After watching the Spring Apple Keynote in 2015 I felt a funny sort of inner desire for the new MacBook 12 inch that I just couldn’t shake.

At the time of this launch event, my daily driver was a practically brand new 2015 15″ MacBook Pro retina , this had (still has !) a Quad core i7, 16GB Ram, 256Gb SSD and the fabulous Intel Iris Pro GPU which is a lovely specced machine.

I have, to be honest, my first worry was about the potential performance (or potential lack of performance) I didn’t think about that single hole, I am an I.T Manager and currently still hands on, as a result I really rely on my kit to work and work well, but do I really need an i7 ? hell, do I need an i5 or an i3? my daily applications to do my job I need are :

Several web browsers, Safari, Firefox and Chrome

A decent RDP tool (I use the Microsoft RDP tool for MAC)

VPN Client

Microsoft Office suite – in particular outlook

Lync (or Skype for Business)

A Layer 2 Hypervisor like VMware Fusion 8

You may be thinking that this seems like a short list, I would hastily agree! this is because I use a Mac already and my main applications for work like the VMware vSphere client don’t exist for a Mac (yes I know there is a web client but it sucks) and the occasional need for Internet Explorer is satisfied with the Microsoft RDP tool or in a pinch I use my local Windows VM but not often.

Apart from the virtual machines in Fusion 8 (which I rarely used) my computing need was largely RAM dependant rather than CPU and after watching a few videos by trusted tech reviewers and reading endless reviews and trying the keyboard for myself in the Apple store, I decided to pull the trigger and get one, I got the bottom of the range 1.1Ghz 256Gb Gold version.

I’m pleased to say I haven’t looked back, this little laptop hasn’t missed a beat yet, it handles all web content and videos etc with ease, all office applications with ease, I have never even once thought damn, I wish I had my i7 right now, Even my virtual Windows 10 image runs with snappy ease!

Now let’s talk about that hole – the single and only port that this laptop has is a not-yet industry standard USB type C port capable of charging the device and providing input/output like display and USB connections another bold move for Apple much like the removal of a floppy disk drive in favour of a CD-ROM drive in the first iMac.

I thought long and hard about this “problem” before I took the plunge I had to ask myself a few questions, do I use lots of USB devices?, do I often need more than 1 more external display? do I want the option at some point? the answer was always no, I use Bluetooth mouse and keyboard anyway ( the Apple 1st party ones ) I use x1 27″ 2560×1440 HDMi display at work , I do use ethernet but I don’t really need to as wireless is more than good enough for me in the offices I work from, I would like to occasionally plug in an external drive however, I decided that buying the Official Apple Digital AV adapter really was necessary to complete the package:

It did take a couple of weeks to get fully competent with the new butterfly keyboard but now I type like a novice in comparison on my old MacBook pro keyboard, not because the Pro keyboards are bad, far from it, they are one of the best laptop keyboards out there in my opinion, it’s just I have so much room to touch each key on my new keyboard as the footprint of each key is so much larger that I now mistype on “regular” chiclet style keyboards.

The trackpad is as good as all the other spectacular MacBook trackpads this is expected but an unexpected thing has occurred – I now “click” instead of “tapping”, the artificial “Force touch” click feature on the trackpad is a better and more satisfying click than the physical click on the hinged style original trackpads, it’s adjustable also, if you get the chance to try it out then do so try turning the MacBook off and attempt a click, it doesn’t work ! its a great innovation I wouldn’t have guessed if I didn’t know already that it was a fake click, if you like the trackpads on Macs then you won’t be disappointed, for me this was an upgrade.

A mentionable stand out feature which I was aware of before I received it was the power and quality of the speakers, they are really, really good, lots of depth and clarity with lots of volume if required, well done Apple please re-use this in future MacBook release’s, please.

You can see in the images above that the Power brick for the MacBook is very small (slightly larger than an iPads power brick) it’s a 29w adapter and comes with a USB Type C to Usb Type C cable to charge your Macbook, the Digital AV adapter also pictured does everything I need it to, It has USB C , a regular USB 3 and HDMi , so I can charge it while connecting to all the external bits and bobs, I also have an official Apple USB to Ethernet adapter for when I NEED Ethernet which works a treat.

See the Size comparison below to my old 15 inch MacBook pro:

All in all it’s definitely recommended for someone like me and for what I do for a living taking into account what MY needs are, however, I guess if you need to edit videos and use CPU heavy programs like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop often and for a living you’re better off with the MacBook Pro 13, I have read that it can do it but has obvious bottlenecks like the low power CPU and passive cooling.

Don’t let that one hole put you off though people it’s a blessing and not a curse !

Feel free to get in contact if you have any questions at @Aikitechuk or email me at aikitechblog@gmail.com