Who actually is the 12" MacBook for?

[SolidGoat]

I am a Windows loyalist who finds the 12" MacBook to be the best Windows 10 hardware currently available for the traveling executive. Is it expensive? You bet. Does it trade off processing power for form factor? Absolutely. Is it a waste of money to have it in my desk drawer 250 days a year? Sure. Does that bother me? No. Not sure why this upsets you.

If I told you that I had multiple cars and one of them was a BMW convertible roadster that I only used on summer weekends you'd probably think that was a cool luxury. It is.

BJ

I find it very odd that a "windows loyalist" doesn't know about competing hardware yet insists the macbook is the best hardware. I understand the luxury, though. I agree it's best to own something you enjoy despite it not exactly being the most efficient. I'm the same way, if you read my last comment.

 

[cracksoup]

I went from an 11" MBA to a 15" MBP and I do miss the portability and being able to use the computer in different ways. Like holding it in my palm and using it with my other hand for simple browsing. If i'd buy a new computer today, i'd definitely look closer at the 12" Macbooks.

 

[boltjames]

I find it very odd that a "windows loyalist" doesn't know about competing hardware yet insists the macbook is the best hardware. I understand the luxury, though. I agree it's best to own something you enjoy despite it not exactly being the most efficient. I'm the same way, if you read my last comment.

Is there a Windows notebook out there that is thinner and lighter than the 12" MacBook with a screen with better resolution, speakers with better sound, batteries with better life, and a charger as small and light? Last time I checked, the answer was no.

What's ironic? I have owned the RMB for 2 full years, has been running only Windows 10 the entire time, hasn't crashed or even had a hiccup, not once.

A month ago, I bought a powerful HP running Windows 10 for the home office, it's crashed on me 3 times.

Apple makes great hardware. If they were smart, they'd offer a full line of notebooks native to Windows. Create a MacBook For Windows logo, invite Windows users into their stores with Geniuses and terrific customer service, would be a gamechanger.

 

[bigjnyc]

Is there a Windows notebook out there that is thinner and lighter than the 12" MacBook with a screen with better resolution, speakers with better sound, batteries with better life, and a charger as small and light? Last time I checked, the answer was no.

What's ironic? I have owned the RMB for 2 full years, has been running only Windows 10 the entire time, hasn't crashed or even had a hiccup, not once.

A month ago, I bought a powerful HP running Windows 10 for the home office, it's crashed on me 3 times.

Apple makes great hardware. If they were smart, they'd offer a full line of notebooks native to Windows. Create a MacBook For Windows logo, invite Windows users into their stores with Geniuses and terrific customer service, would be a gamechanger.

that would never happen, I think your case is very very rare. Up until this thread I had never heard of anyone using a macbook exclusively for Windows.... I'm sure there are others but probably a very very tiny amount of people.

 

[boltjames]

that would never happen, I think your case is very very rare. Up until this thread I had never heard of anyone using a macbook exclusively for Windows.... I'm sure there are others but probably a very very tiny amount of people.

Agree completely. Just saying that as someone with extensive experience running Windows 10 on multiple notebooks including a MacBook, it's an interesting opportunity for Apple. They have 8% notebook market share. The other 92% is just dying for a premium notebook with in-mall customer service akin to the Genius Bar. My MacBook runs Windows better than my Windows computer. It's amazing really.

BJ

 

[3dflyboy1]

Is there a Windows notebook out there that is thinner and lighter than the 12" MacBook with a screen with better resolution, speakers with better sound, batteries with better life, and a charger as small and light? Last time I checked, the answer was no.

It's obviously been mentioned multiple times in this thread, but one of the newest Asus zenbooks is arguably better and basically a clone... the 12.5" one? Pretty nice, and I've been looking into ultralight laptops for grad school.
____________________________

I'll probably go with the macbook though for the OS when the new generation comes out soon and the used market for the 2016 model drops even lower than its already abysmal used market value.

It's incredible there are used 2015 macbooks for about 750 and 2016's for about a hundred more than that. Makes the lineup much more appealing to students who need a light laptop with great battery. Perfect for a mobile note-taking workhorse.

As far as the original thread topic, that's my opinion. Basic student workhorse or traveler's companion.

 

[0989383]

Please, let's not get caught up in naming conventions. "MacBook" is a line of notebooks, not a single product. Nice try though.

When I bought my son his MacBook (white) it was $1000 and the cheapest Windows notebook was $700. Today's least expensive MacBook (Air) is still $1000 and the cheapest Windows notebook is $350. MacBook is the same price, Windows dropped in half. Apple is taking the high road, Windows clones are in the gutter.

Apple has not increased prices. They have held prices steady and simultaneously increased quality and innovation. If that disappoints some, that's good, they're not supposed to be common products for the masses. They are luxuries.

No... hang on a minute, unless you have learning disabilities.. there's no excuse or logical way to say Apple have sustained their pricing. The 13" last gen Retina - still on sale today - this time last year was £999. ItS now £1,249. That is not sustaining the price. Given its no longer a latest gen product which also accounts for something a twenty five percent increase is quite evident. Use the Wayback Machine and browse their UK site then and now for comparison. All of Europe has been affected by the same.
[doublepost=1492034261][/doublepost]

I am a Windows loyalist who finds the 12" MacBook to be the best Windows 10 hardware currently available for the traveling executive. Is it expensive? You bet. Does it trade off processing power for form factor? Absolutely. Is it a waste of money to have it in my desk drawer 250 days a year? Sure. Does that bother me? No. Not sure why this upsets you.

If I told you that I had multiple cars and one of them was a BMW convertible roadster that I only used on summer weekends you'd probably think that was a cool luxury. It is.

BJ

BMWs suck. They're literally the car version of the gold 12" MacBook. ;-)

 

[turbineseaplane]

Have any of these Asus models made a trackpad as good yet?

That has always mystified me - that no windows hardware ever seems to have the physical quality and drivers to match that of the MacBooks.

 

[3dflyboy1]

Have any of these Asus models made a trackpad as good yet?

That has always mystified me - that no windows hardware ever seems to have the physical quality and drivers to match that of the MacBooks.

Depends on how you feel about the trackpoint...

 

[boltjames]

No... hang on a minute, unless you have learning disabilities.. there's no excuse or logical way to say Apple have sustained their pricing. The 13" last gen Retina - still on sale today - this time last year was £999. ItS now £1,249. That is not sustaining the price. Given its no longer a latest gen product which also accounts for something a twenty five percent increase is quite evident. Use the Wayback Machine and browse their UK site then and now for comparison. All of Europe has been affected by the same.

I don't know what you are talking about. Perhaps pricing is different in Europe. Apple is an American company and in America the entry-level MacBook has been $999 for over 10 years. Go to Apple's US site, click on Mac, you'll see it there still this very day.

When I bought my son his MacBook (white) it was $1000 and the cheapest Windows notebook was $700. Today's least expensive MacBook (Air) is still $1000 and the cheapest Windows notebook is $350. MacBook is the same price, Windows dropped in half. Apple is offering innovation and form factor quality and maintaining that $999 price where other brands are stalling innovation and letting prices drop.

BMWs suck. They're literally the car version of the gold 12" MacBook. ;-)

BMW's suck when they are not configured properly, when people try to cut corners and buy the $29,000 stripped version of a $60,000 car. Sound familiar? I own 3 of them. Configured properly. Fantastic machines.

BJ

 

[lowkey]

that would never happen, I think your case is very very rare. Up until this thread I had never heard of anyone using a macbook exclusively for Windows.... I'm sure there are others but probably a very very tiny amount of people.

Here in our Architecture Office there are 8 iMacs. 7 are exclusively windows. 1 [mine] runs OSX.
So there could be a decent market out there for nice windows hardware...

 

[serkan]

What do you guys think about touchbar on Macbooks ?

It can be nice to have touchID and other stuff but if it consume all the battery life out of it, I wouldn't want that.
The updates that we should expect besides CPU,RAM, Extra Port, maybe TB ?

 

[3dflyboy1]

What do you guys think about touchbar on Macbooks ?

It can be nice to have touchID and other stuff but if it consume all the battery life out of it, I wouldn't want that.
The updates that we should expect besides CPU,RAM, Extra Port, maybe TB ?

TouchID yes, touchbar no. Hopefully the two features will be separated, because battery life is one of the best things about the macbook and a fingerprint reader would be amazing. Mostly seems that the touchbar is still a gimmick at this point, neat for volume, brightness, and video scrubbing at least.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Touch ID is yes, the rest of the Touch Bar is a no.

I'm personally hoping they bail on the touch bar completely.
It's just not a great idea.

 

[doitdada]

If they dont update it this year, I am thinking of biting the bullet and buying the m7 processor one, rather than MBP

If you need to connect it to an external display with a higher resolution than 1080p, you will need at least a MacBook Pro 13" because. The extra thunderbolt port is nice, but the portability on the MacBook 12" is the best. The 12" is still the only computer I don't mind bringing with me outside.

Would maybe wait for the new models until the end of this month, but if you are without a computer at the moment, I would bite the bullet right now.

 

[Dave245]

Touch ID is yes, the rest of the Touch Bar is a no.

I'm personally hoping they bail on the touch bar completely.
It's just not a great idea.

I don't think that will happen Apple are happy with how it's doing according to Phil Schiller. Personally after trying out a 13" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar for the day from a friend, I think the Touch Bar is very good but it needs more apps and developers to adopt it into their apps in order for it to become more mainstream.

My friend who uses his MacBook Pro for editing, loves the Touch Bar he swears that it helps him in Final Cut X with editing videos and saves him time when cutting up clips and video segments.

 

[bigjnyc]

BMW's suck when they are not configured properly, when people try to cut corners and buy the $29,000 stripped version of a $60,000 car. Sound familiar? I own 3 of them. Configured properly. Fantastic machines. BJ

100% agree I love BMW because the handling is like no other vehicle I've driven. I've owned several luxury brands but keep going back to BMW... the person who said BMW's suck has never driven a fully equipped M power BMW.
[doublepost=1492087021][/doublepost]

Touch ID is yes, the rest of the Touch Bar is a no.

I'm personally hoping they bail on the touch bar completely.
It's just not a great idea.

People are so impatient, you're already calling for apple to bail on it completely? Give it time, I'm sure developers and Apple will think of a bunch of cool implementations and uses for it.

 

[fisherking]

Touch ID is yes, the rest of the Touch Bar is a no.

I'm personally hoping they bail on the touch bar completely.
It's just not a great idea.

it's logical that the touchbar took some time to develop, test... it's not like someone thought it up on a wednesday, and by friday, apple threw it into the design of the MBP. it's part of a long-range plan,there because apple decides it's (part of) the future of the mac. so, like all new things (the new keyboard, usb-c, etc) we'll adapt. and one day you'll wonder how you ever managed without it.

 

[- rob -]

it's logical that the touchbar took some time to develop, test... it's not like someone thought it up on a wednesday, and by friday, apple threw it into the design of the MBP. it's part of a long-range plan,there because apple decides it's (part of) the future of the mac. so, like all new things (the new keyboard, usb-c, etc) we'll adapt. and one day you'll wonder how you ever managed without it.

I don't think Apple was nearly as confident about the TB as you're laying it out. As I recall, the reason we haven't seen an external keyboard produced with it is because Apple was waiting to see how well it was used on the MBP first.

I think Apple is looking at the analytics of the touchbar use, sales of machines featuring it and returns of TB machines to make a decision on whether it is something to go all in on.

Analytics might include how many 'touches' and seconds it takes to adjust the volume on the old keyboard versus the new one in default configuration. Whether the user is customizing the default touch bar to better suit their needs, and whether changes to the default configuration might improve the experience.

I also think TouchID should be on all macs, but disagree that a touch bar should consume the entire top row of the keyboard. I think a reasonable compromise would be a shorter touchbar that brings back the escape key.

 

[boltjames]

Here in our Architecture Office there are 8 iMacs. 7 are exclusively windows. 1 [mine] runs OSX.
So there could be a decent market out there for nice windows hardware...

Agreed. If Apple has taught the industry anything, it's that people will pay for quality.

I'd argue that all notebook OS are the same at this point, there is nothing so special that MacOS does that Windows 10 doesn't. But hardware, different story. Cheap plastics vs. aluminum, blurry displays vs. retina, lightweight chargers and cables vs. a brick, etc. that's where Apple wins big.

The MacBook is the best Windows notebook. Pity so few of us know that.

BJ

 

[turbineseaplane]

People are so impatient, you're already calling for apple to bail on it completely? Give it time, I'm sure developers and Apple will think of a bunch of cool implementations and uses for it.

You mean like Force Touch on the Mac?

The Mac ecosystem isn't like the iOS ecosystem in this way. The TouchBar may never be much more than it currently is and high end/established workflow users have almost universally panned it.

They may not get rid of it completely - no question - but I won't be surprised if they offer "non TB" versions across the line at some point and/or re-focuse the TB idea a bit after seeing what's been good/not good about it so far.

A larger (perhaps even full width on laptops) trackpad that integrates TouchBar or does double duty makes way more sense.

Think about it - The TB is only located where it is due to the F-Row already being there. They didn't choose that specific spot for any actually great reason. That alone makes it likely to get some change. It also really needs haptics.

 

[Ixidor]

Personally, I love the 12" (Core m7) Macbook's portability. I use it alongside my 27" iMac.

There are a few reasons why I love the MacBook over the MacBook Pro:

1) Portability, nuff said.

2) Low power consumption when running regular non-stressful tasks. A number of articles I've read on Core M have suggested that Core M is far more power efficient at low power tasks than Core i. This means that the MacBook can use a significantly smaller battery compared to the larger battery of the MacBook pros and still achieve similar battery life. When dealing with low power tasks, both laptops should have similar battery life (theoretically). So why does that matter? It is far easier/faster to charge the MacBook's battery with a power bank than a MacBook pro. This just adds to the portability aspect if you plan to carry a power bank to extend battery life.

3) When power is needed, the Core M can still turbo boost so you may not see a difference in performance compared to the Core i series, at least for tasks that require short bursts of speed.

***

The downside of the MacBook in the line of work that I do:

1) When you do sustained intensive workloads, obviously the Macbook's processor can't keep up because it will run hot (turbo boost will stop). I have to use my iMac for some of these tasks. The biggest problem I've faced is when I deal with Excel files with tens of thousands of data points. Using the MacBook to plot complex graphs causes the CPU to run to 100%, go super hot, and Excel will hang. My iMac can do this effortlessly.

2) Related to the previous point, the Core M is very inefficient at sustained intensive workloads. It will turbo boost whenever it can... but coupled with the smaller battery, I've found the Macbook's battery dropping rapidly in this situation. The MacBook pro's battery would last longer in this case as it's processor is more efficient for these tasks. I once saw an article comparing different models of the Surface Pro and this was the conclusion why the Core M SP4s didn't have a longer battery life than the Core i.

***

Anyway, what I've said here is just based on articles I've read. I may be wrong on some of these points (I'm not an expert) so do correct me if I'm off base here.

Nonetheless, if you don't need the CPU to run sustained intensive tasks or if you don't need a discrete GPU, there is really no reason to go for the MacBook Pro. Likewise if you have a primary and more powerful computer like an iMac and you only need a companion laptop for the road (and you need MacOS over iOS).

From what I've read on charging the MacBook Pros with a power bank, it seems that it is far harder to maintain a charge because of the higher power consumption. The MacBook's lower power consumption means that I actually gain battery even while working. Assuming both laptops are doing low CPU intensive tasks.

My power bank can fully charge my MacBook in about 3+ hours in sleep mode but consumes about 80% of its capacity. Naturally, the same power bank won't be able to charge the MacBook pros using a single charge, let alone within the same amount of time.

 

[bopajuice]

Is there a Windows notebook out there that is thinner and lighter than the 12" MacBook with a screen with better resolution, speakers with better sound, batteries with better life, and a charger as small and light? Last time I checked, the answer was no.

What's ironic? I have owned the RMB for 2 full years, has been running only Windows 10 the entire time, hasn't crashed or even had a hiccup, not once.

A month ago, I bought a powerful HP running Windows 10 for the home office, it's crashed on me 3 times.

Apple makes great hardware. If they were smart, they'd offer a full line of notebooks native to Windows. Create a MacBook For Windows logo, invite Windows users into their stores with Geniuses and terrific customer service, would be a gamechanger.

The HP crashed three times due to the humidity at your beach house. If the Windows were open maybe it was the ocean spray that caused corrosion. Or maybe the wife hit it with her trophy.

 

[peapody]

I am finding that the MacBook is a great fit for me. I used to be a power user and did some photo and movie editing with occasional gaming. Nowadays work and a kid has made me a simplified user...just for media consumption through streaming services. The speaker and the screen make it a perfect device for just this thing! Get the right dongle and you aren't missing the missing ports.

 

[0989383]

Damn this place is an echo chamber and a half