Apple"s new 12-inch Mac
Book is brilliantly designed và light as a feather, but its single USB-C port presents a challenge.
Dan Ackerman leads CNET"s coverage of computers và gaming hardware. A new york native và former radio DJ, he"s also a regular TV talking head và the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/Public
Affairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the new york Times, Fortune, LA reviews of Books, and many other publications."Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... The story shines." -- The new york Times
Expertise I"ve been testing và reviewing computer & gaming hardware for over đôi mươi years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast & every Mac
Book...ever. Credentials author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer công nghệ expert for CBS Mornings
Editors" lưu ý (June 27, 2017):The12-inch Mac
Book, reviewed in full below, was updated in 2016 and then again in June 2017, at Apple"sWorldwide Developers Conference. The new$1,29912-inch
Mac
Book và $99913-inch
Mac
Book Air now have faster, more powerful Intelprocessors. The current crop of Mac
Book Pros --the $1,29913-inch, $1,79913-inch with cảm biến Bar, and $2,39915-inch with cảm ứng Bar-- have those new chips, too, along with upgraded graphics hardware.
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The new 12-inch táo Mac
Book is amazingly thin và light, has a premium look and feel, và is available in three colors. It offers better battery life than other laptops with Intel"s vi xử lý core M processors, và performance that"s as good as or better than those models. The new USB-C port allows you to lớn charge from an external backup battery pack.
Its performance & battery life falls short of the Mac
Book Air và Pro. The new keyboard is shallow and takes some getting used to, and sharing a single port for all accessories as well as the power cord is almost immediately frustrating.
If you can live with its limitations, the new 12-inch Mac
Book delivers a groundbreaking thiết kế that points the way khổng lồ the next chapter in laptops.
Otherwise, aside from a RAM bump here và a slight price drop there, the 2017 batch is very similar khổng lồ the one from 2016, with the same enclosures, ports, trackpads & screens. But be forewarned: Buying a new Mac
Book Pro may require you lớn invest in avariety of adaptersfor your legacy devices. Also chú ý that the13-inch Mac
Book Pro from 2015has been discontinued, though the $1,99915-inch modelfrom that year remains available for those who want all the ports and fewer dongles.
The complaints started even before Apple"s first new Mac
Book demo ended. During the March năm ngoái press event, observers fretted about the new, slimmer, lighter 12-inch Mac
Book. "It"s underpowered," they said. "The battery life will be short. The new keyboard is too shallow. The no-click touchpad is a gimmick."
The outcry, which ranged from deriding the new, singular USB-C port to the overall price was reminiscent of the world"s reaction to the original i
Pad in 2010. And like that groundbreaking tablet, the new 12-inch Mac
Book won"t vì everything và isn"t for everyone. But its strictly enforced minimalism will make this máy tính xách tay the model that industrial designers will strive khổng lồ copy for the next several years.
Sarah Tew/CNETThe 12-inch Mac
Book is a system that ditches the Air và Pro monikers & returns lớn a simpler designation not seen since the classic black & white polycarbonate Mac
Books of the mid-2000s (the ones you still occasionally see in coffee shops despite being their being discontinued in 2011).
Starting at $1,299, it includes a high-resolution Retina screen (much sharper than that on the Air), 8GB of RAM và 256GB of solid state storage. Unlike other laptops with removable drives or RAM, everything here is (permanently) packed into a tiny custom motherboard that leaves maximum room for a large battery. A second version, priced at $1,599, adds a 512GB hard drive & a tiny processor tốc độ bump. In the UK và Australia, the prices start at £1,049 và AU$1,799 for the base mã sản phẩm and hit £1,299 & AU$2,199 for the upgrade. More expensive build-to-order models are available, too. (The Mac
Book can be ordered online at 12:00 a.m. PT tonight, the same time as the táo apple Watch, and should be available in store -- presumably in limited quantities -- on Friday, April 10.)
By way of comparison, the 13-inch Mac
Book Air starts at $999, but a similar 8GB/256GB configuration will cost the same $1,299. The 13-inch Mac
Book Pro starts at the same $1,299 as this new Mac
Book, but with only half the storage. Upgrading that Pro mã sản phẩm to the same 8GB/256GB will cost $1,499. & on the Windows side, a Samsung Ativ Book 9 with the same 8GB RAM/256GB flash drive & the same processor -- will cost you $1,399 (all prices in US dollars). So, in the context of its main rivals, the Mac
Book is actually priced rather competitively.
Sarah Tew/CNETLooking only at a spec sheet, it"s easy lớn see why this new Mac
Book might be a tough sell. The Mac
Book uses Intel"s new chip core M processor, designed for slim, light laptops, hybrids and tablets with premium prices. It"s efficient enough that full laptops can even run fanless, allowing for quiet, cool operation. But, the vi xử lý core M has disappointed in the handful of Windows systems in which we"ve already tested it, turning in sluggish performance and mediocre battery life, the latter an unforgivable flaw for computers designed to be as light và portable as possible.
To spare you the suspense, I can say that the new Mac
Book performs much better than any other core M system we"ve tested lớn date, hitting 11 hours in our video playback test. That"s not nearly as much as you"d get from a Mac
Book Air or Mac
Book Pro -- và it puts this system at a disadvantage compared to the longest-lasting laptops -- but battery life is definitely not the deal-breaker it could have been.
Heavy online use will drain the battery even more quickly, và I found myself frequently glancing up at the upper right corner of the screen to see the battery life percentage tick down as I worked. I"ve found it can last for a full work day of moderate usage, but unlike a current-gen Mac
Book Pro or Air, it"ll be hard lớn go a few days without plugging it in at all.
Sarah Tew/CNETBeyond that, the limitations of having a single USB-C port for all your connection needs (with the exception of a standard audio jack that also made the cut) is even more of a challenge, unless you"re prepared khổng lồ arm yourself with a pocketful of dongles and adaptors.
Other changes are easier khổng lồ adapt to. We"ve previously gone into some detail about the new click-free pad, which táo apple calls the Force cảm ứng trackpad, which is also available in the updated Mac
Book Pro. It"s a clever bit of space-saving engineering that replaces the old trackpad, with a hinged design for physically clicking down, with a flat glass surface augmented by a force feedback engine. The keyboard is an even more radical change, swapping out the long-standing Mac standard of deep island-style keys for a mix of much shallower keys, but with larger actual key faces.
Using the new Mac
Book means accepting its limitations, some of which are deliberately self-imposed. That"s especially noticeable when you look at another new laptop, the Samsung Ativ Book 9. It weighs the same as the Mac
Book, has a similar 12-inch high-res screen, & an Intel core M processor, but manages to lớn fit in two full-size USB ports & a micro-HDMI output (although it also has a proprietary power connection and lacks USB-C, which is set khổng lồ become the new standard).
The new Mac
Book & the similar Samsung Book 9. Sarah Tew/CNET
If your need for longer battery life, more powerful performance, or more ports doesn"t automatically preclude you, then the in-person experience of using the new Mac
Book will far outshine the on-paper shortcomings. For writing, web surfing, đoạn phim viewing & social media, it"s a pleasure to use, and makes the still-slim 13-inch Mac
Book Air feel a bit like a lumbering dinosaur, to lớn say nothing of other ultrabook-style laptops. It"s a perfect coffee shop companion.
Some of the critical reactions lớn this máy tính remind me of another new táo apple design introduction I covered seven years ago, the original Mac
Book Air. That system was also criticized for dropping ports & connections, such as an Ethernet & VGA, that people were convinced they still needed. And, much like the new Mac
Book, it included just a single USB port.
Back in 2008, I was correct that the Air"s new, stripped-down kiến thiết had real legs, & would phối the standard for years to come. But also true was that future refinements down the road would turn the Mac
Book Air from a speciality sản phẩm into a mainstream one. When the next 12-inch Mac
Book update arrives, I suspect it will at the very least add a second USB-C port, and that"s when it will become much easier to lớn recommend to lớn a broader audience.
Apple Mac
Book (12-inch, 2015)
| $1,299, £1,049, AU$1,799 |
| 12-inch 2,304x1,440 screen |
| 1.1GHz Intel chip core M 5Y31 |
| 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz |
| 1,536MB hãng sản xuất intel HD Graphics 5300 |
| 256 SSD |
| None |
| 802.11ac wireless, bluetooth không dây 4.0 |
| Apple OSX 10.10.2 Yosemite |
Design và features
This is the thinnest Mac that táo apple has ever made: at its thickest point it"s just 13.1mm (about half an inch), 24 percent thinner than the existing 11-inch Mac
Book Air. It"s also the lightest Mac
Book, at 2.04 pounds (0.9 kg). Samsung"s new Book 9 weighs 2.08 pounds, essentially the same, although it has a slightly larger footprint.
táo Mac
Book versus Samsung Book 9
+4 more
See all photos
The overall shape and industrial design is familiar, based on the past seven-plus years of Mac
Book design, but with a few new twists, such as new colors. Besides the traditional silver, the new Mac
Book also comes in space grey or gold. Our test unit was gold, and lượt thích the i
Phone màu sắc scheme it copies, the coloration is subtle, and gives off the impression that your máy vi tính has a bronzed finish.
Sarah Tew/CNETThe keyboard, another big change, uses a new butterfly mechanism for keys that"s thinner và more stable. The nearly edge-to-edge keyboard has larger key faces, yes, but the keys are also shallower, barely popping up above the keyboard tray and depressing into the chassis only slightly. It takes some getting used to, especially if you"re accustomed lớn the deep, clicky physical feedback of the current Mac
Books or the similar island-style keyboards of most other modern laptops.
The first time I tried the keyboard, I couldn"t get through even a few sample sentences without several typos, because of the shallow keys and their lower level of tactile feedback. But when I tried again a couple of hours later, it was already much easier.
Sarah Tew/CNETAfter using the new Mac
Book keyboard for the better part of a week, the shallowness of the keys, và a lack of a deeply satisfying click still bothers me. But, as someone who types very longform, the larger key faces và rock-solid stability trang điểm for that, tipping the needle into the positive category. The keys are almost completely wobble-free, as opposed to lớn the wiggle you can get under your fingers on a current Mac
Book keyboard.
The new trackpad, called the Force Touch, is even more of a change. Nearly the same kích thước as the Air"s, but squeezed into a smaller space, it dominates the lower half of the laptop and goes right up lớn the bottom edge. While previous trackpads had a hinge along the vị trí cao nhất in a kind of diving board design, the new pad works very differently. We took a deeper hands-on look at Force cảm biến when we tested it in the only other táo khuyết product to support the new Track
Pad right now, the 13-inch Mac
Book Pro.
Four sensors under the pad allow you lớn "click" anywhere on the surface, & the Force Click effect, which combines the sensors with haptic (or taptic) feedback, allows you to lớn have two levels of perceived clicking within an ứng dụng or task. That deep click feels to lớn the finger và brain lượt thích the trackpad has a stepped physical mechanism, but in fact, the movement you feel is a small horizontal shift, which, even when fully explained, still feels lượt thích you"re depressing the trackpad two levels.
Apple describes it lượt thích this: "With the Force cảm ứng trackpad, force sensors detect your click anywhere on the surface & move the trackpad laterally toward you, although the feel is the same familiar downward motion you"re accustomed to in a trackpad."
With that second, deeper click, you can access several types of contextual information, for example, highlighting a word và getting a Wikipedia pop-up, or seeing a map when deep-clicking on an address. Jumping into the preview view of a document or tệp tin works with the deep click, too, just as it does now by pressing the space bar in OS X. The most advanced use is probably fast-forwarding through a video clip in Quick
Time, faster or slower, depending on how hard you press down on the trackpad.
I ended up using this trackpad just as I do almost every other one, táo bị cắn dở or otherwise, by tapping rather than clicking. It still bewilders me that apple turns off tap-to-click by default, forcing you lớn hunt around the preferences menu to find it. Here"s a tip: besides the tapping feature under the trackpad preferences menu, you may want lớn go lớn the accessibility menu và look under Preferences > Accessibility > Mouse và Trackpad > Trackpad options lớn turn on tap-to-drag.
Sarah Tew/CNETThe new Mac
Book has a 12-inch Retina display with a 2,304x1,440-pixel resolution. It, too, has a new kiến thiết -- it"s the thinnest ever built into a Mac
Book, at 0.88mm -- with a larger aperture for light & individual pixels in red, green and blue. The slightly unusual resolution is a combination of Apple"s drive for a very high pixel-per-inch density, as well as an aspect ratio that sticks with 16:10, as opposed lớn nearly every other máy vi tính available now, all of which use the same 16:9 aspect ratio as HDTV. (The 11-inch Mac
Book Air remains the only 16:9 Mac
Book.)
The screen looks clear & bright, & works from wide viewing angles. There"s a glossy overlay, but I"ve seen much worse offenders when it comes khổng lồ screen glare and light reflection. The screen bezel, that dead space between the actual display & the outer edge of the lid, is thinner here than on a Mac
Book Air, & the screen glass goes nearly edge lớn edge, giving the Mac
Book a seamless look much like the current Pro models. Thin bezels are definitely an important style lưu ý these days, although Dell does it much better with its current XPS 13 laptop, with an eye-catching barely there bezel.
The speaker grille above the keyboard is predictably thin-sounding -- this is a very small máy vi tính after all, with little room for speaker cones khổng lồ move air -- but it"ll suffice for casual video viewing. With Beats Audio as part of the táo bị cắn dở family we may see a greater emphasis on audio in Macs in the future, just as Beats and HP had a successful partnership for several years.
Joe Kaminski/CNETOne spec that many feel was shortchanged in this new máy vi tính is the built-in webcam. It"s a simple 640x480 camera, và not as high-res as the 720p camera found in the Air or Pro laptops. The image above is taken from an i
Phone 6, and shows my image, being transmitted from the 12-inch Mac
Book, via Face
Time. Chú ý the softness of the image, which is an issue with viewing the 480p transmission on a much higher resolution screen.
Ports & connections
| USB 3.1 Type C |
| 3.5mm audio jack |
| USB 3.1 Type C |
| 802.11ac wireless, bluetooth không dây 4.0 |
| None |
Connections, performance và battery
While testing the new Mac
Book, I found myself frequently plugging and unplugging accessories. Starting with the nguồn cable connected lớn the single USB-C port, I pulled the nguồn out lớn plug in a short USB-C khổng lồ USB-A cable (sold by hãng apple for $19, £15 or AU$29), và connected the USB dongle for a wireless mouse. When I wanted to use a USB data key, I had khổng lồ disconnect the mouse, và use the same adaptor cable lớn connect my key.
Shortly, you will be able to lớn connect video clip the same way, using a USB-C lớn HDMI, Display
Port or vga adaptor. Táo apple has two connections blocks that include either HDMI or card vga for $79, £65 or AU$119, but neither was available at the time of this review.
Sarah Tew/CNETThe official pitch is that Mac
Book users will use wireless connections for just about everything. Bluetooth không dây for a mouse, Wi-Fi for internet access, Air
Drop for tệp tin transfer, và so on. Most of these assumptions are correct, but there"s something to lớn be said for being able to use a full-size USB or HDMI port khổng lồ connect khổng lồ any USB key or HDTV with minimal hassle.
One potentially very useful benefit of USB-C is that, because it"s used to power the máy tính xách tay battery, it can also draw power from the portable backup battery packs that so many people have lying around in drawers and máy tính xách tay bags. Take a USB-C lớn male USB cable (we tried a $10 one sent by Monoprice), and you can get some extra battery power nguồn on the go without having to lớn bring the whole power nguồn brick or have access lớn a nguồn outlet. It won"t fully charge the laptop, but it could offer enough juice lớn get you out of a jam.
Sadly, Mag
Safe, truly one of the great developments in the history of laptops, is gone, and the new USB-C nguồn plug has no magnetic connection at all. It simply slots in. The connector is fairly shallow, so it may very well just pop out if you yank the cable by accidentally stepping on it, but it certainly doesn"t feel as accident-proof as the Mag
Safe version does.
The new 12-inch Mac
Book also breaks from the rest of Apple"s computer line in that it does not use a processor from Intel"s core i series. Mostly Macs use bộ vi xử lý core i5 chips from either the current fifth generation of those chips, or the previous fourth generation (although the professional-level Mac Pro desktop uses an hãng sản xuất intel Xeon processor).
Instead, this máy vi tính uses the chip core M, a new entry in Intel"s máy tính xách tay family. The pitch for chip core M is that it enables laptops to lớn be very thin and light, but still powerful and long-lasting. That"s an appealing pitch, và Core M chips are so far only found in premium-priced systems (the least expensive being the $700 asus T300 Chi).
Sarah Tew/CNETBut, in the first three computers we"ve tested with chip core M chips, the results have not lived up khổng lồ the hype. Lenovo"s Yoga 3 Pro had sluggish performance and weak battery life. The hãng asus T300 bỏ ra did a little better, but still ran for less than 6 hours in our battery test. The Samsung Ativ Book 9, a 12-inch laptop very similar to lớn this one, did a bit better both on performance & battery life, coming close khổng lồ 8 hours.
Getting the most out of vi xử lý core M may require your hardware và software, including the operating system, to be properly tuned for it. And as táo khuyết can control every aspect of its OS và exactly what hardware is paired with it, it"s not surprising that the company is able khổng lồ get some of the best results to date from the core M. In our benchmark tests, no one will confuse this system with even the basic 13-inch Mac
Book Air, but it was faster in our multitasking chạy thử than the other bộ vi xử lý core M laptops we"ve reviewed. More importantly, in day lớn day use, it often felt just as responsive as a Mac
Book Air, with a few important caveats.
Sarah Tew/CNETBasic web surfing worked flawlessly, as did streaming even 4K video from You
Tube or HD video from Netflix. Even basic gaming via Steam was doable, và I could play older or simpler games such as Portal 2 or Telltale"s The Walking Dead series if I dialed the in-game resolution down to 1,440x900 & played with middle-ground graphics settings.
Using a browser other than Apple"s Safari, which is very well optimized for the OS X/Core M combination, can lead to lớn some slowdown, as can loading up multiple clip streams at once. Pushing apps such as Photoshop with challenging filters and high-resolution files is likewise going to lớn be slower than most Windows laptops with bộ vi xử lý core i5 CPUs.
But for many máy tính users, especially those primarily interested in a laptop"s kích cỡ and weight, battery life is of the utmost importance. That is the one area where Apple"s use of the bộ vi xử lý core M platform has caused the most angst-ridden speculation. Other chip core M systems, all slim laptops or hybrids, have all turned in battery life scores that are on the low side, from about five và a half hours (for the Yoga 3 Pro and hãng asus T300 Chi) lớn seven and a half hours (for the Samsung Book 9) in our video clip playback battery drain test.
Meanwhile, Apple"s own current Mac
Book Air runs for an amazing 18 hours (thanks to lớn its recently upgraded Broadwell chip core i5 CPU) và the 13-inch Pro ran for 15 hours in the same test. Two recent slim, premium laptops, the Dell XPS 13 and HP Spectre x360, both managed 12 hours.
Sarah Tew/CNETThe 12-inch Mac
Book doesn"t last as long as those bộ vi xử lý core i5 laptops, but it does beat the other chip core M systems by a large margin, running for 11 hours 3 minutes in our video clip playback battery drain test. Hãng apple says it should give you at least 10 hours of video clip playback, so that"s in line with the company"s claims. Real-world scenarios, with more energy draining apps và frequent online use, will be shorter, & in a secondary kiểm tra streaming online đoạn clip non-stop over Wi-Fi, the system ran for 5 hours.
How did hãng apple manage khổng lồ get better battery life from the notoriously fickle vi xử lý core M? Part of it may be the optimization táo khuyết can vì as the creator of both the hardware and operating system. But a big part of it may be the large 39.7-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery crammed into the small Mac
Book"s body. The actual motherboard và all the internal components have been shrunk down lớn be only fraction of the size of a typical máy vi tính motherboard. Instead, the entire rest of the system interior is filled with a battery designed khổng lồ fit into every nook and cranny of available space.
Conclusion
My initial impression of the original Mac
Book Air from 2008 feels timely & fitting here. Of that laptop, which was considered both groundbreaking & frustratingly limited, I said:
"The kiến thiết is revolutionary, but Apple"s Mac
Book Air will appeal to lớn a smaller, more specialized audience than the standard Mac
Book, thanks lớn a stripped-down set of connections và features."
Sarah Tew/CNETLikewise, this new Mac
Book will also be the right fit for a smaller segment of a public than the more universally useful 13-inch Mac
Book Air or Pro. But those who can work with the limitations -- primarily a lack of ports, shorter battery life, performance that"s not suited for pro-level photo and clip editing, & a shallow keyboard that takes some getting used lớn -- will love its sharp display, slim và light body, & responsive touchpad.
My primary caveat is this -- if history is any guide, you can count on a near-future generation of this laptop boosting its utility by doubling the number of USB-C ports lớn at least two. So like many new công nghệ products, it may be worth waiting for the next version, even if having a 12-inch, two-pound gold Mac
Book right now will make you the coolest kid at the coffee shop.
Handbrake Multimedia Multitasking test
Apple Mac
Book Air (13-inch, 2015) 370Dell XPS 13 (2015, non-touch) 428Apple Mac
Book (12-inch, 2015) 465Samsung Ativ Book 9 (2015) 563Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro 682
Dell XPS 13 (2015, non-touch) 263Apple Mac
Book Air (13-inch, 2015) 268Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro 294Apple Mac
Book (12-inch, 2015) 307Samsung Ativ Book 9 (2015) 311
Apple Mac
Book Air (13-inch, 2015) 107Dell XPS 13 (2015, non-touch) 112Apple Mac
Book (12-inch, 2015) 130Samsung Ativ Book 9 (2015) 130Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro 142
Apple Mac
Book Air (13-inch, 2015) 1080Apple Mac
Book (12-inch, 2015) 747Dell XPS 13 (2015, non-touch) 726Samsung Ativ Book 9 (2015) 457Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro 346
| OSX 10.10.2 Yosemite; 1.1GHz Intel core M-5Y31; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz; 1,536MB hãng sản xuất intel HD Graphics 5300; 256GB SSD |
| Windows 8.1 (64.bit); 2.2GHz Intel chip core i5-5200U; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz; 2,000MB (shared) intel HD 5500 Graphics; 128GB SSD |
| Windows 8.1 (64-bit); 1.1GHz Intel core M-5Y60; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz; 3,839MB (shared) intel HD Graphics 5300; 256GB SSD |
| Yosimite OSX 10.10.2; 1.6GHz Intel core i5-5250U; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz; 1,536MB hãng intel HD Graphis 6000; 128GB SSD |
| Windows 8.1 (64.bit); 1.1GHz Intel bộ vi xử lý core M-5Y31; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz; 2,005MB (shared) hãng sản xuất intel HD 5300 Graphics; 128GB SSD |
Apple's new 12-inch Retina Mac
Book (early 2015) is 13.1mm thin, weighs 907g, has a new keyboard và trackpad và even comes in gold. Here's our đánh giá of Apple's newest, slimmest & lightest laptop, và why we think it represents the future of táo apple laptops.
Pros
Passive cooling means always-silent operation, Very thin và very light, Great Retina screen, Versatile Force cảm biến trackpadCons
New keyboard may not be lớn all tastes, Single USB-C port requires adaptors for current peripherals, Zero internal upgrade potentialOur Verdict
The Mac
Book is a triumph in notebook miniaturisation, squeezing a Retina IPS display và full-size keyboard into a 13 milimet (at its thickest) tapered chassis, with weight below 1 kg. At over £1000 it’s more an executive notebook than the everyman laptop once given the name Mac
Book, but that money buys a sleek statement in what’s now possible in lightweight ultraportables. The fan-free design heralds a breakthrough in silent computing and while it is measurably behind the Mac
Book Air in performance it doesn’t often show it in everyday use.
Welcome lớn our đánh giá of Apple’s 12-inch Retina Mac
Book from 2015. Táo bị cắn dở has since launched an updated model. If you’d lượt thích to read about that, head lớn our 12-inch Mac
Book (2016) review.
Forget the mythical i
Pad Pro. Rather than follow Microsoft’s ill-advised Surface Pro into a snap-on tablet cul-de-sac, táo bị cắn is sticking to lớn what really works. It has melded the finest technologies from the latest Mac
Books và state-of-the-art i
Pad Air into an i
Pad-sized clamshell notebook. & simply called it Mac
Book.
The essential khung follows that of the unibody Mac
Book Air, with a solid aluminium toàn thân that’s been precisely milled into a slim all-metal wedge. But this machine is smaller, lighter, even slimmer than the 11-inch Mac
Book Air – despite sporting a larger 12-inch display.
The new Mac
Book takes the name once assigned lớn the cheapest non-Pro táo bị cắn notebook but now feels every inch the premium flagship notebook, as you would expect for a low-power portable priced from £1049.
It impresses with its sub-miniature proportions, like a ‘normal’ táo bị cắn notebook but after a short zap by the incredible shrinking raygun, to lớn bring it khổng lồ a very slender thinness of 13.4 mm and low weight of 923 g. When shut close, it put me in mind of the i
Pad, & is just as easy lớn tote around.
Three colours are available for the Mac
Book, a telling reminder that it’s not just OS X and i
OS software that is converging – now we have Mac hardware available in i
Phone và i
Pad livery.
We tested a sample in Space Grey, to our eyes a serious and sophisticated finish in metallic charcoal, anodised evenly across all surfaces. There’s also Silver, which we can only assume follows the traditional natural aluminium look of táo bị cắn notebooks since the late Power
Book G4 of 2003. And then there’s the opinion-dividing Gold finish, arguably a ghastly personal statement of fake-bling ostentation.
Book Air as well. Plus, are you wondering what happened khổng lồ the 15in Retina Mac
Book Pro? Take a look at our New 15-inch Mac
Book Pro release date story. Finally, read our Best Mac buyers’ guide 2015 and Mac
Book Air vs Mac
Book Pro comparison review. And our New 12-inch Mac
Book vs i
Pad Air 2 comparison.>
New 12-inch Retina Mac
Book review: Keyboard
Lid lifted, we find a wholly new keyboard with dark tessellating keys. The keyboard backlighting here is the best we’ve seen since táo pioneered the idea with the first Mac
Book Pro in 2006. The idea was diluted in the current Mac
Book Pro unibody chassis though, with too much white LED light bleeding out from between the keys; now hãng apple has re-engineered the keyboard so that each key gets its own LED, with the result that the key’s letter or symbol lights up cleanly with next to lớn zero light leaking around the edges. It’s a great look.
The bigger talking point for the keyboard is not how it looks so much as how it feels. This may be the shortest-action keyboard ever made, for better or for worse.
Unusually for a Retina-screened Mac, the default resolution setting for this mã sản phẩm is not actually the true Retina mode for pixel doubling. For all other Retina Macs we’ve seen, the default interface setting looks lượt thích one scaled back khổng lồ half in each axis: a 2880 x 1800-pixel 15-inch Mac
Book Pro, for instance, is set to lớn look lượt thích 1440 x 900 pixels. This gives best graphics performance too, since the maths lớn scale the screen is easier than when interpolating to, say, 1680 x 1050 for that same Mac
Book Pro.
You can manually phối the Mac
Book lớn a true Hi
DPI mode that looks lượt thích a 1152 x 720-pixel display, but the interface starts to look a little large and clunky; instead you’ll find it is set khổng lồ a virtual 1280 x 800, the same as older 13-inch Mac
Book Air and Pro models. Either side of these two scale options there is ‘1024 x 760’ & ‘1440 x 900’.
In our tests the display revealed good colour quality, just a little short of what you can expect lớn find from the Mac
Book Pro, and the same wide contrast ratio. Colour gamut stretched khổng lồ 93 percent of the s
RGB space, & 69 percent of Adobe RGB. Contrast ratio was a healthy 860:1 at the nominal 50 percent brightness setting.
First debuted in the 13-inch Mac
Book Pro with Retina display last month, the Force touch trackpad is literally front & centre on the new Mac
Book. At 112 mm wide it may be the widest trackpad ever fitted to lớn a laptop, if a little foreshortened at 70 milimet when compared to the Mac
Book Pro (both 13- và 15-inch models have a squarer trackpad sized at 104 x 77 mm).
The innovation here though is not the kích cỡ but the manner of operation. In place of a regular mechanical clicking button under the surface, the Force cảm ứng trackpad uses a number of strain gauge sensors around the edge. With barely any discernible movement along its đứng đầu glass surface, the trackpad can sense when finger pressure is applied.
Glancing strokes are treated as normal for mouse steering or light tap-to-click actions; press downward with a little more concerted pressure as you would bởi a normal hardware trackpad và you sense the ‘click’ of a mechanical switch. But it’s an illusion – what you’re feeling is the subtle jolt of an electromagnet’s impulse that replicates the sensation.
Press harder & you feel a ‘deeper’ click, again the feedback provided artificially to let you know you’ve completed the action. There can even be stages in between the two, as we discovered using the fast-forward/rewind controls in Quick
Time Player. Increasing finger pressure here varies the tốc độ of scanning, with tactile ticks perceptible as you drill down through the available shuttle speeds.
The new Force Click gesture (which is simply a harder version of the standard click) can be used in various ways. Force Click on an address, for example, and it will automatically launch the Maps app. And within the Maps app, you can use a Force Click rather than a normal click when zooming in or out, & the zooming will be quicker. Likewise, varying the pressure when clicking on the fast-forward button in Quick
Time will vary the speed of the fast-forward function.
You can also Force Click on a Mail attachment to Quick Look at it, Force Click on a date & time to lớn create a new Calendar event, or even Force Click a word to lớn find out what it means.
It’s not the same as a right-click (or the equivalent on a trackpad – usually either Ctrl-click or a tap with two fingers). The Force Click is effectively a third standard click, by mặc định opening a ‘look up’ thực đơn in most applications, delivering a definition or Wikipedia article summary for the word you’re clicking on. Read next: How lớn right-click on a Mac.
There’s a USB adapter for plugging in one USB device available from apple for £15. Táo also supplies the USB-C card đồ họa Multiport Adapter và USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter (£65) as an accessory if you need lớn charge the Mac
Book & connect USB peripherals và external display at the same time. There’s a Type A USB port able to operate as USB 3.0, & an HDMI 1.4 port which allows up khổng lồ 3840 x 2160 displays, albeit at a maximum refresh rate of 30 Hz. While too slow for comfortable viewing on a computer monitor it may be sufficient for watching video. Táo apple says that a Display
Port adapter is coming soon.
Read next: Best USB-C speakers, headphones and storage accessories| Best USB adaptors
There’s also the possibility of full 60 Hz UHD operation, thanks khổng lồ the Display
Port 1.2 option, but you’ll need lớn find the necessary USB-C lớn Display
Port cable. At present we could only find one supplier for this, Google, khổng lồ complement the advertising company’s Chromebook px laptop.
If you just want to connect a desktop peripheral lượt thích keyboard, mouse or storage drive, you’ll need at least the USB-C khổng lồ USB Adapter (£15) lớn get the job done.
Beyond wired connections, the Mac
Book packs the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi connectivity, with a two-stream solution able to sync to lớn wireless routers at 867 Mb/s. And Bluetooth 4.0 handles short-range connections khổng lồ mice, keyboards và assorted other peripherals.
For online clip calls there’s still a webcam mounted in the screen bezel, in the usual top-central position too (unlike Dell’s XPS 13 with Infinity screen, whose tiny bezel forces a reposition, at screen bottom and offset to the left). The Facetime camera resolution is not the HD of 720p or 1080p, but 848 x 480 pixel, or 0.4 MP, which is still quite sufficient for Skype và Facetime use, for instance.
Including just one port may have enable hãng apple to make this Mac
Book incredibly slim, but just how portable is it really if you’re required to lớn also carry adapters, which you’re likely lớn forget and leave behind?
It’s something that has both impressed us and concerned us, but as aryannations88.com editor Karen Haslam pointed out, we all freaked out about the Mac
Book Air when it launched without an optical drive & everyone is over it now. (She defends the new Mac
Book’s allocation of ports in an opinion piece:Why people need khổng lồ stop panicking about the Mac
Book’s USB-C port.)
We’ll see how we go with it in day-to-day use, but for now concerns aren’t completely banished (far from it, in fact).
Apple isn’t worried, though. The Mac
Book is designed lớn fly solo, unencumbered by wires.
New 12-inch Retina Mac
Book review: Processor và speed tests
Inside the new Mac
Book notebook is Intel’s new energy-efficient core M “Broadwell” processor, housed in a logic board that is 67 per cent smaller than Apple’s previous record. The bộ vi xử lý core M runs so cool that computers that take advantage of the chip can be fanless. & being fanless means that the computer in which they feature can be thinner và smaller than ever. That M in core M stands for mobile, though, & these are processors destined for tablets and hybrid laptops, so don’t expect anything lượt thích the nguồn of the vi xử lý core i5.
There is a choice of three new Intel bộ vi xử lý core M processors in the Mac
Book. The entry mã sản phẩm at £1049 includes a bộ vi xử lý core M-5Y31, specified by táo apple as 1.1 GHz, & offers 256 GB of flash storage. The second off-the-shelf mã sản phẩm includes 512 GB storage and a bộ vi xử lý core M-5Y51, specified as running at 1.2 GHz.That model costs £1,299.
There’s also a CTO model, otherwise identical lớn the latter, but with chip core M-5Y71, advertised by táo as a 1.3 GHz processor. That option adds £120 khổng lồ the price, bringing it to £1,419.
Clock tốc độ specifications have become something of a grey area lately, with Turbo modes that allow much higher than nominal speeds to lớn be used in short bursts; and underclocking modes that reduce processors’ clocks below the named speed when the computer is idling.
In the case of the new Mac
Books, the low-power chips in question are specified with base frequencies even lower than advertised in Apple’s marketing. So the ‘1.1 GHz Intel core M processor (Turbo Boost up khổng lồ 2.4 GHz)’ in our sample is the cpu that intel sells as the 0.9 GHz vi xử lý core M-5Y31. It’s a chip that has a feature hãng intel calls ‘configurable TDP-up frequency’, which is listed as able to lớn run at Apple’s figure of 1.1 GHz.
In Intel’s words, ‘Configurable TDP-up Frequency is a processor operating mode where the processor behavior and performance is modified by raising TDP and the processor frequency khổng lồ fixed points.’
So while the cpu in use here has a listed clock frequency of 900 MHz, apple seems to lớn have phối it 200 MHz higher, in line with Intel’s available configuration. This does make it run hungrier for power nguồn though, và likely with more waste heat khổng lồ disperse; while the core M-5Y31 has a nominal thermal design power nguồn (TDP) of 4.5 W, when overclocked lớn 1.1 GHz its TDP is listed at 6 W.
In our tests of processor performance, we found something of a moving target. While no-one is likely to press a passively cooled ultrabook processor into workstation duties, we nevertheless used our standard Cinebench tests to lớn get an idea of performance – & found it highly variable. This is likely a symptom of intelligent on-die temperature sensing và clock frequency readjustment, with the processor underclocking as it reaches thermal maximums to lớn prevent any overheating.
Our first run with Cinebench 11.5 showed scores of 1.05 points for a single processor core, & 2.18 points for dual-core mode (effectively four cores here, with the help of hãng sản xuất intel Hyper Threading Technology).
Cinebench 15 reported 98 and 204 points respectively for the same tests, scores that compare favourably with the 110 và 260 points we found on the last Mac
Book Air update, based on Intel chip core i5-5250U running at 1.6 GHz baseline.
But successive iterations of the same demo saw performance gradually fall, then plummet, as the processor warmed up. Single-core speed especially showed the difference after concerted demands were made of the central processor – scores returned were 98, then 92, 84; và on the fourth run, just 49 points. It seems likely that the 2.4 GHz Turbo boost is removed as a dynamic option when internal temperatures exceed a calculated threshold.
But in use the Mac
Book never felt ‘too’ hot, just pleasantly warm on its flat underside, where we understand the ngắn gọn xúc tích board and CPU is dispersing its spare heat.
Using the Temperature Gauge application we were able to lớn see internal temperatures move up và down, reaching a maximum of 95 ºC in the CPU vi xử lý core under peak stress, before quickly ebbing back lớn little under toàn thân temperature (37 ºC) within just a few minutes after the loading ceased.
Geekbench 3 revealed scores of 2459 & 4618 points for its single/multi modes (cf, 2900 & 5820 points for Mac
Book Air), which shows that while no heavy lifter the Mac
Book can nearly keep up with the familiar lower-power variants of the Intel core i5 processor.
For reference, a recent 2.16 GHz hãng sản xuất intel Celeron N2840 processor in a Windows máy tính scored just 1069 and 1863 points in this test. Meanwhile the i
Pad Air 2 reports around 1815 và 4515 points in Geekbench 3.
So while the tri-core 1.5 GHz táo apple A8X cpu in the latest i
Pad is incredibly fast for an ARM processor, we can see why táo apple has stuck lớn the usual hãng intel x86 architecture in its new lightweight Mac
Book, for the moment at least.
Shoehorned into the same die of the chip core M cpu is the graphics engine, intel HD Graphics 5300, which proved quite competent for driving high-resolution displays & even up lớn some light trò chơi playing.
We tried first Tomb Raider 2013 at the usual starting point of 1280 x 800 resolution, & with Low detail setting. Here the Mac
Book averaged 16.9 fps on the first run. Following runs at the same setting were slowed slightly but not too precipitously – 16.1, 16.0, 15.1 và 15.0 fps on succeeding trials.
Dropping settings khổng lồ 1024 x 768 pixels & Low detail was still too much for the Mac
Book graphics processor, returning framerates around đôi mươi fps. But by selecting Legacy Open
GL from the game’s preference settings, you can get lớn play at 24 fps (1280 x 800, Low) và even 27 fps average (1024 x 768, Low).
Tested with Batman: Arkham City, we again saw borderline framerates, 25 fps with 1280 x 800 và Low detail.
But is speed an issue for a product lượt thích this? Perhaps not – và it certainly doesn’t feel sluggish in use. Gaming won’t be a highlight, but for most day-to-day tasks the new Mac
Book will be fine.
New 12-inch Retina Mac
Book review: Storage
Helping to keep the Mac
Book feel fast and fluid in normal use is a very advanced flash drive, like that now fitted lớn the Mac
Book Air and Pro. This version appears khổng lồ be the first using an in-house designed memory controller, rather than buying in a complete SSD from the usual OEM suppliers of Samsung, San
Disk or Toshiba.
It is connected by a 4-lane PCIe 2.0 bus, in common with the latest 13-inch Mac
Book Pro và Mac
Book Air, although the Mac
Book didn’t quite hit the giddy tốc độ heights we recorded from these two models recently. But at 845 MB/s sequential read and 477 MB/s sequential write speeds, we have no cause from complaint. & in place of the usual advanced host controller interface (AHCI) long used for SATA drives, the Mac
Book’s flash drive now uses NVM Express to lớn control the increasingly fast IO that’s now emerging in these highly developed solid-state storage drives.
And while its average of 226 và 167 MB/s for random reads and writes respectively (4 k
B lớn 1024 k
B) cannot match the circa-500 MB/s figures from the drives in the new 13-inchers, it shows a marked step-up from the 181 and 138 MB/s results for the latest 11-inch Mac
Book Air (Early 2015), which is using an older 2-lane PCIe 2.0-connected flash drive.
Read about the storage in the middle 13in Mac
Book Pro which is faster than that in the £999 model
New 12-inch Retina Mac
Book review: Battery life
Apple made a point of highlighting that the battery is one of the new Mac
Book’s standout features. Táo bị cắn describes it as “all day” battery life, but what that really means is an official rating of 9 hours of website surfing or 10 hours of watching video.
Mind you, apple has become known for making surprisingly modest claims about its devices’ batteries: we’re currently finding that the new 13-inch Mac
Book Pro, for instance, consistently outlasts its ‘official’ battery life by a matter of hours.
Battery life should be the real benefactor when you select a low-power processor, although apple engineers did have lớn take a hit on runtime by selecting a high-grade, high-resolution IPS display over the more economical TN screens fitted khổng lồ current Mac
Book Air models.
Nevertheless, the newly tiered layers in the Mac
Book’s lithium-polymer battery pack total a nominal 39.7 Wh of energy on a full charge – around 143 kilojoules – which in our tests allowed the Mac
Book khổng lồ run for 11 hr 12 min in our looped-video rundown test.
New 12-inch Retina Mac
Book review: Build-to-order options
Both the 1.1GHz 256GB mã sản phẩm and the 1.2GHz 512GB model can be upgraded with a 1.3GHz processor at point of purchase; this increases the price by £200 & £120 respectively. The 1.3GHz 256GB version therefore costs £1,249, và the 1.3GHz 512GB version costs £1,419.
New 12-inch Retina Mac
Book review: Price và availability
The new Mac
Book năm ngoái is available khổng lồ order from Apple’s Online Store now, after its official 10 April release. However, there’s a significant delay to orders, with shipping times for all models currently estimated to be four khổng lồ six weeks, suggesting that there is something slightly wrong in Apple’s production line. Find out more in our new Mac
Book năm ngoái availability, price, specs và features article.
If you are interested in buying the new Mac
Book, follow one of the liên kết below to view the machines và additional buying options on Apple’s online store.
Configuration 1: 1.1GHz processor, 256GB flash storage: £1,049View silver mã sản phẩm on táo bị cắn Store| gold model | Space Grey model
Configuration 2: 1.2GHz processor, 512GB flash storage: £1.299View silver mã sản phẩm on táo bị cắn Store | gold mã sản phẩm | Space Grey model
Both configurations can be upgraded to a 1.3GHz processor, as we explained in the build-to-order section above, for an additional £200 or £120 respectively.
New 12-inch Retina Mac
Book review: the competition
Pick up the Mac
Book and you’ll be amazed by how thin & light it is. It weighs just 907g, và measures just 13.1mm thick. “Can you see it?” Tim Cook joked on stage when he unveiled it. “I can’t even feel it!”
However, there are thinner laptops out there. The Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro is 12.7mm, for example, & the Lenovo La
Vie Z HZ550 weighs just 780g.
Xem thêm: Top 50+ Ảnh Thanh Niên Đẹp Trai Hình Ảnh Png, 420000+ Đẹp Trai Thanh Niên Hình Ảnh Tải Xuống
Here are the 12-inch Mac
Book’s full dimensions và weight:
Height: 0.35-1.31cm
Width: 28.05cm
Depth: 19.65cm
Weight: 0.92kg
Read 8 laptops that rival Apple’s new Mac
Book
That’s it for our Mac
Book reviews for now, but we’ll be regularly updating this article as we spend more time with the laptop.
See also: Five reasons khổng lồ buy the new Retina Mac
Book & Four reasons not to lớn buy the new Retina Mac
Book
Apple has now updated the 15in Mac
Book Pro, read our đánh giá of the năm ngoái 15in Mac
Book Pro here