Apple reveals its first fanless MacBook

9 Mar 2015

In what it describes as its most extreme and efficient notebook yet, Apple has unveiled the new 12-inch MacBook with Retina display, which has no fans and features a USB-C cable for charging and transferring data.

Apple upgraded notebooks from across its range, but claims to have reinvented the notebook with the powerful new MacBook.

The machine comes with a logic board that is 67pc smaller than the logic board in its predecessor.

Apple filled the remaining space with batteries, giving the new MacBook all day battery life.

At just 13.1mm thick and weighing just two pounds, the new machine is smaller and ligher than anything Apple has produced before. For example it is 24pc thinner than the latest model MacBook Air.

Apple pretty much redesigned everything about this new MacBook. For example, it even changed the scissors assembly that sits beneath each and every key, resplacing it with a butterfly assembly to give it more accuracy and four times more stability.

“This is our vision for the future of the MacBook,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president for worldwide marketing, who described the new notebook as “uncompromising in design.”

#MacBook lust

The new notebook also comes with a new Force Touch trackpad, which enables a new gesture called Force Click, a click followed by a deeper press, for tasks like pulling up the definition of a word, quickly seeing a map or glancing at a preview of a file.

The entire machine is metal clad and comes in three colours silver, gold and spaceship grey.

“Hashtag MacBook lust,” Schiller proclaimed as he revealed that the new MacBook starts at US$1,299.

Apple also today updated the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air with fifth generation Intel Core processors, Intel HD Graphics 6000, and Thunderbolt 2, and added up to two times faster flash to the 13-inch MacBook Air, making the perfect everyday notebooks even better.

“Today the popular 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, 11-inch MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Air all received significant upgrades,” Schiller stated.

“The 13-inch MacBook Pro has been updated with the latest processors, more powerful graphics, faster flash, longer battery life and the all-new Force Touch trackpad. We’re also bringing the latest processors and graphics, and faster Thunderbolt 2 to the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air, as well as two times faster flash to the 13-inch MacBook Air.”

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is available today through the Apple Online Store and select Apple Authorised Resellers with a 2.7 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.1 GHz, 8GB of memory and 128GB of flash storage starting at €1,499 inc VAT, rising to €1,699 and €2,049 inc VAT as faster processsors and more storage are added.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com