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Comment by cpgonzalez | Hacker News Reader

The article's criticism of the 12-inch MacBook are preposterous. The 2 lb Macbook is the best laptop I've ever owned, by far. Maybe I'm too sensitive about weight, but I feel an incredible difference between 3 lb and 2 lb laptops, especially if its sitting on your lap for extended periods of time. The keyboard and charger have never once been a hindrance to my workflow, as the article makes it out be. I really wish Apple would come out with 2 lb laptops again. Latest line of Macbooks (the "Air") weigh in at 2.8 lb minimum.

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Like everyone else, I love the MacBook 12. Give me one with a M-series, at the same (or less) weight, with Touch ID and the new keyboard. Like others, I don’t need more than 1 port. Not discounting anyone else’s need for it, but after living with it for a few years I really don’t need additional ports.

The thing is that while you might be reasonable about this, there seems to be a completely baffling number of people whose argument seems to be "I don't need it, therefore they shouldn't include it". It's like.....no one is forcing you to use these extra ports? But it's very nice to have them and some people will need them. If it doesn't increase the weight or thickness of the device(and it definitely doesn't to add another USB-C to the 12" MacBook) then I don't understand why some people literally treat it like some betrayal of what the device is.

My entire point was that people decry a lack of ports as a specific downside of the MacBook 12 and, in my opinion, that wasn’t an issue for me (or it seems several others).

Not all products have to appeal to all people, and products involve hundreds of trade offs. If more ports doesn’t mean increased weight or thickness, I’m not opposed!

I agree. Reading all these comments made me realize how selfish some people could be.

I think that's a weird realization. Those other people don't use those port so they want everyone to have a MacBook without them. You want those port so you want everyone to have a MacBook without them.

Or wanting either of those tings is selfish, and you should've realized that what you want is selfish, or both aren't.

You're wrong. What they want literally makes the MBP not usable for many others, whereas what I (and many others) want doesn't affect the usability/performance of the MBP for anyone.

Exactly. If you have a MacBook with two ports and you use only one, the mere presence of the second port has no effect on your life. But if your MacBook only has one port and you need two then it's an actual inconvenience. It's not like we're paying per port of like they are adding weight. It's not cars where everyone's insistence to have cars that can do everything at once leads to some SUV monstrosities which are compromised in many ways, it's a laptop where having literally a modicum of extra functionality has no negative sides whatsoever, I guess apart from people on the internet saying they don't need them so they shouldn't be there.

We're not paying per port, but adding more ports surely adds to the BOM, which influences to total price.

And I agree that adding one port doesn't make the device noticeably heavier. But I thought we were talking about adding multiple I/O ports, since that's what the article says and other comment are talking about adding multiple USB A and C ports, MagSave, an SD slot and even an hdmi port. Adding all those ports will increase the size of the MacBooks.

I'm not saying it's wrong to want to have more ports (I wouldn't buy a notebook with one port). I'm saying that it's strange to call people egotistical for wanting fewer ports while failing to see that adding ports has consequences other people might care about.

I agree I wish Apple would find a way to make a 16inch MBP weight 3lbs and an Air weigh 2lbs. It *seems* possible given an 12.9 inch iPad Pro only weighs 1.4lbs and other manufacturers have entries in that range.

For whatever reason this idea always gets downvoted but I believe it will happen someday and every who downvoted will suddenly "get it".

> I wish Apple would find a way to make a 16inch MBP weight 3lbs

This could be reasonably possible with Apple silicon—well, maybe not 3lbs, but noticeably lighter than the current model.

Part of the reason the 16” is so heavy is the 100Whr battery (which still manages to be woefully inadequate due to how much power the CPU sucks, let alone the GPU).

The 13” ASi Pro has a 58Whr battery for “up to 17 hours” use, which seems to pan out to about 12-14 hours real-world usage. They could put that exact battery in an ASi 16” and it would still be leagues better than the “up to 11 hours” battery in the current model, which in my experience is actually 3-5 hours.

> It seems possible given an 12.9 inch iPad Pro only weighs 1.4lbs The iPad Pro's weight jumps up significantly if you have to add a keyboard and trackpad to the mix. Though personally I would welcome a tablet mac with no included keyboard since I use an ergonomic keyboard the vast majority of the time anyway.

> and other manufacturers have entries in that range.

The one that comes to mind is the LG Gram series, of which they make a lot of compromises in order to accomplish their weight goals. Opening up the chassis of the LG Gram 17 and 15 you'll see a lot of empty space and a battery that is much smaller than it could accommodate. I think it'd be doable if apple made a 16 inch variant with the m1 chip in it but I'm not sure that you could without making similar compromises that LG does.

Personally for a 16 inch laptop I'd rather have longer battery life and processing power which I think more closely aligns with people who prefer the larger form factor anyway. Still, it'd be nice to have options!

I wonder when will Apple stop using Unibody for MacBooks. I don't like the body overall because it's heavier, too cool on winter, and its style not attracting not much anymore.

I assume they could do it, but by reducing battery life to what it was before.

However, if you can’t bare a laptop heavier than 2lbs may I suggest you’re in the wrong line of work.

The 12" MacBook was a fantastic computer. I used one from 2016 until a few weeks ago. However many of the (perfectly reasonable) compromises that Apple made to build this tiny 12" ultraportable also ended up being applied to the rest of the product line, where they just don't make much sense. Specifically the 2016-2019 MacBook Pro were really affected by this.

Yeah, the only people that seem to criticise the 12" macbook are people who've never owned one. I still have my 2016 12" m5 and it is a fantastic little machine for people that need to be mobile.

In fact the other reason I got it was that the rest of the line (in Sept 2016) was not appealing at all. I had been set on a maxed out 13" pro, but hated the touchbar. I thought of the 12" as a stopgap until Apple realised the error of their ways.. turned out I would be waiting half a decade.

I can't upvote this enough. Everytime I pull out the MacBook 12 I just feel joy using it

Its drawback is poor performance but it’s ok for basic use — surfing the web, typing docs and notes. I almost got one in 2015 if I could code in it but I tested it and it was way too sluggish.

However a 12 inch MacBook M1 would be incredible.

TBH I'm surprised apple didn't make the 12 macbook M1. The air is already fanless and the M1 chip is only 10W. I guess they really wanted to impress everyone with battery life numbers.

While I find the performance just not up to par, I completely agree.

I also love MB 12!

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