At Apple’s latest press conference on March 9, the team debuted a multitude of additions to their various product lines. Among them was the new MacBook.
On July 20, 2011, Apple ceased consumer sales of the white plastic MacBook and focused exclusively on promoting the newly released MacBook Air as well as improving upon the MacBook Pro. During the last four years, they have seemingly been redesigning the New MacBook. Tim Cook, Apple CEO, introduces the MacBook with a stunning video and then walks back on stage holding it. He faces the audience and says, “Can you even see it? I can’t even feel it.” He closes the MacBook and says, “There it goes!”
Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of marketing takes Cook’s place on the stage to talk more about the new MacBook. He begins by saying, “It is the most extreme and efficient notebook we have ever created.” It weighs just 2 pounds and is only 13.1 mm thin.
The newest MacBook incorporates a completely redesigned look with all new features such as a keyboard mechanism that is more stable and more thin, than the previous design, a brand new 12 inch display with over 3.3 million pixels and a new trackpad that can feel the difference in pressure of clicks.
It is the world’s first fanless computer so it functions in silence and with the space saved. Apple has added 35% more battery to give it an all-day battery life. This battery life was achieved by using specially designed batteries contoured to fit the enclosure as opposed to using the rectangular battery cells of other laptops. Compared to the MacBook Air, the logic board is 67% smaller and, according to Schiller, is the densest logic board Apple has ever engineered.
But there is even more. It now comes in the same color choices as iPad and iPhone— silver, space gray, and gold— so all your devices can match.
One of the most impressive feats is that Apple has removed every port except for a newly designed USB-C port that is used for charging. Not only that, it has the capacity to host a multitude of ports such as HDMI, USB, VGA, and others with adapters designed by Apple or other third party manufacturers. The new MacBook also comes with the latest Wi-Fi standard and Bluetooth 4.0. With Airplay, you can stream videos from your MacBook to your television. With Bluetooth, you can listen to music using wireless headphones, although if you don’t have any, it also comes with a headphone jack.
For $1299, you get a 1.1 GHz Intel Core M processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a 256 GB solid-state flash drive.
For $300 more, you get an upgraded 1.2 GHz processor and double the memory.
These will begin to ship on April 10th.
The MacBook air also received a (small) upgrade on the 13” model. They now have faster processors and Thunderbolt 2 connectors as well as 2 times faster flash storage in the hard drive. The 13” MacBook Pro has the Force Touch trackpad as well as the new processors and faster flash plus an additional hour of battery life, bringing it to 10 hours total.
All together, the new MacBook is pretty cool. I for one like the way the gold looks, and the specifications are solid for the price especially when taking into account that the notebook is 13.1 mm thin and just 2 pounds. However; I do not think I’ll be trading in my Late 2013 MacBook Pro anytime soon just because I use most of my ports regularly and an $80 adapter seems a bit much when there are other computers that are just as good and nearly as thin on the market that include the ports. I like what Apple tried to do, I just don’t know if it will work. What do you think? Will you be buying one anytime soon? If you want to watch the reveal video, or look at all of the features and upgrades, go to http://www.apple.com/macbook/. Happy shopping!