Apple MacBook (2016)
A boost in battery life and performance makes the new MacBook even more tempting, but it’s not perfect
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£1,083 (£1,299 inc VAT)
When it was released in 2015, the Apple MacBook was so thin and light as to be a revelation. At a shade over 900g and 13.1mm thick when closed, this 12in laptop was slimmer, lighter and had a smaller footprint than the 11in MacBook Air.
However, any portable design brings inevitable compromise, and the firstgeneration MacBook wore those on its sleek metallic sleeve. Battery life was nothing more than average; performance worse still. The keyboard, with its super-shallow travel, also divided opinion.
The 2015 MacBook, then, was great if you valued portability above all else. As it happens, it fitted my needs perfectly – the closest I come to being a “power user” is modest audio and video editing – and I bought one. The question is, will this 2016 update – with a new, faster processor – fix the frustrations?
Understated design
To moderate expectations, let’s be clear from the start: this is one of the company’s “press release-only” updates. There was no event, no product managers on stage, no Tim Cook proclaiming how “gorgeous” the new MacBook is.
This is understandable, for nothing about the MacBook’s design has changed. If you’ve picked one up, you’ll know exactly what to expect. The screen is still gorgeous, albeit not bezel-free like the edge-to-edge “infinity” display on Dell’s XPS 13. As before, you can buy the MacBook in Space Grey, Silver and Gold, and Apple is also making it available in Rose Gold (Apple’s rebranding of “pink”).
Subjectively, this is a laptop that weighs almost nothing. At under a kilo, you can throw the MacBook into any bag and barely notice it’s there. Impressively, however, the body feels robust and taut; it doesn’t creak or flex at all. This is the kind of high-end engineering on which Apple has built its success.
Little has changed when it comes to the 2,304 x 1,440 display, either. It’s still a great screen with a wide colour gamut covering 94.2% of the sRGB colour space. It’s even bright enough to be used outdoors on a sunny day – although, notably, it isn’t as bright as the previous version. In tests, it reached a maximum brightness of 335cd/m2 versus last year’s 381cd/m2. Contrast ratio is down as well, from 1,063:1 to 805:1.
However, there’s an upside: Apple claims it uses less power than last year’s display, and it still looks great to the naked eye. Yes, it’s only 12in, but having grown used to this size over the past year, I’d be happy to work on this screen for a full day.
As with all Apple Retina laptops, it has a default setting that mimics something with fewer pixels – in this case, the Default setting “looks like 1,280 x 800”. You can run at other modes, from 1,024 x 640 to 2,560 x 1,600. All of these modes look fine, although higher resolutions tend to make things look incredibly small on a 12in screen.
No moving parts
Another thing that hasn’t changed is the fanless design. Apple sticks with Intel’s Core M processors, this time offering a range of Skylake options; I was sent the model with the Core m5-6Y54, but there are also m7 and m3 options. All the new models are fanless, meaning they retain the MacBook’s “no moving parts” approach.
Even the trackpad doesn’t move – although you’ll think it does. As with all Apple trackpads these days, it’s big and feels great, employing Apple’s ingenious Force Touch system. Press down on the trackpad and sensors detect how much pressure is being applied; electromagnets then provide
“The body feels robust and taut; it doesn’t creak or flex at all. This is the high-end engineering on which Apple has built its success”