
Apple MacBook Review: The Laptop of the Future Isn’t Ready for the Present - nikunjk
http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-macbook-review-the-laptop-of-the-future-isnt-ready-for-the-present-1428595317
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ucha
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%.

~~~
npunt
+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.

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27182818284
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.

~~~
Navarr
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.

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seanmcdirmid
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?

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

(The track pad is very good.)

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adamnicholas
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.

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

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aetherson
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.

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nfoz
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.

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aetherson
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.

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ChristianBundy
Comments like this are the reason I love Hacker News.

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sterl
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.

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Mister_Snuggles
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.

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

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

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pacomerh
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

~~~
thinkmassive
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.

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adminprof
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.

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jonathankoren
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?

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davidy123
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.

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

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

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higherpurpose
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.

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

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ja27
Where can I plug in my ADB keyboard and SCSI drives?

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

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

Edit: added quotes.

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

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

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diminoten
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...

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tstrimple
Pixels.

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higherpurpose
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.

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Synaesthesia
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.

