Apple MacBook Review: The Laptop of the Future Isn’t Ready for the Present | Hacker News Reader

Apple MacBook Review: The Laptop of the Future Isn’t Ready for the Present

wsj.com

44 pointsnikunjk72 comments

I care a lot about battery life benchmarks because, well, that's what a laptop is for: not being constantly plugged.

I'm always disappointed when I see "with all the laptops set to comparable brightness (around 75 percent)" instead of all laptops set to the same luminance. It's like comparing mileage for cars while pressing the accelerator pedal at 75%.

+1. Masterful. TIL. Totally breezed by that line and didn't think about the difference. My pet peeve in reviews is related - color comparisons sound like people talking about wine (colors are rich and come off the screen and the like). Lots of reviews say this about phones or notebooks that have ridiculously awful DeltaE / calibration.

For those worried by the lack of ports, check around a university or coffee shop and nobody is using multiple ports at once. They are using

1. Maybe headphones 2. Maybe charging (but usually not as battery life has increased so much)

An engineer or pro-sumer might be sad they can't have 3 items plugged in at once, but I think Apple sees what I see in that weight and battery life are more important than number of ports.

My girlfriend has a fitbit dongle plugged into her macbook, and may occasionally need to plug in a mouse (i don't remember if it's bluetooth, but mouse makers hate using BT so probably not).

With this in mind, she'd also want to charge and a single port is dreadful for that. She's no programmer, not even close to technically inclined. Just a normal student studying to become a teacher.

A teacher would want a laptop lightweight like this, but when they need to plug in a mouse, maybe a printer? plug it into the projector, into the power because they're low on battery, possibly plug in a usb dongle for a powerpoint remote control...

Well, that's a bit more than a single port (Albeit, obviously personalized for a single type of job).

Multiple ports are much more important than you're giving them credit for. If it's around the end of day at that coffee shop, some of those people might be plugging their phone into their laptop, too.

I'm a teacher and I can't remember the last time I needed more than one port. Printing is always done over a network at my college. I haven't plugged in a printer in at least 10 years. I never liked trackpads until I used Apple's trackpad. Now the only time I use a mouse is for gaming. Once the Macbook gets more powerful I will definitely be buying one.

I wish Bluetooth mice would become more common. Microsoft makes Bluetooth mice and they work just fine with my MacBook Pro.

I hate the idea that a single-purpose (or dual-purpose if you get a keyboard and mouse with one receiver) dongle is needed when my computer has perfectly good wireless technology already built in.

But you can plug it into a projector, a charger, and have a USB plugged in all at the same time with the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter. This is pretty expensive though.

It doesn't even solve the parent's use case: Using a fitbit dongle and a wired mouse (occasionally connecting a printer - though you can disconnect the mouse for that).

I have the same dilemma as the parent with my macbook pro. I have two USB ports - and three things I'd like to plug in: wired mouse, fitbit dongle, and a yubikey. The mouse and yubikey are mandatory so I sacrificed using the fitbit dongle versus requiring lugging around a USB hub everywhere.

There are some pretty small USB hubs lately. If you need a full featured USB 3.0 (with or without ethernet), this is a nice option and it matches Mac styling: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PC02HOU/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl...

If you just need USB 2.0, you can get something tiny like this to carry: http://www.amazon.com/Cute-USB-2-Port-Splitter-Black/dp/B00F...

>It doesn't even solve the parent's use case:

That's missing the point. It isn't supposed to. Similar to how a lot of folks complained that they absolutely needed a DVD drive when the first MacBook Air came out. I'm sure some did, most simply did not, which is why laptops trended with the Air and got smaller and dropped the drive.

> (i don't remember if it's bluetooth, but mouse makers hate using BT so probably not)

Most of the Apple ones are Bluetooth nowadays. The main issue is that you now have two things with battery lives instead of just one, but other than that, it might be a viable solution here.

Also, I believe Microsoft and Logitech make Bluetooth mice.

I've never had to plug a mouse into a MacBook since the trackpad is good enough, is your GF doing Illustrator or some other app that requires more precision?

Minecraft is a bit easier with a mouse than with the trackpad.

(The track pad is very good.)

To be fair, and this is a detail I forgot, she broke her trackpad.

Next step is wireless headphones. iPhones can't get thinner with the classic 3.5mm port. This analog jack is the only port besides the advanced USB-C port on the new macbook. I think that Apple's big push next year will be bluetooth headphones, driven by Beats, with the goal of removing the analog audio port.

With wireless charging gaining in popularity, we could see fully-sealed portless phones soon.

My guess is the reason Apple hasn't got much into Bluetooth is the clumsy pairing process isn't apple-y. Sony has some fun stuff using NFC tags to make pairing smooth, so I could see Apple talking that approach prime-time.

I could imagine a nice matched phone and BT headset and a little inductive charging-plate for the both.

That doesn't really gel.

The keyboard, mouse and trackpad that Apple bundles/sells with their desktops are all Bluetooth, so it's not like they have an aversion to it (and all things told, they've made the process about as painless as possible, sans anything NFC-like).

Oh, I'd never used the desktops, only laptops and iOS devices. I didn't know apple had embraced Bluetooth at all.

> but I think Apple sees what I see in that weight and battery life are more important than number of ports.

The review specifically talks about the disappointing battery life. If Apple cared about battery life, they would have opted to use their fancy stacked battery to give the 13 inch even better battery life. As it stands, Apple's own webpage lists the Macbook's battery life as worse than the 13, and this review has it not even meeting those expectations (a departure from most recent Apple products which have fared quite well in battery life tests). So I think you're going to be seeing lots of charging with this thing. Apple seems to now have made their intentions clear: thinner at all costs, even battery life.

> An engineer or pro-sumer might be sad they can't have 3 items plugged in at once

It's obvious, but worth stating that Apple still offers two other lines of laptops that are more appropriate for people who need more ports. Not to mention that there's a USB-C breakout cable available (at a price).

Currently plugged into my laptop:

* Two monitors * Mouse * Keyboard * Speakers * A/C power

Now, I don't carry most of those things to the coffeeshop with me, sure. But what percentage of a laptop's use is in coffeeshops, versus at home or the office? I understand that tradeoff is at different places for different people. But one port feels like it's trading off way too much utility -- exactly how much space does a second USB port take up?

If you have two external monitors you are not the target market for this machine. At least not as your primary machine. I'm planning to buy one for when I'm out to meetings or traveling. Still keeping my bigger and more connected MBP 15'' for my desk.

Can't the USB-C drive two monitors?

Currently plugged into my laptop:

* Logitech receiver for my (wireless trackball) mouse. * Speakers * Power * USB hub

When I'm on the go, replace speakers with headphones, and USB hub with a flash drive.

Not to mention that, if they see battery life so important, why does this have so disappointing battery life?

> For those worried by the lack of ports, check around a university or coffee shop and nobody is using multiple ports at once.

Obviously yes, people out and about use fewer peripherals. But many people use their laptop as their primary machine, and when they're at home they want some way to back up that laptop; backup their phone; connect their various other gadgets.

San Francisco might have great Internet (which helps with most of this stuff) but many people have really Internet connections and they need the cable or they risk multiple failed transfers of data and the corruption that sometimes results.

I just bought a new MBP at the same time that these came out and I couldn't think of a single reason other than "it's shiny" to even consider getting the new MacBook. The 13" MBP is still plenty light, but is a lot more powerful.

One would fit comfortably in a purse, the other would not.

Would it? Maybe quite a large purse. But it's got a 12" screen. The purses my wife carries could not fit a 10" iPad, much less a MacBook -- and my wife isn't running with a clutch or anything.

Aye, maybe "clutch" is what I'm thinking of. I really think that the difference between 2lbs and 3.5lbs is really what makes the difference for this use-case, as well as the smaller size.

Clutch is actually the small purse, not the large one.

My general understanding is that purses are kind of informally and loosely divided into:

Clutches, which are the size of a large woman's wallet -- or a small woman's wallet for that matter. They basically can hold your keys, a credit card, your phone, and maybe some lipstick, and that's about it. Women carry clutches in places where style is more important than functionality, and they go with, like, cocktail dresses and such.

Generic purses, which are maybe twice to three times the size of a clutch, and generally speaking a woman can comfortably put her wallet in there, enough make-up to handle at least an ordinary day in the office, her keys, her phone, and then at least a small amount of additional miscellany. My wife's larger purses will hold a netbook but not a notebook computer.

Totes or messengers, which are typically larger than a normal purse, and might plausibly carry a standard-sized laptop. (My wife, who is small, doesn't carry any purses this size -- she'll use a cloth shopping bag if she needs to carry things this size). My sense is that they are regarded as less fashionable. You might see them referred to as "mom bags," since mothers with small children often carry larger purses than usual.

Doing a bit of research for this post, I have discovered that descriptors that I thought were purely about size are also to do with other factors such as whether the purse has internal subdivisions and/or its strap or shape styles. So some people might use these terms differently.

Comments like this are the reason I love Hacker News.

I don't think this necessarily needs to be downvoted. It's pretty clear the new Macbook trades usefulness for portability and style - and is partly aimed at the masses as a fashion accessory.

If you have to carry around your laptop in a messenger bag all day, going from 1.6kg to 0.9kg makes a huge difference.

Charging and mouse for me. I suppose I can use a wireless mouse but all the ones I've tried that don't have a usb dongle seem so jumpy. Bluetooth doesn't seem ready for that frequency yet.

I agree on the mouse part, but I've found an external trackpad works fantastically well.

What sort of issues do you notice?

I've been using Bluetooth mice for a long time and have never experienced any jumpiness. Currently I'm using a Microsoft mouse, but I used a Logitech one before (they seem to have given up on Bluetooth though). Neither has given me any issues on my MacBook Pro.

I know, it's frustrating. I want a Bluetooth version of Logitech's M570.

I've been using bluetooth mice for years. No issues.

If the world could standardize on Logitech's wireless keyboard/mouse stuff, I'd be pretty happy. I've pretty much stuck to Logitech exclusively lately for my mice (I'm particularly fond of the M570, having been a fan of the similar Trackman Wheel), and I have several K570s (one Mac model for work, plus a couple others, including one in my living room for me to control an entertainment-center PC from my couch / coffee table).

I've found Logitech's implementation to - for whatever reason - be the best implementation of wireless peripheral communication I've ever encountered. No problems, no jumpiness, no nothing. It can't be that hard to build the equivalent to their dongle directly into, say, a laptop or tablet, can it?

I just can't understand the reasoning behind only one USB Type C port.

Well, the use case for this laptop is for portability. Why would you need a million ports if you're gonna be traveling or at the coffee shop?. The only time I use an additional port is to charge my iphone, and I could easily do that with the wall charger. This is not a work laptop

And, if the iPhones eventually get a type-C as well (and there's a high probability), you'll be able to feed up to 100W to it, according to the specifications.

Also by the specs, it could even work backwards, in theory.

Except for the processor speed, this could easily be my work laptop. I would prefer having only one thing to plug-in at my desk, as opposed to the power / USB hub / monitor setup that I currently have. Even with an Apple Thunderbolt monitor I would still have 2 things to plug in.

At all other points in the day I'm running on battery power, so I don't need any ports.

Maybe not a million, but TWO is far more reasonable than one.

Here is a brief list of wired accessories likely to be used at least 2 at a time: headphones, mouse, flash drive, mobile device.

Still, why not two USB-C ports, like some of the recent comparable Windows laptop designs?

I can't remember the last time I had more than one port in use. With battery life as good as it is in modern laptops one port is all I need. I like that there is no fan in Macbook and it is thin and highly portable. By the time my Retina Macbook Pro dies I think the Macbook will have a powerful enough processor and enough ram for my needs. At that time I will get a Macbook. I like that there is only one port and that I don't have to fiddle with getting the connector the right side up to plug it into the port. My only concern regarding the Macbook is the new touchpad. Does it allow click and hold for copying/pasting text? This wasn't clear to me from the videos I've seen.

I'm guessing that these will replace the Macbook Air in a couple of years.

The designers are trying to "make a point", but what that point is, exactly, is unclear.

Apple has a long history of dramatic changes in ports, which is usually met with derision yet, not long after, becomes the industry norm. I've seen such "why is unclear" rhetoric when Apple dropped floppy drives, RS-232 ports, Centronix printer ports, prior keyboard/mouse ports, VGA, etc and went exclusively (or nearly) to CDs, USB, FireWire, assorted video (jumping to the best as available), and other connectors.

USB has done well, but is lacking: high power (both directions), extremely high data rates, flippable, and generally able to hub a bunch of wires into a single connector (power included). Yeah we can live without the USB-C's aggregation of all that, but for the target market (leading-edge ultraportable) it's a good improvement.

Much of that early difference in port availability relative to IBM-compatibles is because Apple's computers weren't IBM-compatibles; in that context, things like PS/2 ports for one's keyboard or mouse wouldn't make sense, whereas USB would.

In other words, Apple never really "dropped" those things (other than floppy disks and maybe VGA); rather, it simply never adopted them because their computers weren't in the same class as those which had adopted them.

They did, however, drop other ports which were in use. The Mac did have a wired keyboard, using some quasi-proprietary connection - and it was dropped, preventing further use of old keyboards on new devices. Centronix and RS-232 (both 25- and 9-pin) connectors were ubiquitous, what with a great many devices available which could very well have been connected (printers, modems) and had been included on Apple products. Macs weren't _that_ different as to make strange the notion of attaching common peripherals to them.

They had 9-pin, but at least in the relatively-early days (i.e. back when the "Macintosh" brand was still pretty new), they didn't really have 25-pin in the sense of IBM-compatible PCs; the "printer" port was a 9-pin connector on the original Macintosh, for example, and the 25-pin ports eventually introduced were SCSI ports (certainly not Centronics ports).

But yeah, peripheral compatibility was a big factor in adoption of Apple's computers. This is a compelling reason for them to have switched from their proprietary keyboard/mouse interface, for example, to USB.

I'm just guessing, but perhaps the mainboard doesn't have the lanes for two.

When I do "plug everything in" (some combination of 2-4 hard drives, DVD drive, charger, two Lightning cables) I'd like very much to have all that mostly-not-going-anywhere stuff attached to a single multi-port box so I can attach it all with just one plug. That's the reasoning: if you're part of a very large subset of mobile users, you're likely not bringing all that with you, and when you're at home-base desk you can plug it all in with just one cable.

Bonus: that USB-C port provides significant power. If I do want to run a bunch of stuff while mobile, I can drive a powered-ports mobile USB hub with it.

Because more ports are unnecessary. It's really that simple. And Apple has a strong track record of breaking from the past to bring us into the future.

I assume the plan is hubs as docking stations. USB 3 allows to host and draw power at the same time, right?

Because that's all you really need (in theory at least). That one USB Type-C port can drive your monitor(s), a keyboard/mouse, and various other peripherals (by hooking up a USB hub), all while charging your device.

Right now, my Macbook at work hooks up to my screen via Thunderbolt and a provided power cable, and said screen has USB, FireWire, etc. ports. It would be very nice to reduce that to one cable, and that's precisely what can be done now with the new port.

That said, I agree that only one such port is limiting. I currently have my eye on the new Chromebook Pixel (which has two such ports), and I look forward to seeing what other PC manufacturers reveal.

The most disappointing thing to be is they used a lower quality 480p webcam. So many people use Skype or Google Hangouts that a high resolution webcam is a must.

The lack of ports don't bother me. Yet another cable incompatible cable bothers me. Yet another dongle bothers me. Lack of magsafe is really bothers me.

Magsafe was a step forward. Why go back?

I'm considering getting the Macbook 2015 as a travel complement to my 15.6" i5 Thinkpad, which runs Ubuntu. I need to do a bit of Apple testing so it would fulfill two uses. But would it be too frustrating for occasional Web-focused software dev? I generally have Chrome loaded with a few tabs, a terminal or two, a database, and the Atom editor, working with a Node stack. I've never really used a Mac before so it's not clear how much overhead the OS has and how it will perform with this CPU.

I agree that it looks somewhat underpowered currently. Worth remembering that this was also the case with the Macbook Air when it launched.

I don't find that too surprising but the battery life being so below what Apple says and other models is very odd.

Overheating. Intel is lying about what is necessary to keep Core-M at 5W TDP. The vast majority of Core-M devices out there will overheat because of that, which means they'll throttle and kill the battery faster, too.

Why would throttling kill the battery faster? If anything, wouldn't that extend battery life?

Where can I plug in my ADB keyboard and SCSI drives?

I welcome the port situation (Apple has rarely been wrong on this front). But the battery life and performance sound like concerns.

"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

Edit: added quotes.

No wireless? It's got a wireless network card...

That's a reference to CmdrTaco's review of the original iPod.

Oh! Second time in as many days that's been a reference I've missed.

The specs on the MacBook look marginally worse than the Macbook Air, though. Just confusing to me, why I'd buy this one and not the Air...

Pixels.

Core-M/Broadwell-Y is a dud, just like all previous Y-series chips before it. Intel is trying too hard to get the ultra-low power. And because of that it ends up with chips that are less powerful than what is needed for mainstream tasks, as well as too expensive (even compared to a Core i5). You're much better off with a 15W Core i5 than a 5W Core-M, no matter the scenario - with one possible exception: if you really, really want a $1,000 slim "tablet". But you better not want it for something like Photoshop or anything heavy like that. Just for other mobile tasks that you could just as well use your $500 iPad for.

Of course it's not a heavy lifter. It's actually faster than my Macbook Air 2011, which holds up pretty well for my usage. Compared to an iPad, with 8gb RAM and a much faster CPU, as well as a full OS, it's really much more powerful.

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