The New Macbook

[jazzybee]

JulianHJ said:

Massively overpriced netbook?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG6qLab-xuA

That was a great laugh! and, I am a Mac convert... Still think they are overpriced though

[audi321]

Yep, it's official, as powerful as a 2011 Air!! ridiculous for £1200!!!

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/01/retina-macbook...

[ecsrobin]

audi321 said:

Yep, it's official, as powerful as a 2011 Air!! ridiculous for £1200!!!

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/01/retina-macbook...

Is it ridiculous? We won't buy it but I'm sure they will still sell very well.

[Blown2CV]

audi321 said:

Yep, it's official, as powerful as a 2011 Air!! ridiculous for £1200!!!

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/01/retina-macbook...

There have been quite a lot of advances in 4 years though. Not sure it's that amazing.

[CAFEDEAD]

Blown2CV said:

audi321 said:

Yep, it's official, as powerful as a 2011 Air!! ridiculous for £1200!!!

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/01/retina-macbook...

There have been quite a lot of advances in 4 years though. Not sure it's that amazing.

The least of those advances being single core processing power, it's not that far behind and for target users of this device single core processing just doesn't matter that much. There's no point in just looking at that statistic without comparing power consumption, I/O performance, etc.

[audi321]

CAFEDEAD said:

Blown2CV said:

audi321 said:

Yep, it's official, as powerful as a 2011 Air!! ridiculous for £1200!!!

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/01/retina-macbook...

There have been quite a lot of advances in 4 years though. Not sure it's that amazing.

The least of those advances being single core processing power, it's not that far behind and for target users of this device single core processing just doesn't matter that much. There's no point in just looking at that statistic without comparing power consumption, I/O performance, etc.

Yes but it's ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED POUNDS!!!

[Bikerjon]

£1200 and don't forget the extra £70 for the USB adaptor cable! I suspect that pretty much everyone will need this cable at some point and I'm amazed it's not included.

[ecsrobin]

audi321 said:

CAFEDEAD said:

Blown2CV said:

audi321 said:

Yep, it's official, as powerful as a 2011 Air!! ridiculous for £1200!!!

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/01/retina-macbook...

There have been quite a lot of advances in 4 years though. Not sure it's that amazing.

The least of those advances being single core processing power, it's not that far behind and for target users of this device single core processing just doesn't matter that much. There's no point in just looking at that statistic without comparing power consumption, I/O performance, etc.

Yes but it's ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED POUNDS!!!

You don't have to pay it if you don't want too. Yes I think it's a crazy price but people will pay it.

[Murph7355]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

excuse the idiot here:

And bless, only because of bumping in to this thread on PH, but are we saying here the Old MBA (I have one, an 11" which I think does most of what I need) really was end of the line, and no they are 'dumbed down' and overpriced?

I saw the 'old' ones in Currys for £700 now - thought ,mmmm at that price......

Not necessarily.

They're still doing the MBA's and have tweaked them. The Macbook sits underneath power wise, above it Gucci-wise. Macbook Pros above both power wise but with a bit of heft.

I would expect them to merge the product names over time as it seems unnecessarily confusing. Hopefully there'll be something that combines elements of the MBAs and Macbook Pros to top off the Macbook line in due course.

Only worry is that Apple are increasingly a manufacturer of trinkets/consumer end kit, and I fear they are backing out of business/professional laptops/computing.

[Mike22233]

Bikerjon said:

£1200 and don't forget the extra £70 for the USB adaptor cable! I suspect that pretty much everyone will need this cable at some point and I'm amazed it's not included.

I'm amazed you're amazed. Apple are not a charity.

[ccr32]

K12beano said:

GregK2 said:

JulianHJ said:

Massively overpriced netbook?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG6qLab-xuA

This is brilliant!

Hahaha! Superb

[numtumfutunch]

At the risk of laying myself open to the mother of all internet slagging offs Im buying one on Saturday!!

Im typing this on an 8y old white plastic Macbook which is my primary computer and still doing OK despite outlasting every other electronic device I have ever owned by a considerable margin. Having said that the OS has been obsolete for a couple of years however all this means is that I cant update Safari to fluently run the latest fancy websites, this in itself is no great loss as Chrome has a simple ad blocker and less evil privacy violations

Our family pics, videos and music are all safely stored and fiddled with on a similarly 'mature' imac in the office upstairs so the HDD on this isnt even remotely full yet

The upgrade is coming purely for the Retina display
I found this to be a stunning addition to the MacBookPro and much, much better for looking at photos
The reason for not buying the MBP is simply one of size and portability, the new laptop will be the electronic equivalent of a lap dog - nice to look at and easily carried around

If the Air had been Retina'd earlier Id have had one in a New York minute, the Pro is just too cumbersome for looking at pron on the sofa and keeping both hands free

I dont need a fancy processor as Im not crunching the SETI program or editing massive files

Cheers

EDIT: I had also thought the new port a rip off, but after scrutiny can survive easily without buying the adapter

[BERGS2]

numtumfutunch said:

At the risk of laying myself open to the mother of all internet slagging offs Im buying one on Saturday!!

Im typing this on an 8y old white plastic Macbook which is my primary computer and still doing OK despite outlasting every other electronic device I have ever owned by a considerable margin. Having said that the OS has been obsolete for a couple of years however all this means is that I cant update Safari to fluently run the latest fancy websites, this in itself is no great loss as Chrome has a simple ad blocker and less evil privacy violations

Our family pics, videos and music are all safely stored and fiddled with on a similarly 'mature' imac in the office upstairs so the HDD on this isnt even remotely full yet

The upgrade is coming purely for the Retina display
I found this to be a stunning addition to the MacBookPro and much, much better for looking at photos
The reason for not buying the MBP is simply one of size and portability, the new laptop will be the electronic equivalent of a lap dog - nice to look at and easily carried around

If the Air had been Retina'd earlier Id have had one in a New York minute, the Pro is just too cumbersome for looking at pron on the sofa and keeping both hands free

I dont need a fancy processor as Im not crunching the SETI program or editing massive files

Cheers

EDIT: I had also thought the new port a rip off, but after scrutiny can survive easily without buying the adapter

Well - I may well be joining you on the 'mother of all slagging offs' as I too intend to get one -

Rationale - reasonably similar to yours:

1) My existing Macbook (black edition from C.2008) is super creaky and cost me about £600 its lasted me 6 years = c. £1/week for which I've probably used it for a couple of hours a day - Can no longer update itunes as its on 10.6.summat - so a bit sketchy with icloud and the like
2) I don't need a super processer - bit of home video editing and pics - hardly going to tax even a four year old processer
3) Most of my storage needs I've either migrated to home network drive / icloud / dropbox or a combination thereof.

might make it effectivley a super expensive Chromebook - but hey, looks nice

[sjg]

ash73 said:

Core M cpu reviewed here - bridges the gap between atom and i3/i5 performance, sacrifices a little horsepower for 4.5W power consumption, no fan, 12hr battery life.

Indeed. Lots of reviewers totally miss the point of these CPUs. For lots of "typical" workloads (office worker tapping away in documents or spreadsheets, web browsing, flipping through your holiday pics and making minor edits, etc) they will be plenty quick enough. They can "turbo" to 2.6Ghz or higher to get the task done or the application loaded nice and fast and go back to idling away at a slower speed, sipping the battery. Run a benchmark that needs lots of CPU for long periods and it won't be able to sustain that speed, throttling back to avoid overheating. Then you can write clickbait headlines like "OMG NEW MACBOOK SLOWER THAN OLD MACBOOK AIR LOL".

If you pull up Activity Monitor (or Task Manager in Windows-land) and see the CPU sat at <10% for long periods except for the odd spike, these CPUs will suit you down to the ground.

If you do things that max out the CPU for longer periods (heavy Photoshop work, video editing, crunching million-row spreadsheets, etc) then it's not for you. The CPU will go fast for a little while then be forced to a slower speed to stay within its thermal limits. Buy a Macbook Air or Pro or similar instead, that can run its noisy fans while the CPU works away.

These are the compromises involved with making very thin and light devices without fans that still manage long battery life despite a high-res screen (from Apple and from other vendors). They won't always be the right compromises for everyone.

btw, the adaptor to get full-size USB is £15. The fancy ones that give you a display output plus USB, plus pass-through charging are £65.

[Jamesgt]

I may also buy one. Until recently I had a 2008 macbook which was running just fine. I've still got an 11" MacBook Air which the missus now has. I need a machine good for travel, reliable and capable of basic tasks.

People may say buy a windows machine for half the price. Prior to converting to apple I went through three laptops in 18 months. Two HPs and one ASUS. Hateful machines built like a kid's toy.

[z4RRSchris]

i would like one, because it looks cool. but i have a 2013 macbook air which is fine for me.

im sure there will be a q to buy one

[Walter Sobchak]

numtumfutunch said:

At the risk of laying myself open to the mother of all internet slagging offs Im buying one on Saturday!!

Im typing this on an 8y old white plastic Macbook which is my primary computer and still doing OK despite outlasting every other electronic device I have ever owned by a considerable margin. Having said that the OS has been obsolete for a couple of years however all this means is that I cant update Safari to fluently run the latest fancy websites, this in itself is no great loss as Chrome has a simple ad blocker and less evil privacy violations

Our family pics, videos and music are all safely stored and fiddled with on a similarly 'mature' imac in the office upstairs so the HDD on this isnt even remotely full yet

The upgrade is coming purely for the Retina display
I found this to be a stunning addition to the MacBookPro and much, much better for looking at photos
The reason for not buying the MBP is simply one of size and portability, the new laptop will be the electronic equivalent of a lap dog - nice to look at and easily carried around

If the Air had been Retina'd earlier Id have had one in a New York minute, the Pro is just too cumbersome for looking at pron on the sofa and keeping both hands free

I dont need a fancy processor as Im not crunching the SETI program or editing massive files

Cheers

EDIT: I had also thought the new port a rip off, but after scrutiny can survive easily without buying the adapter

I was in a similar situation, coming from an old, tired 6 Year old MBP, loved the look of the new MacBook but looking at specs I think the choice I made- the £999 MBP is a no brainer over the Macbook, spec wise anyway.

[ecs]

I think they look great. No fan, all day battery; sounds ideal for the sort of person who wants something which is nearly as portable as an iPad but doesn't want the touch screen interface. I guess it's Apple's take on what Microsoft have done with the Surface.

[George111]

sjg said:

ash73 said:

Core M cpu reviewed here - bridges the gap between atom and i3/i5 performance, sacrifices a little horsepower for 4.5W power consumption, no fan, 12hr battery life.

Indeed. Lots of reviewers totally miss the point of these CPUs. For lots of "typical" workloads (office worker tapping away in documents or spreadsheets, web browsing, flipping through your holiday pics and making minor edits, etc) they will be plenty quick enough. They can "turbo" to 2.6Ghz or higher to get the task done or the application loaded nice and fast and go back to idling away at a slower speed, sipping the battery. Run a benchmark that needs lots of CPU for long periods and it won't be able to sustain that speed, throttling back to avoid overheating. Then you can write clickbait headlines like "OMG NEW MACBOOK SLOWER THAN OLD MACBOOK AIR LOL".

If you pull up Activity Monitor (or Task Manager in Windows-land) and see the CPU sat at <10% for long periods except for the odd spike, these CPUs will suit you down to the ground.

If you do things that max out the CPU for longer periods (heavy Photoshop work, video editing, crunching million-row spreadsheets, etc) then it's not for you. The CPU will go fast for a little while then be forced to a slower speed to stay within its thermal limits. Buy a Macbook Air or Pro or similar instead, that can run its noisy fans while the CPU works away.

These are the compromises involved with making very thin and light devices without fans that still manage long battery life despite a high-res screen (from Apple and from other vendors). They won't always be the right compromises for everyone.

btw, the adaptor to get full-size USB is £15. The fancy ones that give you a display output plus USB, plus pass-through charging are £65.

Easy there . . . too much common sense and fact in your post, you'll have the "I need a £20k server in my house and gig broadband" brigade breaking out in a nervous sweat just at the thought of the words "energy efficient" and "long battery life", let alone the Apple haters who think nobody needs more than a Chromebook to run the world.

[Bikerjon]

ecs said:

I guess it's Apple's take on what Microsoft have done with the Surface.

Interesting comparison, and certainly there's some similarities price wise! Still don't know anyone with a Surface though - are they mainly used by corporates with deep pockets?

As with any new Apple product I'm sure there will be the initial flurry of sales, but at £1200 I just can't see the V1 Macbook being a huge seller. For most people the 13" Pro is surely still the better option and for portability the 11 inch Air is far better value.