No space is wasted on the MacBook’s keyboard deck. The laptop’s designers wouldn’t settle for anything less than a “full sized” keyboard, and managed to create a set of keys that defines the width of the machine. Apple has worked hard to “rethink” the keyboard for the MacBook.
Moving down from the screen and the speaker, you get the new keyboard. It’s miniaturised directional sound design at its most elegant. Part of that big sound is the fact that it’s bouncing some of the sound off the 12-inch screen glass living directly above it. Despite the fact that there’s less space in which to fit larger speaker drivers, the sound is loud and clear. It was headphones or bust, but now it’s different. One of my complaints about the MacBook Air was its speakers: they were always too quiet and maxing out their volume always distorted the sound. Directly beneath the screen and mounted between it and the keyboard is a new bar-shaped speaker grille that does some amazing work considering the size. Not only is it insanely thin and mind-blowingly light, it has ditched the silver bezel found on the MacBook Air in favour of a super-thin black glass bezel. Little differences from the MacBook Air make this new MacBook a really beautiful piece of hardware. What’s Good?Īs soon as you clap eyes on the new MacBook, you realise it’s something special. The entry-level 1.1GHz model starts at $1799, while the 1.2GHz model comes in at $2199. On top of that, it comes in funky new colours, to match your iPhone: Gold, Space Grey and the traditional Silver. Of course, you’ll need a host of adapters to do that.Īll this space-saving design means that the new MacBook is the thinnest computer Apple has ever put out to market, measuring up at just 1.3cm thin. You only get two on the svelte new machine: a 3.5mm headphone jack and a new USB Type-C port that will act as everything from your charger, your DisplayPort, your HDMI port, your VGA port, your USB 3.0 port, your Firewire and your Gigabit Ethernet port.
It’s the first MacBook to pack the Intel Core M (Broadwell) processor, and comes in two variants speeds: 1.1GHz (which Turbo Boosts up to 2.4GHz) with a 256GB SSD, or 1.2GHz (which Turbo Boosts up to 2.6GHz) with a 512GB SSD.Īnother stark change on the new MacBook is the lack of ports. In fact, the logic board on the MacBook is 67 per cent smaller than the logic board on the 11-inch MacBook Air. Instead of filling the entire chassis with gear, Apple centralised the Intel Atom CPU, flash memory and RAM onto a tiny board that makes a fun-size Mars bar look chunky. In its most basic sense, the new MacBook is Apple’s first 12-inch laptop with a Retina screen to boot. The range now features the aforementioned MacBook, the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. It’s crazy thin, has very few ports and it’s packed to the gills with new tech. The reason you’ll have this conversation a lot is because what Apple has made looks a lot like the MacBook Air.