. Overall I do like it even with its faults.

 

[Axeros]

I bought the 2015 MB 1.2 /512. ... It's slower, it feels about 30% slower, but sometimes it can feel far slower than that. ... I hope IOS9 helps.

iOS 9 isn't going to improve your MB's performance. On the other hand, Mac OS X El Capitan might help.

 

[Jobsian]

I was in the same boat. I have a 2013 MBA 1.7 i7. It's fast.

I bought the 2015 MB 1.2 /512.

It's slower, it feels about 30% slower, but sometimes it can feel far slower than that. Lagging for the Spotlight bar to appear, cut and paste so slow that it doesn't work, processing video is far slower of course (but I'm ok with that).

It's just enough to get by. For $1499 I would hope it was faster but I'll have to wait for 2016 I suppose. I hope IOS9 helps.

Resetting the Pram and deleting all cache helped (Apple suggested).

Also it might just be the heat, I've noticed it feels faster when it is colder. I use this in Las Vegas NV and Orange County CA.

It's really strange, sometimes it seems very decent or even fast and sometimes I'm waiting for my cursor to catch up with my typing speed. I'm not sure if there's some background indexing task or something consuming resources that I'm unaware of? I check my activity monitor for any bad programs but I haven't found anything alarming or abnormal there.

Playing C&C Generals seems decent on it, but seems faster on the MBA 2013 i7 1.7. Also that game seems to crash more on the MB 2015 than on the MBA, but it's a poorly ported game to begin with.

Another gripe I have about the MB 2015 is the singe Usb Type-C. It's not a magsafe so I'm just worried that if someone trips over the cable and breaks my USB type-c I'll have a $1500 paper weight. Also it seems like an odd design because the dongle's weight is just supported by the MB 2015 when it's on a pedestal, which is most of the time as I use it with an external monitor. The camera on the MB 2015 has the same grainy resolution as FMV on the Sega CD system, ok maybe not that bad it's pretty awful. Luckily I rarely use that feature.

I do love the gold ultra thin housing and the Retina display. The display is a huge improvement. Overall I do like it even with its faults.

These mini-issues are exactly the kind of thing I wanted to know, thanks for this.

 

[freddiecable]

I badly want this small, light, sexy and fast - enough - machine. Especially the black version. But I will try to hold off buying one until the second generation (have a 2012 MBA i7). Here are my guesses and wishes for it in order of priority:

1. Two USB-C-ports (please add one more Apple!)

2. Skylake (would be wonderful with the latest CPU)

3. Option to have 16GB RAM.

4. 720p-camera (480-camera 2015? Really Apple?)

5. Release Q1 2016

/Fredrik

 

[mgpg89]

I badly want this small, light, sexy and fast - enough - machine. Especially the black version. But I will try to hold off buying one until the second generation (have a 2012 MBA i7). Here are my guesses and wishes for it in order of priority:

1. Two USB-C-ports (please add one more Apple!)

2. Skylake (would be wonderful with the latest CPU)

3. Option to have 16GB RAM.

4. 720p-camera (480-camera 2015? Really Apple?)

5. Release Q1 2016

/Fredrik

Sounds about right ... and not too unrealistic, at that.
Except for the release date maybe

 

[freddiecable]

End Q1 is close to a year from launch...keeping fingers crossed

 

[zhenya]

Somewhat doubtful that it will have a second usb port. I would gather that it will get Skylake and full 10Gbps usb-c bandwidth, and as such be able to properly drive a 4k display. I would be surprised to see a whole lot more than that.

 

[freddiecable]

I hear you. My humble wishes But 720-cam at least.

 

[HardBall]

I hear you. My humble wishes But 720-cam at least.

I would wish for wireless charging option ahead of a 2nd USB port. It would be nice to have both though.

I'm slightly doubtful on the 16GB RAM in the system, since none of the MBP models offers the 32GB option yet. I think we will see rMB starting to have the 16GB option once the MBP lines start to have a 32GB; whether that's in 2016 or later is anyone's guess.

 

[ucfgrad93]

I badly want this small, light, sexy and fast - enough - machine. Especially the black version. But I will try to hold off buying one until the second generation (have a 2012 MBA i7). Here are my guesses and wishes for it in order of priority:

1. Two USB-C-ports (please add one more Apple!)

2. Skylake (would be wonderful with the latest CPU)

3. Option to have 16GB RAM.

4. 720p-camera (480-camera 2015? Really Apple?)

5. Release Q1 2016

/Fredrik

Sounds good to me.

 

[mripadmini]

720p or 1080p webcam( not buying one until then)
More than 1 usb c port and more support for usb type c
Skylake
8 or 16 gab ram options
Iris pro graphic as a option

 

[ctyrider]

1. Two USB-C-ports (please add one more Apple!)

That won't be happening. A single physical port on rMB is Apple's strategic statement on where they see the future of laptops. They won't be going back on that. You are as likely to see a 2nd Lightening port on iPhone (not very!).

 

[Chundles]

Somewhat doubtful that it will have a second usb port. I would gather that it will get Skylake and full 10Gbps usb-c bandwidth, and as such be able to properly drive a 4k display. I would be surprised to see a whole lot more than that.

Thunderbolt 3 would be best. All the features and port from USB-C but with even more bandwidth when needed.