Apple continue to dominate the ultra-light notebook scene and the company’s new MacBook line features the thinnest and lightest Macs ever made. Weighing just 907 grams and at 13.1mm thin, the new MacBook features a stunning 12-inch Retina display that is the thinnest ever on a Mac, an Apple-designed full-size keyboard that’s dramatically thinner and highly responsive, an all-new Force Touch trackpad that brings a new dimension of interactivity, an incredibly compact USB-C port for data transfer, video out and charging in a single connector, and a new battery design that maximizes every millimeter of space to deliver all-day battery life. If that’s not enough you can sport your new business trip best friend in three aluminum finishes—gold, silver and space gray.
Size and wight is key on the road, although it can’t be at the cost of functionality. Fortunately the new MacBook design is an amazing 24 percent thinner than the 11-inch MacBook Air, yet is designed around an all-new full-size keyboard, which itself is 34 percent thinner and uses an Apple-designed butterfly mechanism that is an amazing 40 percent thinner than a traditional keyboard scissor mechanism yet four times more stable, providing greater precision when typing. New stainless steel dome switches located beneath each key deliver a crisp and responsive feel when typing, and every key on the new keyboard is individually backlit to deliver precisely calibrated, uniform brightness, ideal for dimly lit aircraft cabins.
The perfect match to the full-size keyboard is the 12-inch Retina display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, which at just 0.88mm thick uses 30 percent less energy than existing Mac notebook Retina displays, while delivering the same level of brightness.
The all-new Force Touch trackpad brings a new dimension of interactivity to the Mac thanks to built-in force sensors that allow you to click anywhere and haptic feedback that provides a responsive and uniform feel. You can even customize the feel of the trackpad by changing the amount of pressure needed to register each click.
But it’s not just fancy design and good looks; applying miniaturization techniques used in iPhone and iPad, MacBook features the most compact logic board ever in a Mac, despite it measuring 67 percent smaller than that of the 11-inch MacBook Air. With no moving parts or vents, the new MacBook was designed from the ground up to be the first fanless Mac notebook for silent, efficient performance and features the new fifth-generation of the Intel Core M processor.
Finally, the new notebook features a breakthrough terraced battery design that is layered in individual sheets precisely contoured to fit the MacBook’s sleek, curved enclosure. As a result, the new MacBook has 35 percent more battery capacity and delivers all-day battery life with up to nine hours of wireless web browsing and up to 10 hours of iTunes movie playback. From US$1,099. www.apple.com