Anyone get a MacBook?

[Artdeco]

Am really loving this thing, it's insanely thin.

All my crap is bluetooth, so the whole port thing is a non issue for me, I actually like the keyboard, and the black magic behind the trackpad is cool as hell

 

[Eug]

Waiting for version 2 or later. Want at least Skylake with H.265 decode in hardware, and more speed in general and/or battery life.

Thunderbolt support over USB 3 might prove interesting, but honestly I'm not too worried about that.

I also wonder if version 2 might get two USB C ports. Not optimistic though.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

My 15" rMBP says hello.

 

[postmortemIA]

Well there's the alternative

 

[Artdeco]

I originally bought a base 11" MBA, but returned it and upgraded. It's certainly not designed for heavy lifting, but damn the screen...

 

[rugby]

I've got a gold macbook and a 15" retina macbook pro for heavier lifting. LOVE the macbook. Somebody told me a secret that you can get a USB to USB-C cable and use the Anker USB charging station to charge the macbook on the go. I should have mine today and will test it out.

 

[Artdeco]

I've got a gold macbook and a 15" retina macbook pro for heavier lifting. LOVE the macbook. Somebody told me a secret that you can get a USB to USB-C cable and use the Anker USB charging station to charge the macbook on the go. I should have mine today and will test it out.

Am patiently waiting for Monoprice to get in some cables...

And yeah, that was one of the reasons I purchased it, being able to charge it from a battery pack on the go.

I have a Windows tablet, and I really like the laptop imitating a tablet concept better than a tablet imitating a laptop.

Have tried a ton of keyboards for iPad, could never really stand them for much of anything, they worked, but they're not pleasant for me to use.

 

[Eug]

Have tried a ton of keyboards for iPad, could never really stand them for much of anything, they worked, but they're not pleasant for me to use.

Yup, agreed. The thing I miss the most is the trackpad when using a keyboard on an iPad. And the reduced size keyboards kinda suck.

 

[rugby]

Am patiently waiting for Monoprice to get in some cables...

And yeah, that was one of the reasons I purchased it, being able to charge it from a battery pack on the go.

I have a Windows tablet, and I really like the laptop imitating a tablet concept better than a tablet imitating a laptop.

Have tried a ton of keyboards for iPad, could never really stand them for much of anything, they worked, but they're not pleasant for me to use.

I'm with you on that. I've used an iPad since the 2 with a bluetooth keyboard and while it's functional, it's not ideal. I can put this macbook in the pocket of my coat and not need a laptop bag once the temps drop.

I ended up ordering some cables from Amazon for USB to USB-C as monoprice didn't have them in. I did buy the USB-C to Display port adapter then realized that I can't charge the macbook with that plugged in so I haven't even tried it yet.

I need a hub for my work desk but whatever, I'll make due with my retina macbook pro there for now.

 

[mmntech]

Yep, wait for the refresh next year. As of right now, they're overpriced and underpowered. Skylake Y (Core M) should bring better performance with better battery life. Though I'm hoping they use Skylake U (Core i) instead.

Hopefully it will add a second USB Type C port as well. Apple may be cloud happy, but storage isn't the only thing USB is used for.

 

[Artdeco]

For my use case, the MacBook is fine, certainly no powerhouse, more of a tablet replacement in current form, but the next few generations should be much more powerful.

 

[rugby]

For my use case, the MacBook is fine, certainly no powerhouse, more of a tablet replacement in current form, but the next few generations should be much more powerful.

It's a reasonably powerful machine. If I have heavy lifting to do I'll pull out my retina macbook pro but for almost everything else the macbook is fine.

 

[boomhower]

Nope, not my cup of tea. I need one machine to do it all. Between the lack of processing power and only one port it just doesn't fit my needs. I'm sticking with my 13" rMBP. I certainly see the appeal as an on the go secondary machine though.

 

[rugby]

Honestly when it's time for me to pass down my retina macbook pro I'll probably end up with an imac for my office machine vs. a new laptop and I'll just use my macbook for traveling. Using Anchor to sync files between all of my machines just makes life easier too.

 

[lucia]

holla from my rMBP 13''. I luv this screen size and glowing logo that has been killed on new macbook.

 

[TheStu]

I want one very badly to replace my 2010 MacBook Air, but I also know that I should stay strong and wait for Skylake next year.

 

[Artdeco]

I want one very badly to replace my 2010 MacBook Air, but I also know that I should stay strong and wait for Skylake next year.

There have been ~3 on MacRumor's marketplace forum for $950-1000 (base model)

 

[TheStu]

There have been ~3 on MacRumor's marketplace forum for $950-1000 (base model)

Are any of them the black version?

Nope, staying strong, waiting for Skylake.

 

[Artdeco]

Are any of them the black version?

Nope, staying strong, waiting for Skylake.

LOL... It'll be a worthwhile wait, I agree.

 

[Eug]

Finally checked it out in person.

I thought I would like the gold the best but I actually like silver a lot too. And the graphite too. Gold is nice for my iPhone but seems almost a bit much for a laptop. But I might get gold anyway, who knows.

Screen looks great both in native mode and at 1440x900 for those who like that latter rez.

The one port thing didn't actually bother me too much but probably would once I owned one.

The things I disliked the most were the low travel keyboard and the low travel trackpad. What's worse with the trackpad is that like the other MacBooks, it's a crapshoot from machine to machine. It checked several and some had low travel and a couple had really, really low travel. If I got the latter I'd return it for a replacement. For the keyboard, despite the low travel, it still felt way better than all the reduced size keyboards out there. Having a full size keyboard is simply much better.

Overall my impression is if you want to do heavy lifting for many hours every day, buy a Retina MacBook Pro. If you have light needs like email and surfing, office apps, but sometimes need to do real work for short periods, and need or want the portability, get the Retina MacBook. I can't really recommend the MacBook Air for anything except for those on a budget.

 

[HeXen]

I like my Retina pro. But am getting tired of OS X, mostly little things like how my backup drive isn't compatible with anything but this and I can't write to NTFS drives, I miss cut, I don't care for the dock compared to Windows Superbar....etc. So when Windows 10 comes out, think I'm gonna switch to it.

 

[Eug]

For file backup you can use exFAT, and if you want to write to NTFS, just install Paragon or Tuxera. Tuxera is what Asus used to get NTFS support on Asus Android tablets.

I was running MacDrive on my Windows machine many years ago so that I could get HFS+ support on Windows, but when Macs started using exFAT, I switched to that instead since everything from XP on supports exFAT. Add-on free Microsoft driver in XP but native in Win 7 and Win 8.

 

[Tegeril]

I got the silver base model and I really really like it. The performance is notably lower than pro machines, but the display is pretty spectacular and storage performance is solid.

It's definitely going to be the supplementary machine to the next 15" rMBP refresh when I pick that up later on.

 

[Artdeco]

Finally checked it out in person.

I thought I would like the gold the best but I actually like silver a lot too. And the graphite too. Gold is nice for my iPhone but seems almost a bit much for a laptop. But I might get gold anyway, who knows.

Screen looks great both in native mode and at 1440x900 for those who like that latter rez.

The one port thing didn't actually bother me too much but probably would once I owned one.

The things I disliked the most were the low travel keyboard and the low travel trackpad. What's worse with the trackpad is that like the other MacBooks, it's a crapshoot from machine to machine. It checked several and some had low travel and a couple had really, really low travel. If I got the latter I'd return it for a replacement. For the keyboard, despite the low travel, it still felt way better than all the reduced size keyboards out there. Having a full size keyboard is simply much better.

Overall my impression is if you want to do heavy lifting for many hours every day, buy a Retina MacBook Pro. If you have light needs like email and surfing, office apps, but sometimes need to do real work for short periods, and need or want the portability, get the Retina MacBook. I can't really recommend the MacBook Air for anything except for those on a budget.

The track pad doesn't physically move, it's force touch and adjustable

 

[Eug]

Ok forgot about the design of that. However I was reading about that just now and have noticed in several articles they say that the trackpad does indeed move slightly in that it has a give, but the actual click is due to haptic feedback.

I wasn't aware it was adjustable though, so perhaps the difference in feel I was noticing was because of different settings. Next time I'm in store I'll check the different settings.

In any case it is definitely not as satisfying as the click on older MacBooks unfortunately.