Apple MacBook 12 (Early 2015) 1.1 GHz Review

Hardly any detail of the new MacBook was discussed as controversially over the last weeks as Apple’s decision to integrate just one USB port besides the mandatory headset port (3.5 millimeter stereo jack), more precisely a highly modern type C port according to the standard USB 3.1 (Gen. 1) that can be used in both directions thanks to the symmetrical construction. Furthermore, the port supports the so called "Alternate Mode" for the parallel transmission of USB and video signals with the simultaneous power supply of the notebook with up to 100 Watts (the MacBook, however, is only shipped with a 29-Watt power adaptor). The handy MagSafe connector, which prevented a lot of damages at the connector and the port thanks to its magnetic fixation, is therefore reserved for the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air-series – at least as long as they won’t be switched to the universal USB port, too.

You can only really use the possibilities of the type C port in the foreseeable future if you pay for additional adaptors. Even a simple cable to a standard type A port costs 19 Euros (~$20) at Apple; the two Multiport adapters cost 89 Euros (~$96) each. Only those allow the connection of a USB device as well as a VGA or HDMI display (up to 3840x2160 pixels @ 30 Hz) besides the power adaptor – basically inevitable for productive working. There are at least more and more alternative solutions from third-party manufacturers on the market.

By the way: The USB 3.1 standard does not offer any performance advantages in this case, because the Core M-based MacBook only transfers files with the maximum USB 3.0 performance of 5 Gbps – only USB 3.1 Gen. 2 will increase the transfer rate to 10 Gbps.

The wireless connectivity is a very important aspect when you consider the limited number of ports. Apple uses a fast WLAN adaptor from Broadcom’s BCM43xx-series (probably the BCM4352) with support for the standard IEEE 802.11ac, which reaches gross transfer rates of up to 867 Mbps thanks to the dual-stream technology (2x2). However: The similarly priced MacBook Pro 13 uses a triple-stream solution, which is even up to 50% faster.

Our test router, a TP-Link Archer C7 (V1), unfortunately did not work well with the Broadcom chip. We did not manage more than 70 Mbps in an 802.11n network (2.4 GHz) even in a very good test environment – the 802.11ac mode was almost unusable with less than 5 Mbps. Such incompatibilities, unfortunately, occur sometimes in the wireless space and affect almost every manufacturer; the MacBook should easily be able to reach more than 300 Mbps with other routers. We can still report a flawless stability of the signal as well as a high range of the wireless adaptor, despite the low transfer rates.

You will be disappointed if you had hoped to see a WWAN module besides WLAN and Bluetooth 4.0 – Apple still only offers the iPhone and iPad with UMTS/LTE.

Webcam & Microphone

The bottom cover is, as usual, secured by multiple Pentalobe screws, which can be removed pretty easily with the corresponding tools. After the removal you can see the almost tiny motherboard with all the soldered components like the processor, RAM, SSD and the WLAN chip. An upgrade or a repair is therefore basically impossible (at least for the end user).

The rest of the chassis is occupied by lithium-polymer batteries that are arranged in layers and secured by a lot of glue. This also results in a Reparability Score of just 1 out of 10 points for the MacBook by our colleagues from ifixit.com.

Warranty

Even Apple products that cost more than 1,500 Euros (~$1633) only have a standard warranty of 12 months. The purchase of the "Apple Care Protection Plan" will extend this period to three years, and it also includes a freephone number as well as on-site support in an Apple Store – at least if you are willing to pay the additional charge of 249 Euros (~$271).

The keyboard uses a lot of space in very thin notebooks and ultrabooks – valuable room that will ultimately affect the battery capacity. This is the reason why Apple designed the "butterfly switch" with a very short travel for the MacBook. This new switch is around 40% thinner compared to the traditional "scissor" design. The modified technology is also supposed to ensure more stability in the peripheral areas and therefore provide a uniform typing experience.

Our first attempts with the almost frameless keyboard were pretty "bumpy" – the majority of users will have to get used to the extremely short travel. We still miss the feedback of classic keyboards a bit, even though every stroke on one of the 17 x 17-millimeter large keys results in a well-defined and conveniently firm click. The typing speed will increase with some practice and you learn to appreciate the even pressure point as well as the low noise development of the butterfly switches. Still: There will be mixed opinions about the keyboard, it does not matter how much we want to praise Apple’s innovative strength.

Another noteworthy change is the new background illumination, where every single key has its own LED. This not only saves space but also results in a perfect brightness distribution and less stray light (see picture).

Touchpad

Apart from the slightly reduced dimensions (11.2 x 7 centimeters), the MacBook uses the same Force Touch Trackpad that was reserved for the current version of the MacBook Pro 13 Retina until now. While a common ClickPad works like a kind of hinge and can therefore only be pushed down at the bottom, Apple’s construction can be clicked over the whole area and always provides a uniform and firm pressure point. The trick behind that is as simple as it is genius: The pad does not move at all – sensors measure the pressure of the fingers instead and activate electromagnets when you click it, which creates a haptic and acoustic feedback. This works very well in practice and you only believe that there is actually no mechanical click when you turn the device off.

More information about the functionality and advantages of the Force Touch Trackpad is available in the review of the MacBook Pro 13 Retina; the most important feature is without a doubt the eponymous Force Click, which can be triggered with a very firm click on the pad. It can be used to rename files with just one click or look up an unknown word in a browser, for example.

Other than that, the input device behaves like a traditional touchpad and convinces with excellent gliding capabilities and a great precision. We never missed an external mouse in practice – which is a good thing since you cannot really attach it anywhere (at least if you do not use a Bluetooth model).

Contrary to the (at least for Apple standards) comparatively inexpensive MacBook Air, the 12-inch MacBook is equipped with a high-resolution Retina display with the slightly awkward resolution of 2304x1440 pixels. The best description is probably a 16:10 version of the WQHD standard (2560x1440 pixels, 16:9), which is very popular for PC displays. Why Apple chose this resolution is evident when you look at the pixel density: At 226 PPI, the MacBook is virtually on the same level as the other two Retina models, the MacBook Pro 13 (227 PPI) and MacBook Pro 15 (221 PPI). Even though the Windows competition is sometimes equipped with even higher resolutions, the advantage of those higher resolutions tends towards zero above 200 PPI, but the cost and the power consumption will increase exponentially.

The display brightness can be adjusted automatically or manually and we were able to measure a maximum luminance of 325 cd/m². Such a high brightness is hardly necessary indoors, so we usually used the setting 12/16 (corresponds with 161 cd/m²). We could not see any signs of PWM flickering, neither subjectively nor when we filmed the display – this is not definitive proof that the display does not use a pulsating background illumination when you reduce the brightness, but we can at least rule out an annoying flickering. Another advantage of the display is the very even brightness distribution without backlight bleeding or clouding.

Apple does – as usual – not speak about the manufacturer of the IPS panel, but promises a 30% higher energy efficiency compared to other Retina MacBooks. The picture quality obviously did not suffer from these optimizations: The contrast ratio of 1,065:1 is at the higher end of the performance range that you can expect from a modern IPS display. The picture subjectively also benefits from the glare-type display, which results in even richer colors and black areas.

If the comparatively small screen is no problem for you, then you can even use the MacBook for picture editing. The deviations of the colors (DeltaE 1.6) and grayscale (DeltaE 1.9) from the ideal value are already very low ex-works; and both DeltaE values reach an impressive 0.55 after our calibration. This is also possible because the display can cover almost the whole sRGB color space (95.5%). If you do, however, require the wider AdobeRGB standard (61.8%), you will have to attach a high-quality external display.

Boot Camp is a handy tool of OS X used to install another operating system besides the Apple OS with just a few clicks. You only need a sufficiently sized USB stick as well as a corresponding image file – in our case a 90-day trial of Windows 8.1 Enterprise.

You can already start the freshly installed Windows after a couple of minutes (press and hold the Alt-key during the boot sequence) and use it without any significant restrictions; even small things like the brightness sensor of the display work without problems. We will compare the operation with OS X and Windows 8.1 a couple of times in the following sections.

Apple uses 28-Watt CPUs for the MacBook Pro 13 and 15-Watt processors for the current MacBook Air – but which chip is the best option for an even thinner and passively cooled 12-inch MacBook? One solution would be Intel’s recently launched Cherry Trail platform, which is used for the Microsoft Surface 3, for example. However, such an Atom SoC seems hardly appropriate for such a premium product like the MacBook; the logical decision is therefore Core M.

The Core M-series belongs to the fifth generation of Core-chips with the designation Broadwell, which means it supports familiar features like Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost. Thanks to the 14 nm manufacturing process and the comparatively low clocks, the TDP of this dual-core chip is rated at just 4.5 Watts. The advertised nominal clock of 1.1 GHz (2.4 GHz Turbo) for the Core M-5Y31 in the entry-level MacBook, however, suggests that the manufacturer increased the TDP to 6 Watts – an explicitly intended option by Intel that allows a better utilization of the Turbo Boost in combination with higher temperatures. The integrated GPU called HD Graphics 5300 obviously benefits from this as well.

Potential buyers of the MacBook can choose between a 256 or 512 GB SSD, although the latter is only available in combination with the faster Core M-5Y51 (additional charge for both: 350 Euros, ~$381). The memory is always identical with 8 GB LPDDR3-1600 RAM in a dual-channel configuration.

Similar to the HD Graphics 5500, the HD Graphics 5300 of the Core M-series has 24 Execution Units (Intel Gen. 8 architecture, DirectX 11.2 support), which runs at 300-850 MHz in this case. This range is almost fully utilized in short benchmarks, so the 3D performance is just 20% behind devices like the XPS 13 with active cooling solutions. However, this only works because the Core M can consume more than 10 Watts when the temperatures are low. Both the clocks and the performance will drop significantly once the chassis is warmed up – more on that in the next section.

We want to look at the video playback performance first. Thanks to its Retina display, the MacBook is also interesting for resolutions higher than Full HD, but is the hardware powerful enough for smooth playback of this material? If you only use the H.264 codec, then even 4K trailers with a very high bitrate (100 Mbps) are no problem. The situation changes with H.265: Only the upcoming Skylake architecture will have a full HEVC decoder, so the CPU is stressed and will get to its limits (depends on the bitrate) with 1080p videos.

The chassis does not even get lukewarm with normal tasks like browsing, office and video playback in OS X, despite the passive cooling solution. Besides the low power consumption of the Core M processor, the temperature development benefits from the massive aluminum construction in particular, which allows heat dissipation over the whole surface and therefore avoids inconvenient hotspots. It is interesting that the MacBook can be much warmer when you use Windows for similar tasks.

Sustained maximum load, which is simulated by FurMark and Prime95 (Windows) as well as Unigine Heaven and Cinebench (OS X), will result in higher temperatures. We measured almost 50 °C at the back, but the situation is still okay at the palm rest with up to 37 °C. This means you can still use the MacBook without restrictions, at least on the desk – but it is a bit too warm on the lap.

It is not surprising that the clocks are significantly reduced when you stress the processor and the graphics card at the same time. 800/1,200 MHz for the CPU as well as 300/500 MHz for the GPU (Windows/OS X) at a core temperature of almost 80 °C correspond with the maximum that you can expect from a passively cooled Core M notebook.

You might think that the integrated stereo speakers are on the usual poor performance level when you consider the limited space. But you couldn’t be more wrong: Even much bigger multimedia notebooks often do not create such a loud, balanced and powerful sound that produces noticeable bass. The speakers are pretty linear above 500 Hz, but the volume also just drops slowly below that – at least for a notebook. You can easily waive external speakers, even though there is a 3.5 mm stereo jack. The latter produces little noise but is not quite powerful enough for headphones with high impedance.

We could start to criticize the poor port variety, the lack of expandability or the low 3D performance – certainly points of criticism that are worth noting. You do, however, have to consider the target group for the MacBook and whether these issues are really important for it.

Apple has a clear target with the expansion of the product portfolio, which is even underneath the MacBook Air-series in respect of the size:

This subnotebook is not supposed to replace your PC or iMac at home, but it is a possibility to use the familiar OS X environment anywhere you go – whether you are in a coffee shop around the corner or on your next business trip.

Besides the playback of pictures/videos or web browsing (where an inexpensive tablet would be sufficient), you also get the chance to run any other application. Except for 3D applications, the passively cooled MacBook is surprisingly powerful and handles short peak load really well.

Apple once again delivers an almost flawless product in respect of the quality. Besides the careful build quality we are especially impressed by the high stability of the chassis that weighs just 920 grams. Display and touchpad are first-class as well, only the keyboard with the extremely short travel takes some time getting used to. If possible, you should visit an Apple Store and get an impression of the device before you invest 1,449 Euros (~$1577). The price could actually be the biggest problem for the MacBook: A slightly worse-equipped Asus Zenbook UX305 starts at 900 Euros (~$981); it definitely has a better price-performance ratio if you can live with 300 grams more weight and Windows. But Apple products have never really been a bargain.