Apple unveils smallest and lightest MacBook ever with 12-inch Retina Display
Apple unveils smallest and lightest MacBook ever with 12-inch Retina Display
Today Apple has unveiled its reinvented MacBook, a 12-inch model that’s thinner and lighter than any machine the company has made before. The all-new unibody structure has no internal fan for the first time ever, and it contains the smallest and densest logic board the company has manufactured en masse–one that’s 67 percent smaller than the one in the 11-inch MacBook Air. However, the new MacBook also comes with an unusual compromise: a single, new USB-C connector that supports everything from charging to Ethernet and connecting peripherals.
More on that in a moment — first, let’s go through the specifics. The new MacBook is just 13.1mm thick, and weighs just two pounds — almost a pound lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Air, and about six ounces lighter than the 11-inch model. The new 12-inch Retina display features 2,304 by 1,440 pixels, and is just 0.88mm thick. Each pixel now consumes 30 percent less energy than before.
The MacBook has a new, flatter-style keyboard with a revised mechanism that enables more even key presses, and letting it “be thinner, and more precise in its illumination,” Apple SVP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller said during the keynote. The machine also gets a new Force Touch trackpad has Force Sensors and a Taptic engine. You can click anywhere and get the same feel over the entire surface, Schiller said, and you can adjust the feel for the first time. The Force Sensors sense a range of pressure levels, so you can get different things based on the type of click, such as a Wikipedia entry or a calendar entry. While watching a video in QuickTime, for example, the more you press, the faster it plays back.
The future is one without wires, Schiller also said. The new MacBook contains 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0, which is table stakes these days. But it’s also significant what the machine omits. The new MacBook has that single USB-C port and a headphone jack, but no regular USB (at least while the unit is charging), Thunderbolt, or Ethernet ports.
Under the hood is a Core M fifth-generation Broadwell 14nm processor that consumes just 5 watts in regular operation. Filling the rest of the space are new batteries that are terraced and contoured (pictured below), in sheets, so that they fit as tightly as possible inside the MacBook’s tapered enclosure. Apple is promising “all-day” battery life of 9 hours on a single charge.
The machine gets Energy Star 6.1 and EPEAT Gold certifications. It contains arsenic-free display glass, and it’s Beryllium free for the first time. It’s the world’s most energy-efficient notebook, Apple claims.
Two configurations are available: a 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Core M model with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD for $1,299, and a 1.2GHz version with a 512GB SSD for $1,599. Both machines will ship April 10th, and you can get one in silver, space gray, or gold.
Apple also unveiled some minor updates to the existing smaller MacBooks. The MacBook Air now has 5th-generation Broadwell Core i5 and i7 processors, Thunderbolt 2, and 2x faster flash storage. The 13-inch MacBook Pro gets similar upgrades, plus the Force Touch trackpad and another hour of battery life (10 hours). All of the revised existing models ship today.
The new MacBook presents an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, at just 2 pounds, it weighs less than an iPad with a keyboard in almost all cases, and is vastly more powerful. On the other hand, this machine is essentially one you can *either* charge, or connect peripherals to. That’s going to be a deal breaker for a lot of people; while many of us would love to be wireless at all times, the reality is that it’s often not possible. I’m also concerned about the space gray finish; if my old iPhone 5 was any indication, the paint on the aluminum eventually wears off and leaves unsightly bright scratches.
Nonetheless, it’s tough to deny that this is one gorgeous machine. And I’m certainly thrilled to see the return of the dearly departed 12-inch form factor that Apple has been missing for almost a decade, back when they were still making PowerBooks. We shall find out a lot more about the new MacBook come April 10th.
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