Not having standard ports would be pretty annoying -- at most offices, there are lots of power adapters left in common areas (I think at CloudFlare it's all MagSafe w/ MagSafe2 adapters, or MagSafe 2, and I've tried to make sure they're all 85W; outside of tech, I've seen Lenovo 20V the same way).
Having HDMI out built-in on the rMBP15, vs. needing to carry a mdp/tb2 to whatever dongle all the time, is a plus too.
USB 3 A ports are probably a minimum for me.
If I wanted no ports at all, I'd just use the iPad.
I don't think I could deal with OS X 10.10 on less than 16GB, either.
Just out of curiosity, what do you do with 16GB of RAM? I'm running OS X 10.10 on 4GB Macbook Air and I have faced no issues whatsoever. My general usage includes Chrome with ~20 tabs open, a Vagrant VM, terminal and text editor.
Multiple VMs.
You use aboug 3G per VM, + the OSX kernel and RAM allocation quickly amounts to close to 3-4GB. I can't work with less than 8G, and 16G makes it about bearable.
When away from a power socket, I use Safari instead of Chrome. Saves battery a LOT. Was able to run 11" Air with 19 tabs on Safari and with vim (on iTerm). 2hrs later still had 95% battery left.
I found 8GB a bit pokey, 16GB much better. Generally have open Firefox, Chrome, Sublime, Photoshop, Illustrator, an IE testing VM, Terminal running a couple of web app servers, Spotify and maybe another Windows VM with Visual Studio and Firefox (recent project has involved some .NET). I recognise that my workflow would be a bit RAM heavy though.
I run on 16GB. The thing is, it always seems to use up the amount of RAM you have. I don't have much open (XCode, Sketch, Chrome), but it's still using 15.36GB. That's including 720MB XCode, and 325MB Sketch. It's storing 9GB for apps and 4.8GB for file storage.
Generally, this just makes things that bit faster. The more you can store in RAM (even trivial things), the better. I've never had any slow downs, and don't have to worry about opening Photoshop and Illustrator along with XCode, Sketch and 20 Chrome tabs.
But...why? I use an external display with my Air(through the built in display port), connect external storage through USB 3.0, have 8GB of ram.....and now they want to throw this away for what? To make it marginally thinner? And add the inconvenience of having the same port for charging/data/video?
I wouldn't buy rMBP13, purely because it's heavier, and if you walk a lot with your machine,then it adds up.
I'm actually looking to go the other way; I want a desktop replacement. I dont care about size or weight, I just want a big screen and a huge battery. My current 17" MBP is just about perfect. The only downside is that the screen is not Retina and they aren't making them anymore.
As the laptop offerings get smaller and smaller my frustration grows larger and larger. Sure, I can use my big monitor at work, but what about when I travel, or work from "home"? I'm willing to lug around a huge laptop if it means that I can see the screen and get actual work done.
It can be configured with a 12-core(24 thread) Xeon CPU + 2 GPUs + 4 hard drives. It needs TWO 300W power bricks to function, and is supposed to be used as a mobile server.
Wow, I think those are a bit more than I bargained for. :) I would still like to stay in the OS X family; the hardware/software combination is just too good to pass up. Thanks for the alternative view though.
For any of the Apple adverse, Samsung has already been showing off their 12.2" notebook at CES [0,1]. Dell also has an interesting small-bezel XPS 13 starting at $800, but I'm sure that will end up a bit thicker than the MBA 12" [2].
✓ Fanless.
✓ 700 nit low-glare 2560×1600 display.
✓ Ports (μHDMI and SD reader is better than nothing).
They are probably expecting their OS of choice (that is, Windows) to do it's job, since it is marketed as being usable on such combination. For the most part and by itself it probably is, but many desktop applications still have problems, or so I've heard to this date.
2560×1600 is not a bad choice, however, since at 200 % scaling it has 1280×800 logical pixels, which is perfectly normal for such a monitor. If only Windows could reliably tell which applications do NOT support higher DPI displays even though they say they do, they could be just doubled in size and still be perfectly usable, if a bit blurry (you don't get aliasing effects, though). I guess Microsoft'll just have to make yet another API for DPI-awareness to catch the rest of the offenders.
What might be most interesting about the USB3 connector will be the opportunity for compromising such machines. People might be cautious about plugging in unknown or unexpected hardware and flash drives to their machines, etc, but they'll always recognise what looks like a charger and won't think for a minute that it might be doing anything other than supplying power.
Could be very interesting, especially in office locations where charger sharing goes on. Or even at home, how do you know that /your/ charger isn't the special version that not only powers the MacBook while also appearing as a bus device that's backdooring your machine and radiating your secrets back over your mains cables to an adversary?
It's a recurring pattern that Apple has to re-invent the entry level laptops every once in a while because they've become so powerful and versatile the target audience for the "pro" laptops starts to prefer them over the heavier, more expensive and overly powerful high-end alternatives.
Personally I have found myself continuously switching between the "pro" and "regular" offerings ever since the days of Powerbook and iBook, and if a 12" Air would be nothing more than a newer, better Air with a retina screen I would probably pick it over the 13" Pro I currently use.
Apple regularly moves the goalposts to avoid cannibalizing the high-end line.
This time around it's the opposite, the Pro line has been creeping towards the Air line (from TFA): "The 13-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Pro aren’t that different—$300 gets you an extra half a pound, a Retina display, and a processor that’s an awful lot faster."
As a former 12" Powerbook owner/lover and current 11" Macbook Air owner, I want my 4:3 aspect ratio back. Screen real estate is at a premium on a machine this small, so I want more pixels (more area). And carrying a elongated rectangle around is no easier than carrying a more squarish rectangle. (iPad and Chromebook figured this out.)
As a frequent traveler, I regret replacing my 3-year-old 4GB + 128SSD with a 13" rMBP. I like the rMPB, but I should have kept my Air and gotten a quad-core 15" rMBP. The point? I'll pay a lot, in terms of cash and power, for portability and battery life.
I've been eager to move off of OSX for some years [1], but with this rumored laptop, they'll probably sink their teeth in me for another 3 years.
[1] If anyone knows of a laptop that is portable, that supports 16GB of RAM and works well with Linux, please let me know. Even the newly announced X1 and XPS13 are limited to 8GB (and I assume they get relatively poor battery life on Linux)
What didn't you like about the rMBP? I'm very pleased with mine. It's about as portable as could possibly be necessary - I carry it with me a lot during the day and it's way small and light enough. Of course, I would love a longer battery life, but I get about 8-10 hours which is ~ a day's work, and I'm always close enough to a power outlet.
Unless you're working with the laptop in one hand or using it regularly on journeys > 8 hours, I can't see much of a difference between Air and Pro.
I do like the rMBP, but I know I could use the 4 cores when I'm at home or just going to work, which is why I wish I had gotten the 15".
However, -1 lbs + smaller form factor + better battery is pretty significant when you're traveling abroad with a backpack for a week or two. I'll take less weight + more socks any day of the week. Also, I almost killed myself trying to get power from an outlet at Phnom Penh International Airport.
So, personally, I find the 13" a compromise I could have just spent my way out of.
I was pretty disappointed with the X1, was getting RSI from the trackpoint, while its touchpad was unusable. I got an rMBP and can't be happier. Hopefully the precision touchpad in the new XPS 13 really works.
So, you can't charge this supposed new laptop while you are at a desk with it attached to an external monitor? What will Apple do, make you buy a special Apple monitor that allows you to connect more peripherals?
What's stopping the monitor from charging the laptop? The spec affords such things.
How cool would it be if every monitor in the future used the exact same type of connector and also doubled as a power supply for anything connected to it? Same thing goes for ethernet.
One option would be to make the power adapter fancier. Instead of just being a box with a wall cable on one end and a MagSafe cable on the other end, what if it had USB and Thunderbolt ports? You would have the same amount of gear to carry around, but the actual laptop could be thinner.
That sounds like an unnecessarily expensive way to go--I imagine that a specialized connector is more likely. The article makes a good point about this category of concerns:
> But just because it will be inconvenient for some users doesn’t mean that Apple won’t do it. In fact, you can almost hear the stage patter when the feature is unveiled: Most connectivity is wireless these days, we’ve made a great $49 accessory that adds all the ports you’d want, and the included power adapter—the most innovative power adapter ever—features a breakaway magnetic coupler and is itself a USB and Thunderbolt hub. I’m making the details up, but you’ve got to think there would be more to the story than, “Yeah, your power plug is also your USB plug, get used to it.”
There are things like USB passthrough connectors (for devices that only need to be powered up by the USB power lines, but do not use the signal lines):
Readit News
Having HDMI out built-in on the rMBP15, vs. needing to carry a mdp/tb2 to whatever dongle all the time, is a plus too.
USB 3 A ports are probably a minimum for me.
If I wanted no ports at all, I'd just use the iPad.
I don't think I could deal with OS X 10.10 on less than 16GB, either.
Generally, this just makes things that bit faster. The more you can store in RAM (even trivial things), the better. I've never had any slow downs, and don't have to worry about opening Photoshop and Illustrator along with XCode, Sketch and 20 Chrome tabs.
Now, 16GB, that's very good
Good thing it's USB-C then, a single standard for all uses. Now if this takes on (I'm positive it will) you can replace all cables with this one.
If you need HDMI, USB 3 A, Gazillion RAM etc., there is a laptop for you/your company! E.g. rMBP13/15.
I wouldn't buy rMBP13, purely because it's heavier, and if you walk a lot with your machine,then it adds up.
As the laptop offerings get smaller and smaller my frustration grows larger and larger. Sure, I can use my big monitor at work, but what about when I travel, or work from "home"? I'm willing to lug around a huge laptop if it means that I can see the screen and get actual work done.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/5/7495073/msi-mechanical-keyb...
This is a laptop with a full mechanical keyboard, 2x graphics cards and a 350W power brick.
But if that is not insane enough, there is a company called Eurocom, which will build you this monster: http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure%281,234,0%29ec
It can be configured with a 12-core(24 thread) Xeon CPU + 2 GPUs + 4 hard drives. It needs TWO 300W power bricks to function, and is supposed to be used as a mobile server.
✓ Fanless.
✓ 700 nit low-glare 2560×1600 display.
✓ Ports (μHDMI and SD reader is better than nothing).
✓ Apple-esque price tag.
[0]: http://www.samsung.com/us/news/24347
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub2vYob7rzQ (Brad Linder's hands on)
[2]: http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/6/7501385/dell-xps-13-2015-ed...
What is Samsung doing to make sure that this resolution is usable at this size?
2560×1600 is not a bad choice, however, since at 200 % scaling it has 1280×800 logical pixels, which is perfectly normal for such a monitor. If only Windows could reliably tell which applications do NOT support higher DPI displays even though they say they do, they could be just doubled in size and still be perfectly usable, if a bit blurry (you don't get aliasing effects, though). I guess Microsoft'll just have to make yet another API for DPI-awareness to catch the rest of the offenders.
Could be very interesting, especially in office locations where charger sharing goes on. Or even at home, how do you know that /your/ charger isn't the special version that not only powers the MacBook while also appearing as a bus device that's backdooring your machine and radiating your secrets back over your mains cables to an adversary?
Lots and lots of fun to be had there.
There's a big bug with both Firewall and TB that can bypass the security and infect the firmwares and so on.
Personally I have found myself continuously switching between the "pro" and "regular" offerings ever since the days of Powerbook and iBook, and if a 12" Air would be nothing more than a newer, better Air with a retina screen I would probably pick it over the 13" Pro I currently use.
Apple regularly moves the goalposts to avoid cannibalizing the high-end line.
I've been eager to move off of OSX for some years [1], but with this rumored laptop, they'll probably sink their teeth in me for another 3 years.
[1] If anyone knows of a laptop that is portable, that supports 16GB of RAM and works well with Linux, please let me know. Even the newly announced X1 and XPS13 are limited to 8GB (and I assume they get relatively poor battery life on Linux)
Unless you're working with the laptop in one hand or using it regularly on journeys > 8 hours, I can't see much of a difference between Air and Pro.
However, -1 lbs + smaller form factor + better battery is pretty significant when you're traveling abroad with a backpack for a week or two. I'll take less weight + more socks any day of the week. Also, I almost killed myself trying to get power from an outlet at Phnom Penh International Airport.
So, personally, I find the 13" a compromise I could have just spent my way out of.
They are all limited to 8GB. According to [2] the new X250 is, like the new X1, also a single DIMM.
[1] - http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/
[2] - http://www.anandtech.com/show/8822/lenovo-thinkpad-x250
Deleted Comment
How cool would it be if every monitor in the future used the exact same type of connector and also doubled as a power supply for anything connected to it? Same thing goes for ethernet.
> But just because it will be inconvenient for some users doesn’t mean that Apple won’t do it. In fact, you can almost hear the stage patter when the feature is unveiled: Most connectivity is wireless these days, we’ve made a great $49 accessory that adds all the ports you’d want, and the included power adapter—the most innovative power adapter ever—features a breakaway magnetic coupler and is itself a USB and Thunderbolt hub. I’m making the details up, but you’ve got to think there would be more to the story than, “Yeah, your power plug is also your USB plug, get used to it.”
http://bit.ly/1KsyPoS
The power connector cable could be a variation on the concept.