“Apple announced a new MacBook today — not MacBook Air, not MacBook Pro, just MacBook,” Andrew Cunningham reports for Ars Technica. “It’s the first one of those that Apple has offered since it killed the plastic MacBooks earlier this decade, and while those computers were low-cost alternatives to the MacBook Pro and then the MacBook Air, this laptop is a much different beast.”
“It’s Apple’s first fanless MacBook. It’s the first to use Intel’s ultra-low-power processors in the form of the Broadwell-based Core M. It’s got a Retina Display,” Cunningham reports. “It’s not a cut-down budget model, and it’s not quite a MacBook Air replacement.”
“The numbers seem small on paper—it weighs two pounds and is 13mm thick at its thickest point. Seeing it in person really drives home what a small laptop this is. It’s the most similar to the 11-inch MacBook Air, but it’s got a bigger and better screen,” Cunningham reports. “I moved from an 11- to a 13-inch MacBook Air because I found the display too cramped, but the new MacBook is large enough to avoid that problem.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The jury’s still out on this new keyboard and Apple’s entirely new butterfly mechanism.
Related article:
Apple unveils all-new MacBook, the thinnest and lightest Mac ever made – March 9, 2015
Do people not like the keyboard? Does it feel weird? Looked awesome in the demo. (Probably the MacBook should have been the headliner instead of the watch.) What about the taptic trackpad? Has anyone on this board touched the new MB?
RTFA.
Read The Full Article.
Like other hands-on reviewers, Ars doesn’t like the keyboard, either.
I was confused since the mdn comment didn’t obviously reference the article. So others don’t like not either, huh? Remember when keyboards had half an inch of throw? If we got used to that we can get used to this.
Hey, you are wrong. My old cast iron Royal had a full inch of keystroke!
Yeah. “Full”. That’s what the “F” means. 🙂
——RM
Meet the new 12 inch iPad. Retina display. Comes with keyboard attached. Minus the touch screen. Still only one port.
Actually, this is really a new category, but it remains to be seen how much the world needs it. Ultra thin, normal laptop file management, lower processing power, longer battery life. I guess with Apple cutting back on pro apps and hamstringing its iLife suite (not that there’ll be anything left of it), they figure the world just wants a word-processing, emailing device that can access iCloud for most everything it needs,
And for a large number of us, Apple screwed up. Timmy thinks incorrectly if he dreams of all of us using the iCloud at all times, and plugging in everything into a single data/power port.
This netbook may replace the MacBook Air for consumers, but it certainly doesn’t stand in as a mid-range laptop which is what the MacBook used to be. It is not even close to what laptop owners need in the real world. This is your new iPad Pro, stripped of everything useful so it can compete on price with the Surface.
I think they are priced way to high! I see a price of $599-$699, love to know the build cost of one because there isn’t much there! Yea they had to redesign everything, but still! Only 8GB, one port, etc. Your very limited and not many parts there.
$599 for an Intel laptop with retina display? WTF are you smoking?
If comments on Instagram are anything to go by the gold one will be a bestseller.I saw so many “want” and “need” comments over there.
Apple appear to be segmenting their own market. This new laptop is the companion for the gold iPhone and watch.
I dont see this as a serious ‘student’ machine because it lacks the flexibility of the other Air and Pro machines. Adapters and dongles dont represent positive progress
Adapters and dongles today…standard USB-C interface tomorrow.
i rather like it – the first laptop version of the Apple Cube. I am looking forward to seeing performance benchmarks of the MB relative to the MBA and MBP.
The most common comment that I heard following the reveal of the new MB is “why not include a second USB-C port on the opposite side and reposition the headphone jack”?
I agree. There should be a second USB-C port. The question has already been raised multiple times: “How do I connect it to an external monitor AND power it at the same time?”
Dongles. Multi-headed dongles. And, it seems like there is a large assortment of them.
So while the MacBook itself is very compact and light, you now have to carry around an assortment of dongles to connect to anything (other than WiFi & Bluetooth).
I think everyone is missing the point on the one-port feature. They spent half the PR video describing the wireless communications. The future is NO-Port.
But wireless is a pain in the ass. It is far faster to plug things in then to dig through protocol menus, find names, remember passwords and hope everything works for you and not the hacker in the next room.
I don’t think that Apple is segmenting its market. I see the new MB as the technology pathfinder for the fanless laptop, Broadwell M CPU, and the USB-C port. You are looking at the future of the MBA and MBP. This thing is more “air” than the Air. Apple could call it the MacBook Helium because it is lighter than air.
Lets wait until its released and we see the benchmarks.
A one port computer with no fan has been around for several years – the iPad
Must admit this seems like it should be an Air and now the Airs should be the MacBooks. Not sure how the next Airs will be minimalist versions of this except by not having the Retina. So will they be faded out I wonder and we go back to MacBook and MacBook Pros? Or will the new Airs be a new crossover device between these and iPads? The range will have to be sorted out more logically eventually as this is reminiscent of when the original MacBooks were kept going for a while to fill the cheaper and more traditionally speced machines until people adjusted to the new concepts.
Good observation. There is definitely evolution going on here. I suspect these are the new “airs” and the next gen of the Macbook Pro will be more like the current Airs with the big beasts going away.
I LOVE the size and look of the new Macbook and kudos to Apple for continuing to innovate by developing new keyboard and track pad technologies but this machine looks like a “executive” device not a device for people who use their computers for anything beyond email and web surfing. I always like to plug my phone into my laptop while traveling so I can charge both the phone and my computer while only taking up one wall port. I know people will say you don’t have to charge you computer anymore but I am so paranoid that I will get “stuck” somewhere and won’t have access to power so I always stay “topped off” between flights. Also folks often hand me flash drives with presentations and spreadsheets I hate having to dig out a “dongle” just to view them.
Finally where is the matching Monitor. I could almost make this work if I had a monitor that I could “dock” with that gave me some ports but I don’t seen any new Cinema Displays.
Sadly this is not the computer for me.
Except for maybe charging iPhone from the port or using an external drive, doesn’t most everything else that is plugged in to the port also charge it too? That is, if the peripheral also is plugged into a power outlet. I think. Oh well, here goes Apple again with this never ending bent toward minimalism. I like that and I don’t like that. As for this MacBook – I like! Everything needs to be retina display…