Real keys and not touchbar, advertised as a feature in the presentation. What a leap of innovation. Though Apple makes the best hardware, they are arrogant as ever.
As a touch bar hater from the beginning, I'm super excited to be able to hit keys to play/pause/skip music, mute, and adjust brightness without having to look at the touch bar to do it.
Ports, a half decent webcam, scissor switches & mag-safe are exactly the 'features' that took zero effort from Apple's side to implement.
I like that this seems like the first real 'pro' device Apple has produced since the 2015 Mac, but the reason it took as long has entirely to do with Hubris rather than technical constraints.
The M1 series of processors are IMO the only new standout innovation in these current-gen devices. That being said, it is seriously impressive innovation and the other laptop manufacturers appear to be even more complacent. (Looking at Dell and Lenovo making the same device for 10 years with only the smallest of changes each time)
I like what Microsoft is trying to do with their devices, but they don't seem to be too keen on competing against their 3rd party customers directly. So you get laptops with weird form factors or ones that try to go for value-for-money instead of top class performance.