Apple MacBook (Early 2016)
Apple’s tiny notebook gets faster. A little bit.
“Now we’ve got a second version, with a more powerful processor, faster storage, and longer battery life.”
The new MacBook was something of a revelation for us last year. With its low-power (and, therefore, low-performance) Intel processor, single port for power and data, and ridiculously thin and light profile, we thought it might turn out to be like the first-generation MacBook Air: a stunning concept that would need a few generations to mature.
But we’d underestimated it: not only was it plenty powerful enough for light use, but its fanless operation, Retina screen and smart new keyboard and trackpad made us totally fall in love with its usability. Now we’ve got a second version, with a more powerful processor, faster storage, and a bit longer battery life.
First, the processor. Intel’s new chip is between 10% and 20% faster, depending on the benchmark. This isn’t a huge leap forward, but it’s combined with speed improvements to reading and writing its flash storage (in our tests, write speeds went up by 40% to 633MB/s, while read speeds improved by about 20% to 930MB/s). Plus it has faster RAM. These add up to make it feel more responsive than last year’s model, together with a better graphic card for smoother animations.
Okay, it’s still going to struggle if you’re thinking about using it as an advanced Photoshop or high-end video editing machine, but for making tweaks in Photos or simple iMovie projects, it’s plenty fast enough.
This is a lightweight machine for lightweight computing. The 2,304 x 1,440 12-inch Retina display is sharp and vibrant. The battery life has been improved over last year’s model, by an hour — and it was already excellent.
The Force Touch trackpad is great to use, and we’re big fans of the new keyboard. The large keys are easy to type with accurately, and we find their clicky feedback pleasant once you get used to it. And with no fan, it’s utterly silent — great for using in front of the TV or on your lap in bed while your spouse is asleep. I mean...
However, there’s still the matter of it having only a single USB Type-C port (plus a headphone jack). If it had one USB port and a power connection, we wouldn’t have a problem. As it is, taking it on the road probably means carrying adapters, which makes it a less portable package and portability is kind of its main selling point.
Still, despite its issues, this new MacBook (which now comes in silver, gold, space grey and the above pictured rose gold colour choices) does offer users a lightweight, powerful and speedy option for not-toodemanding tasks.