Last year’s introduction of the 12-inch MacBook — that’s just MacBook, not MacBook Air or MacBook Pro — highlighted some of the best elements of Apple design. The laptop is beautiful, super thin, and lightweight, with a Retina display and a new kind of trackpad.
But its sleekness came with a sacrifice: reviewers knocked it for its performance, and deservedly so. It was a laptop meant to push the entire category forward, maybe to the point where “devices” just totally disappear into our lives — but it didn’t have nearly enough oomph.Now there’s a new, updated MacBook that’s replacing last year’s MacBook. Really there are two things new about it: one of those things is cosmetic, and the other is the opposite of cosmetic. The result is the same laptop design, with better performance. And yet if you’re wondering which Apple laptop offers the best package, it’s not this one. The MacBook is still meant to push the category forward — but this revision shows that it’s doing it in stages, and at a high price.