NEW YORK: The 12-inch Apple MacBook$1,285.26 at Amazon is one of those products that test your tolerance for working out of your comfort zone. It’s undoubtedly one of the sleekest, most drool-worthy pieces of tech that the Cupertino-based company has presented to the public in recent years. You won’t necessarily get the envious looks that the original iPad or iPhone got a few years ago, but truly, this laptop is a thing of beauty.
The Retina display, which you can also find on the MacBook Pro, lives up to the hype, and then some. It’s really pretty, especially if you have sharp eyes that can appreciate the smooth, jaggie-free text and pictures displayed at native resolution. That said, it’s not worth the $300-$400 price premium you pay over the 13-inch MacBook Pro if all you’re doing is writing TPS reports in Word. If you’re an actuarial worker or a graphics manager, it will have more of an appeal, since you’ll need the extra pixels to display your projects smoothly.
The much-touted butterfly switch keyboard on MacBook is much, much, much better than the non-moving membrane keyboard you find on the Microsoft Surface Touch Cover or Dell XPS 11. However, heavy-handed typists like myself prefer the softer key feel on the MacBook Air 11-inch, or the strong clicky feel of a Das Keyboard$136.53 at Amazon over the minimal keystroke on the MacBook.
The MacBook’s light weight and slim profile are definitely a boon, especially if you schlep all your stuff around on your daily commute. Carrying the MacBook around is easier than carrying a 13-inch MacBook Air or MacBook Pro (or virtually any ultrabook), but it’s not much different from toting around an 11-inch MacBook Air or a 9- or 10-inch tablet with a slim keyboard case.
The biggest problem may lie in the MacBook’s single USB-C port. First, you can’t use any of those spare MagSafe chargers you have lying around if you don’t want to carry an AC adapter. You’ll either have to buy another USB-C charger for home, or remember to take it home with you from the office every day. And forget connecting a peripheral or USB flash drive. There are currently few external hard drives out with a USB-C interface, so connecting a USB drive (or any USB device, for that matter) means you’ll have to purchase an adapter cable, like Apple’s USB-C-to-USB adapter ($19) or the pricey USB-C Digital AV Multiport adapter ($79), which lets you plug in a USB device, an HDMI cable, and the USB-C charger. In addition, you’ll also have to unplug the laptop from the AC adapter in order to plug anything else in. Oh, and, just so you know, if you have a Thunderbolt-equipped drive, you won’t be able to plug it in and use it with the MacBook, since there’s no adapter for that.
