Contemplating getting a Macbook (2015 12" Retina)

I'll admit I sat and used it in the store for about 30 minutes with safari playing youtube videos, the screen brightness turned down one notch, was opening/closing some other apps and spent some time playing around with gestures like mission control and full screen apps on the laptop so I was probably using it slightly more heavily than was would be normal use reading web pages/etc.

it's very difficult to find accurate battery life figues as most of the manufactures pretty much flat out lie about them and I'm sure most review sites are taking bribes to big up the runtime! Techradar seemed to be the most honest one I've found. Disappointingly the reality seems to be that most devices only manage to get 50-75% of the life promised.

Still, I haven't seen a laptop I like better than the Macbook so I'm gonna go for it and can live with a real world battery life of 5-6 hours if it comes down to that.

On the plus side at least with the Macbook having USB-C and an Core M CPU it's possible to charge it with an off the shelf battery pack. Speaking of which has anyone on here bought a spare USB battery charger for carrying around with them and are there any that you'd recommend?
 
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I would wait and hold out for the upcoming upgrade to the laptop ranges which is due. If the rumour is somewhat closer to the truth.

Choice between a MacBook vs MacBook Pro? easy answer, the MBP. To me the price justification is just not there for the MB. If the portability and the weight really is the issue, go for Macbook Air.

But as mentioned, there is a very possible chance that the newer models of the MacBook Air's will have a retina screen.

As for the battery life, I have a 2009 MBP 13". Purchased for £200. Lasts about 4 hours tops, because it's not an Apple original battery.
 
The reason I don't really want a MacBook Pro is primarily the weight really. My current laptop is a 11" Dell M101z model (which was for the time 5 years ago a small portable one!). However it weighs about 1.7Kg and I find it uncomfortable to sit on my lap for long periods and its weight is very noticeably when lugging it around in a backpack with the charger. That's why I really want a 12-13" ultra-portable around the 1Kg mark and the MBP feels about the same as my old laptop.

I get what you're saying about new product lines. The current 12" macbook is somewhat of an oddity in the range as you have the Macbook air in 11/13" models and the MBP in 13/15" models.

If I was Apple I'd ditch the macbook air line entirely and replace it with 12/14" retina Macbooks similar to the current 12" version. I suspect the current 12" will be left mostly unchanged though I think it'll get a new Skylake CPU and they may possibly add another USB-C port. Maybe controversially ditching the 3.5mm jack to achieve this!

Similarly the MBP will be released in 14/16" models in place of the current 13/15" ones with a similar sized chassis but edge-to-edge displays. I expect they'll add Skylake CPUs and USB-C support to it at the same time. Hopefully the base model will come with a 256Gb SSD in place of the laughable 128Gb one they flog right now.

That's what I'd do if I were Apple anyway :)
 
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I would wait a bit, the Skylake chips that apple is likely too use are anywhere from 25%-100% faster in some benchmarks I saw which should be some awesome gains.

Also the 13"/15" rMBP are likely too get a redesign which should make them thinner/smaller so a 13" rMBP could be closer too 1KG mark and would have more ports. Gains would likely come from new battery life boost by going Skylake and thus needing a smaller battery.
 
Sorry to hijack the thread but the new MBP is rumored to be coming in June, I was just wondering if anyone know what the pricing is like when they first come out?
 
Never changes if I remember correctly, in fact I think the last years were a bit cheaper than the year before.

The 2016 just slides into the shop, the 2015 disappears.
 
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