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by jacobolus 3088 days ago
Carrying around the two laptops, the newer one’s slightly smaller bezel, significantly thinner case, and weight reduction (overall, it fills 22% less volume and weighs 13% less) make a pretty big difference in portability, without the sacrifices that go into the Air laptops.

If you leave it on a desk all day, then it doesn’t really matter, but if you’re constantly taking it on the go you’ll likely appreciate the change (even if you don’t think it’s worth the trade-off in keyboard button travel distance, elimination of some ports, opportunity missed for a larger battery, etc.).

Personally I wish they had allocated an extra millimeter of depth for the keyboard.
2 comments
ido 3088 days ago
Are you carrying two laptops at the same time? I found I've not had too much trouble carrying my laptop in a backpack since 2008 (when I replaced a beastly ~5kg 15" Acer with a thin 2.5kg 14" Dell Latitude).

That really made a huge difference (the Acer used to give me backaches, as it also had a much larger power brick) but all the laptops since didn't really bother me in terms of weight.

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microtonal 3088 days ago
That really made a huge difference (the Acer used to give me backaches, as it also had a much larger power brick) but all the laptops since didn't really bother me in terms of weight.

I cycle to work every day. I found switching from a MacBook 12" (2015) to a MacBook Pro (2016) a huge downgrade in this respect (the 12" is 0.45 kg lighter).

If Apple releases a MacBook 12" with at least two USB-C ports and good 4k@60Hz support, I will probably switch back to the MacBook 12" on the next upgrade.

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jacobolus 3088 days ago
No, one at a time. I’m just saying that there is a noticeable difference between carrying the new one all the time vs. carrying the old one all the time. And that one was noticeably more portable than the previous model with the spinning disk and CD drive.
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ak39 3088 days ago
Isn’t the Air designed for that purpose?
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jacobolus 3088 days ago
The new laptops have many spec advantages over the Airs. Most notably for me, they have displays with double the pixel density.
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