rob-ART morgan writes for Bare Feats, “Readers wanted to know: Will the ‘early 2016’ MacBook Retina 12-inch run Pro Apps if the projects are not too extreme? And how its performance compare to other Mac laptops?”
“With one exception, the 2016 Retina Macbook is no match for the top 2015 MacBook Pro 15-inch laptop,” morgan writes. “However, in 4 out of 6 cases pro functions… it was competitive with the top 2015 MacBook Pro 13-inch.”
“With Intel M processor, RAM limited to 8GB, and lack of Thunderbolt 2 or 3 support, the MacBook can’t be considered a serious platform for demanding professional projects,” morgan writes. “It will be interesting to see what the next generation of MacBook Pros offer in all areas performance.”
Full article, with all of the benchmarks, here.
MacDailyNews Take: The new 12-inch MacBook, our new favorite Mac (displacing the beloved 11-inch MacBook Air units in our backpacks), isn’t meant to sequence the human genome or edit Star Wars. Rather, the new 12-inch MacBook is as close to the perfect personal computer for the road warrior that Apple, and therefore any company, has ever achieved. The Space Gray models look amazing!
Another way to look at it..at what point in the Mac timeline does the MacBook equal or surpass other portable macs? For example, if you currently have an older Mac, will replacing it with a MacBook equal or surpass it in performance (excluding lack of ports)? Is the MacBook better than, let’s say, a Mac laptop from 2013? Just curious.
This is a tricky question to answer. For example, I have a 2016 MacBook m7, and a 2010 MacBook Pro 15″ Quad Core i7 with 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD.
The MBP gets about 4X the speed while encoding video as the rMB. However, the rMB has much faster I/O thanks to having much faster storage and USB 3.0. Additionally, a lot of what makes a Mac “feel fast/snappy” is due to quick bursts of the CPU.
The rMB feels faster, boots faster, launches apps faster, and so forth, but for sustained tasks like encoding video, it’s about 4X slower.
Even my 2011 MacBook Air i7, is about 2X my new rMB when it comes to encoding video… again though, my rMB 2016 m7, boots, launches apps, and feels faster.
That’s just one example. For your specific question, one would need to know the specs of your Mac from 2013.
Based on a cursory look at GeekBench, the newewst Macbook moderately outperforms i5 processor Airs, is comparable to i5 processor 13″ Pros from a few years ago and is outperformed by i7 processor Airs/Pros. Processing power isn’t the best measure for this device IMHO. The main attraction is its size/weight (Apple’s lightest and only 2.03lbs!) and screen.
All true. In the store, netbooks with the Intel M chips feel snappy, but in the real world they bog down. And with no active cooling, the processor will be throttled immediately when you try to push it.
However, the biggest failing with the current MacBook is how Apple’s boneheaded designers decided to artificially restrict connectivity that road warriors also need. Carrying overpriced accessory dongles completely negates the desirability of a thin chassis design.
Someone here weeks ago pointed out that Dell’s competing ultraportable XPS laptop was equal or better than Apple on all measurable tech specs, had a thinner aluminum case, way more ports, and cost less. That ought to serve as a wake-up call to Apple, which seems to have coasted while Dell upped their game.
Personally, my gripe with Cook is that the biggest selling feature of Macs — OS X — has stagnated and bloated and uglified over the years. Without putting resources and advertising behind it, OS X 3rd party apps are way behind their Windows counterparts across the board.. Many users, including myself, now have to run Windows programs for their work (design).
Sad to say, but Apple is letting down its Mac users. When a Dell with Windows 7 becomes a strongly compelling alternative to a current Mac running any version of OS X since Snow Leopard, then it’s long past time that Cook woke up.
I can’t imagine a scenario where I would ever return to Windows. I get ill thinking about it.