Apple’s introduction of a sleek new $1,300 MacBook Monday felt like traveling back in time. Except, there was no manila envelope, and all of the ports you’re used to got chopped from this ultrathin 2-pound machine, along with some typing comfort and battery life.
Display Retina: 2304×1440-pixel
The new MacBook is just ridiculously thin and so light I literally didn’t believe it when I picked it up. 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 micro 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 I’ve used. Although Apple says that it has created an all new butterfly mechanism to make typing feel great, the keys felt fairly stiff to me, with such little travel that I wasn’t sure if I was really typing. 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. I imagine I could get used to it with just a little bit of time, though.
The touch pad may be one of the more amazing feats in this machine, however, because despite only ever moving a total of 7 nanometers, it feels like it’s a clicky, button-like trackpad with real travel. That’s because it has customizable force feedback, which lets users say just how much the taptic engine beneath will respond to clicks. This proves amazing when you’re doing something like force pressing (applying more pressure) to quickly skim through video – you can actually feel the keypad providing you with subtle but distinct cues that it’s working.
No more USB slots and other plug ins, just a C-port. To use a standard USB cable, you’ll need this $19 adapter. Both costing $79, the USB-C Digital and VGA adapters each add another USB-C port, a standard USB port and an HDMI or VGA output, respectively.
Apple claims the new MacBook will get nine hours of battery life, which is three hours less than the 13-inch MacBook Air, but the same as the 11-inch Air. (The new MacBook has a much higher resolution screen than both.)
source: Apple.com, theverge, yugatech, techcrunch, wsj, e
