Rather, the logo is a shiny inset piece of metal like what you’d get on an iPad or iPhone.Īlso like an iPad, the MacBook is fanless and has zero moving parts inside-one of its best features and a side-effect of using Intel’s Core M processors rather than the standard i5s or i7s. The Apple logo on the lid isn’t backlit as it is on most Macs. At two pounds, it feels significantly lighter in your hands and in a bag than a 13-inch MacBook Air or Pro does, and its 12-inch screen doesn’t feel as cramped as the one on the 11-inch MacBook Air. The MacBook is thin but not flimsy, and like all the hardware Apple makes, it looks and feels high-quality. This is recognizably a Mac, but it comes with an iPad-flavored design and a few of the same benefits and drawbacks that Apple’s tablets have. It’s like someone threw a MacBook Air and an iPad in a blender. Nothing about the MacBook’s design changed from last year, so if you’ve already handled one you know what you’re getting. Webcam, backlit keyboard, dual integrated mics, Force Touch trackpad

But for OS X users who value portability over all else, it’s a decent generational bump that gets you more speed for the same price. It probably won’t make most people who disliked the 2015 MacBook happy. It’s not going to make every MacBook Air and Pro user happy. But to achieve that feat, Apple uses low-voltage processors, offers a super-shallow keyboard and trackpad, and sheds all but one of this laptop's ports (headphone jack excepted). At two pounds, it’s one of the thinnest, lightest full-fledged laptops you can buy today. The main tension is between power and portability: how light can I make this phone without making it unacceptably slow or killing battery life, and how fast can I make this laptop without making the battery and necessary heatsinks and fans too large to comfortably carry around?Įvery laptop you can buy exists somewhere on this spectrum, and the new version of Apple’s Retina MacBook still prioritizes portability over pretty much everything else.

Designing a portable gadget is all about compromise.

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