REVIEW: New 12-inch Apple MacBook with Retina Display

At its March 9th '15 event, Apple announced its new generation of MacBooks, starting with the new 12 inch Retina Display MacBook. There had been several leaks before the release which drove the excitement towards the launch of this device.

Its been nearly a month now since the laptop has been on for sale.

Here's what its all really about:

The new MacBook is just ridiculously thin and light. It's 13.1mm thick and weighs just two pounds, but since it's distributed over the full 12 inches of the laptop, it feels even lighter (especially when it's open). I'm very sad to see the SD card slot go, but I won't be sad to have a laptop that lasts this long and weighs this little.

To make it that thin, Apple had to make some adjustments, starting with the keyboard. It takes a little getting used to, since it doesn't really feel like any standard MacBook keyboard. Apple has developed a new "butterfly mechanism" for the keyboard which promises better stability and uniformity over the pressure distribution on a key press, thus leading to faster typing, lesser errors, and an overall improved typing experience. The new MacBook’s keys feel the same no matter where your fingers strike them. The keyboard is backlit, but each key gets its own LED light, so they’ll all have the same brightness level. As the keys are flatter, it may seem stiffer to type for some. It's as close to typing on a glass tablet screen as you'll get with physical keys, and you have to rely on autocorrect just as much when you're going really fast. But as is the case with anything and everything, it will take time to get used to it.

The MacBook’s trackpad has some cool advancements too. The trackpad on existing Apple laptops hinges at the top, so a physical click at the top of the trackpad feels different than a click at the bottom. But on the new MacBook, there’s no hinge, so no matter where you click, it feels the same.

OK, this change sounds pretty minor, but the hinge-less design enables the trackpad to have a new Force Touch gesture. You can tap or click something to select it as normal, but when you push down harder on the fully pressure-sensitive trackpad, you initiate a Force Touch, which is a shortcut to new capabilities.

For example, you can Force Touch a Mail attachment to Quick Look at it instead of clicking to select it, and then tapping the space bar. You can Force Touch an address to see it on a map. You can Force Touch a date and time to create a new calendar event. And you can Force Touch a word to look it up on Wikipedia. Apple claims this to be super handy—and faster than right-clicking and digging through contextual menus. It’ll save MacBook owners a lot of time.

Force Touch technology, which made its debut with the Apple Watch, is very conveniently finding its way onto a various range of devices and shows a promise to evolve with even more capabilities in the future.

The MacBook finds itself in a controversial bubble when it comes to physical connection capabilities.

There is just one single port which is becoming the new standard of connectivity. But the single port you’ll use for everything else is called USB-C, and it holds some impressive technology. What we know so far is that it replaces MagSafe for charging, USB for connecting peripherals, and HDMI, VGA, and DisplayPort for connecting external screens.

Obviously, you’ll need an adapter—you can’t shove a big honkin’ HDMI cable into the tiny USB-C port. Apple is selling a USB adapter for $19 so you can plug in exactly one USB device. Two Multiport adapters are also on offer for $79 each. The USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter has a pass-through USB-C port for your charging cable, plus standard USB 3.1 and VGA. The USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter has USB-C passthrough for charging, plus HDMI and standard USB 3.1. A DisplayPort adapter is coming later.

Besides the USB-C port, the only other port available is the headphone jack (thankfully).

People, somehow, are just not getting over the fact that someday all laptops are going to have one single port and may not even have a headphone jack. It may take a while for potential buyers of this MacBook to accept the fact and might even be a deal-breaker for some. 

Specifications wise, inside the new MacBook notebook is Intel's new energy-efficient Core M "Broadwell" processors, housed in a logic board that is 67 per cent smaller than Apple's previous record. The base model runs at 1.1GHz and can Turbo Boost to 2.4GHz.

The Core M runs so cool that computers that take advantage of the chip can be fanless. And being fanless means that the computer in which they feature can be thinner and smaller than ever. That M in Core M stands for mobile, though, and these are processors destined for tablets and hybrid laptops, so don't expect anything like the power of the Core i5.

But is speed an issue for a product like this? 
Perhaps not - and it certainly doesn't feel sluggish in use. Gaming won't be a highlight, but for most day-to-day tasks the new MacBook will be fine.

Apple made a point of highlighting that the battery is one of the new MacBook's standout features. Apple describes it as "all day" battery life, but what that really means is an official rating of 9 hours of web surfing or 10 hours of watching video.

Mind you, Apple has become known for making surprisingly modest claims about its devices' batteries: we're currently finding that the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, for instance, consistently outlasts its 'official' battery life by a matter of hours.

Apple has allowed customers to set their own set of specifications for their MacBooks before-hand as upgrades after purchase are not available.

Both the 1.1GHz 256GB model and the 1.2GHz 512GB model can be upgraded with a 1.3GHz processor, which will obviously result in a higher price.

Verdict:

In terms of design, portability and display quality the new Retina MacBook ticks all the right boxes, but issues could arise from its speed, its single data/charging port, and its reduced-travel keyboard action. For the intended audience, we suspect that the MacBook will be perfect, but there remain compromises that power users in particular should be aware of.

Check out more about the new MacBook and leave your thoughts in comments below.

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