Hi all, I have a 2017 12” MacBook i7 16Gb ram which I thinking of selling as I’m pretty underwhelmed by its performance etc considering it specs. I bought the highest spec as I intended to keep it for years. It’s my first mac and still getting used to it even though I have been it about 18 months now. I don’t do any major photo/video editing but just for the usual tasks web like browsing, YouTube, email etc. Looking at some suggestions for alternative. I like the idea of a 2 in 1. I had a Surface Pro 2017 model before and it went faulty so I’m not sure if I want to go back there, also I’m looking at the new iPad Pro 11” but I’m not sure if it can be a complete laptop replacement. I don’t want an overly big footprint, just something I can pick up and use while I’m on the couch etc. Cheers
12” MacBook Alternative
Comments
Dell XPS 13
But coil issues? Or has that been fixed?
So your MacBook i7 is too slow, and you want to replace it with a slower iPad?
If you’re after performance in a Mac, you don’t buy the bottom of the range MacBook, you buy the MacBook Pro. That being said I don’t see how it’s too slow for web browsing, unless Brazzers has really upped their system requirements.
'i7' is a marketing term, the 12" is a Y series processor (also known as Core-M) the iPad is SUBSTANTIALLY faster assuming what you want to do can run on it. I wasn't sure the 12" was available with 16GB ram though?
I have a faster Macbook (top spec 13") than OP and and iPad Pro, the iPad Pro is by far the better performer.
Personally I prefer a real laptop for typing tasks. But media consumption the iPad is king (it can even video edit faster than my desktop with discrete GPU :\ )
Is there a 13” Macbook?
Yes, both air and pro.
@GordonR: Pro I also missed the ‘Pro’ when referring to the iPad but assume that other than the 12” MacBook i mean pro for both.
It’s the lack of the GPU that really kills the 13” MacBook Pro. My 2017 version is not even as fast as my 2011 MacBook in some tasks. 2018 version is an improvement. And the 15” is much better again. But the software optimization and GPU on the iPad Pro makes it a beast. As long as what you want to do can be done on it. (I still have heaps I need a desktop OS for)
The iPad Pro runs laps around the MacBook performance-wise. The MacBook Air is the bottom of the range, not the 12" MacBook.
But yeah, I agree for general web browsing, videos, email and Office the MacBook should be fine, so I'm not sure what problems the OP is having. It's a pretty great little machine for general computing, just don't expect to rely on it for more intensive tasks - you traded performance for portability.
For a 2-in-1, you're probably better off looking at a Windows machine for now. iPads are great at what they do and have a lot of power under the hood, but you really have to work with iOS and understand that you're not gonna be able to do some of the things you can on a laptop.
I've got the base level early 2015 12 inch MacBook,the launch one with 1.1Gz. My MacBook before that was the 2012 MacBook Pro 15 inch with i7. So it was a bit of a drop in power, but I grew to like it and am still using it today. I can even open photoshop projects and illustrator projects and do some basic work with them, but otherwise I still need to do my main work on another machine because I need to use all these apps at the same time.
anyway I say give the MacBook another chance. it runs silent, which is nice. You don't notice it now, but if you got a laptop with active cooling then you'll suddenly notice the fan noise. I routinely have quite a few safari and chrome tabs open and when playing two videos at once and downloading one of them, yes it gets hot and a notice comes up saying closing chrome may improve performance, but I just deal with it. I'd love to upgrade to the 2017 I7 model, it would probably feel like a supercomputer compared to my 12 inch MacBook.
Consider installing Windows on your Macbook and see how that goes. You can dualboot both OS.
https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201468