REVIEW: Apple 12" MacBook Retina in 2023 - Any Good? - Now $150 Budget Laptop

Revisited review of the 12-inch Retina MacBook from 2015 - Still Usable?
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The 12-inch MacBook (also called the Retina MacBook, officially marketed as the new MacBook) is a discontinued Mac laptop made by Apple, which sat between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro in Apple's laptop lineup.

It was introduced in March 2015. It was more compact than any other notebook in the MacBook family at the time and included a Retina display, fanless design, a Butterfly keyboard with lower key travel. It only had a single USB-C port, used for both power and data, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack. It was released in 2015, revised in 2017, and discontinued in July 2019.

It had a similar appearance to the MacBook Air, but was thinner and lighter, offered (at the time of introduction) more storage and memory and a higher-resolution 2304×1440 Retina display. The MacBook has at times been available in space gray, silver, and gold finishes.

Apple boasts that the notebook additionally uses a new "tiered" battery design to maximize space inside the chassis and delivers 9-10 hours of runtime depending on use. The aluminum enclosure was 13.1 mm at its thickest point at the hinge end.

Details:
With the new MacBook, Apple has set out to do the impossible: engineer a full-size experience into the lightest and most compact Mac notebook ever. That meant reimagining every element to make it not only lighter and thinner but also better. The result is more than just a new notebook. It's the future of the notebook. A full-size keyboard. In a fraction of the space Apple believes that a comfortable, full-size keyboard is essential for a great notebook experience.

But to fit one into the elegantly thin new MacBook, they had to completely rethink how a keyboard is engineered and constructed. To create the new keyboard, they redesigned each key and its underlying mechanism - not only making the whole keyboard much thinner, but also allowing for more comfortable, precise, and responsive typing that just feels right.

Retina re-envisioned
The moment you open the new MacBook, its gorgeous 12-inch Retina display with edge-to-edge glass brings everything into focus. Every photo leaps off the screen in rich, vibrant detail. Over 3 million pixels render each letter with crystal clarity. And it all comes to light on the thinnest, most energy-efficient Retina display ever on a Mac, meticulously honed to deliver a bold visual experience within an impossibly minimal design.

To deliver the total Retina experience on the MacBook, Apple redesigned the pixels to create a larger aperture, allowing more light to pass through. This enabled Apple to use LED backlighting that's 30 percent more energy efficient than the displays on other Mac notebooks with no loss in brightness. Edge-to-edge glass display with IPS technology and a 178 degree viewing angle.

The trackpad, pushed even further with Force Touch With the new MacBook comes a whole new way to experience a trackpad. The Force Touch trackpad is engineered to deliver a responsive, uniform click no matter where you press. Customizable click sensitivity. Taptic Engine delivers click sensations through haptic feedback. Use Force click for easier access to helpful tools and information. Fast forward or zoom by gradually applying pressure to the trackpad. Supports all the Multi-Touch gestures Mac users love.

The trackpad was later brought to the Magic Trackpad 2 and the MacBook Pro. A similar technology (3D Touch) is also used in the Apple Watch and introduced with the iPhone 6S.

Versatile USB-C port
New industry standard USB-C port for charging, USB 3.1 data transfer, and native DisplayPort video output with adapter support for HDMI and VGA. Small, reversible design that's 1/3 the size of a current USB port.

With a Retina display and a thin, lightweight design, the Apple 12" MacBook (Early 2015) provides both portability and performance. Measuring just 0.5" (13.1mm) thin and weighing only 2 pounds, the MacBook is compact yet still has a premium feel, thanks to its unibody design.
Specs (Macbook 12" Retina Early 2015) -
- 1.1GHz Dual-Core Intel Core M Broadwell processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.4 GHz) with 4 MB shared L3 cache
- 8GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM, 256GB PCIe-based onboard flash storage
- Intel HD Graphics 5300, 2304 x 1440 Retina, LED-backlit display, Mac OS X v10.10 Yosemite, upgradable to OS 11 Big Sur
- 1x USB-C Port, 1x 3.5mm headphone audio jack, Force Touch trackpad

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