Apple MacBook review: preposterously thin and extravagantly attractive, this is the best-designed laptop Apple has ever made
The MacBook is back. And its been getting lean and mean in its absence, writes David Phelan
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Your support makes all the difference.It’s been years since there was a MacBook on Apple’s chic instore tables. The MacBook has changed a lot over the years, from its early slick plastic versions in white and then black, to a brief appearance in aluminium casing, to being discontinued four years ago.
That left just the MacBook Air as the entry-level laptop and the MacBook Pro as the power user’s choice. Until the MacBook arrived last month. It looks different from any other Apple laptop. Not least, the Apple logo which lights up is replaced with a gleaming metal logo instead. It still looks good, but what will film-makers do now I wonder, unable to show their characters’ sophistication in a dimly lit scene by that telltale glowing Apple?
Then there’s the colour. Like other Macs it’s cased in aluminium but here you can choose from three colours silver, an understated champagne gold shade and a subtly classy Space Grey which is the most eye-catching of the three.
The new MacBook has a smaller screen than the original – 12 inches instead of 13 inches. And it’s way lighter than any other MacBook available, beating even the 11-inch screened MacBook Air. Maybe they should have called it MacBook Helium.
It’s very thin, though the MacBook Air is a fraction thinner (0.5mm) at its most svelte point. However, at its thickest the Air clocks in at 1.7cm where the MacBook is just 1.35cm.
There’s more to note before turning it on: there’s only one socket. Well, two actually, but one of them is a headphone socket on the right-hand edge. This looks great but is briefly confusing. Where’s USB, HDMI or Thunderbolt? Or the MagSafe power socket?
On the left-hand edge they’ve all been replaced by a single lozenge-shaped hole called USB-C. This is where power and data are transferred. It makes for a much sleeker and attractive casing – check out an older laptop with endless USB sockets and the aesthetic effect is much clunkier. But it does mean that if you want to charge your laptop and attach a 4G dongle or other USB add-on at the same time, you’ll need an adaptor. At the very least you’ll need a USB-C to USB adaptor for all your legacy products.
Apple has form here, removing the floppy disk drive from the iMac long before most people were ready, and most Apple computers are without an optical drive now. Both of those decisions were probably more effective at moving the industry on from floppy disks and CDs than anything else, so let’s hope the same happens here.
As a side note, I miss the brilliant MagSafe connector that Apple pioneered on previous laptops. Trip on the cable and the laptop didn’t go flying, it would simply detach the cable. The USB-C cable fits securely, so you’re likely to see this super-light notebook move with it if it’s pulled. Apple says the battery life here is good so you’ll mostly be using the MacBook wirelessly, but that doesn’t quite make up for MagSafe.
On the other hand, the absence of a proprietary connector may mean that other companies could cash in. An external battery for a smartphone is pretty common but it’s rarely happened for Apple laptops, largely because of that dedicated MagSafe socket. An external cell for your MacBook could mean you never need to carry the mains cable with you. I believe TYLT, the charging, battery and power company, is planning a range of Type C products. This will suit the MacBook and other forthcoming USB-C devices.
One last thought about the USB-C socket: like the Lightning connector, it works either way round so there’s no more of the endless turning round of USB cables as you try to insert them.
Open the laptop and you’ll see that although this laptop is preposterously thin, Apple has still ensured it’s perfectly balanced. With some notebooks you need to hold the bottom half down when you open the lid, or it’ll tip up. That’s never the case with Apple laptops, not even this one. It opens perfectly. This is a small detail but one you notice when using other machines that are not so finely tuned.
You’ll see that the aluminium frame that stands proud on the display on the MacBook Air – a design that happened because the screen was so thin – is gone. It’s replaced by the edge-to-edge glass finish found on the MacBook Pro. It’s a definite improvement. Also edge-to-edge is the keyboard, which means that although the MacBook is narrower than the 11-inch MacBook Air, individual keys are bigger.
Apple’s laptop keyboards have consistently been the most comfortable and usable I’ve come across. This new design is certainly spacious and easy to use, though the new design which promises less wobble per key also has a shorter travel distance. It’s perfectly fine, and quickly becomes familiar but I slightly miss the sumptuousness of the MacBook Air keyboards with their luxurious travel. I’d recommend trying the keyboard in the Apple Store before you decide – after all it’s the part of the laptop you’ll be using the most.
You’ll spot that the keys look different, too. Not just because the individual letters on them are thinner and more subtle but because, as you’ll see when you’re in a poorly lit room, the backlight has changed.
Previously there was one light which lit the whole keyboard, with the result that from certain angles, there was some light spill. Now, each key has its own LED, which makes for a more precise lighting effect.
Okay, time to power up. Once you’ve gone through the setup process, including the straightforward way to migrate data from your previous Mac, PC or external hard drive, you can get to grips with the MacBook itself.
The first thing you notice is the display. This is a Retina display – unlike the MacBook Air and some MacBook Pro models, this is a superbly high-resolution screen. Be warned, once you get used to this kind of clarity, going back to a regular display can be tricky. A screen that had previously been perfectly good enough may now look a bit foggy in comparison.
Text is much easier to read here, enough that you may find you’re marvelling at its sharpness. Program icons similarly gleam and jump out at you. MacBook Air owners have been wanting a screen like this for ages. The main reason against has been battery. There’s an awful lot of battery in the MacBook, structured differently so stepped, thinner cell layers can be built into tighter corners.
The trackpad is bigger on this laptop than on the 11-inch MacBook Air. But that’s not what stands out. This is one of the first Force Touch trackpads. Force Touch is a technology found on the Apple Watch, where a firmer press results in different effects from a lighter one.
Here, four force sensors register how hard you’re pressing and respond accordingly. If the cursor is resting on an address, say, pressing firmly enough to launch Force Touch will launch a preview of a map. This works spectacularly and as other capabilities are built into this system, it will get even more useful.
There’s also something magical about it. As you press, the haptic response which Apple calls the Taptic Engine moves the trackpad quickly so that it feels like it’s clicking. The Trackpad barely moves, as is apparent if you try pressing it when the laptop is turned off. Force Touch is one of the highlights on the Apple Watch and it’s a mark of Apple’s ingenuity that it’s finding ways of introducing it to more products.
One of the criticisms levelled when this laptop was announced was that it used a processor designed to work without a fan – the machine’s thinness benefits from this. But it’s not as powerful as some, giving rise to fears that this laptop isn't powerful enough.
In the week and more that I’ve been using it, for general use (word processing, web browsing, emails, photo editing and so on) rather than hardcore processor-intensive speciality use, it’s never seemed anything less than sprightly and impressive.
But it’s probably true that if you have memory-hungry programs that demand a lot of a processor, then a MacBook Pro is what you’re really after.
But for most people, the MacBook is easily powerful enough. And it’s thinner, smaller, lighter and cheaper than a MacBook Pro.
Battery life is more than decent – easily enough to take you through a working day with no problem, even if it’s not quite as long as some others in the MacBook family. And let’s remember, this is a laptop with the gorgeous but power-demanding Retina display on it.
Apple’s range of laptops feels more complete now there’s a MacBook alongside the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. For the most powerful needs, the MacBook Pro is elegant and super-speedy. For travellers or those wanting the lightest Mac product, well, that used to be the MacBook Air.
But now, the MacBook is the lightest. It also has a better screen than the Air models and innovations like the Force Touch trackpad – though this may appear on the Air in due course as it’s already arrived on the latest Pro laptops. For now, the Air is the entry-level machine, which is a pretty impressive attribute in its own right.
The keyboard is bigger and neatly backlit, though the more modest travel in the keys does take a little getting used to.
The lack of USB sockets is a temporary irritant, but this will pass as manufacturers switch to USB-C. With luck, we can stay with USB-C for a few years before the next physical standards arrive.
But there are few other issues with the MacBook. It matches extravagantly attractive design, ultimate portability and more than decent performance both in speed and battery life. And at prices starting from £1,049, you’re getting a computer that looks and feels as though it should cost a lot more.
The MacBook is a head-turner: solid, lightweight and a real performer. It’s the best-designed laptop Apple has made.
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