I had some time to play around with the new MacBook at a couple of Apple Stores this week and I have a couple of first impressions about the device.
- It is super tiny, smaller than I was expecting. It is also really light. When commentators have called it “and iPad with a keyboard” they are not kidding. I’m impressed with what Apple was able to do.
- The touchpad is really, really nice. I’ve heard some complaints from people, but I’ve been a touch-to-click user as long as I can remember so the Force Touch Trackpad is a huge step forward as far as feedback is concerned.
- The keyboard is … different. Now having as much of any distance to press down makes the keyboard feel foreign, but I was able to type effectively after only a few minutes of use. I’d like to see that same engineering put to use in a keyboard with deeper presses and see how it feels. The keyboard itself was very solid, each keypress deliberate, but it could use some more distance.
Overall, I’d love to have one. It would instantly become my carry machine, maybe even replacing the iPad in most situations. It is not without tradeoffs, but an impressive machine.
I do not own one and only used it for a total of maybe 40 minutes between the two stores, so feel free to ignore everything I wrote above as well.