Laptop Keyboards

[bhtooefr]

Yeah, the stabilization will be different, no bottom hinging, but a metal dome is a metal dome.

And, my 41CX is actually fairly soft, to be honest. Positive feeling, but not high force or that sharp. My 200LX, on the other hand, is a bit sharp and higher force than a keyboard normally would have.

[andrewjoy]

the keyboard looks impressive, but no thunderbolt ? combined USB and charge port . Sorry but i will stick with the macbook air thank you.

[Muirium]

The MacBook Yesteryear!

There's two USB-C ports on the new MacBook. I assume the protocol is smart enough to be able to handle accepting a charger on either side and whatever else you want on the other.

Thunderbolt was a port looking for a purpose — via adapters — so it's only logical to see it consumed by USB C which is doing the same thing! They said there would be Thunderbolt cables for it, among others. Thunderbolt's nice, but it was slow to take off and is likely to be the FireWire of this era, while USB is again USB. Fortunately, unlike the past, they can each play at being both now!

[andrewjoy]

there is only one USBc on it . The good thing about thunderbolt was the various uses. I am an old fashioned sort of chap , i like my Ethernet ports and so on, but at least with thunderbolt you could have a old school docking station with multiple usb video and Ethernet. That made the air a good choice for a basic every day work laptop, docking station on the desk, when you need to get up and go you had long battery life, a decent screen and a light laptop, for the people who need a few more options you can get a MBP. This for me is not a laptop its a tablet and keyboard that runs OSX. that's fine if all you want to do is surf the web and watch neflix but any more than that stick with an air+ docking station or MBP

[abhibeckert]

there is only one USBc on it . The good thing about thunderbolt was the various uses. I am an old fashioned sort of chap , i like my Ethernet ports and so on, but at least with thunderbolt you could have a old school docking station with multiple usb video and Ethernet. That made the air a good choice for a basic every day work laptop, docking station on the desk, when you need to get up and go you had long battery life, a decent screen and a light laptop, for the people who need a few more options you can get a MBP. This for me is not a laptop its a tablet and keyboard that runs OSX. that's fine if all you want to do is surf the web and watch neflix but any more than that stick with an air+ docking station or MBP

USB Type-C is completely different to regular USB.

It can do 100 watts of power in both directions, previously USB could only do 4.5 watts and only in one direction.

The speed has gone from "up to 10 Gbps when pigs fly" to actually being able to do that speed consistently.

And most importantly, it can allow direct hardware access, which means it's a proper replacement for thunderbolt. You can make a docking station that provides power and lets you plug in a pair of large monitors and has more USB ports and ethernet and so on.

[Muirium]

Aye. I heard a lot of squabbling over whether both ports can be identical, or one has to be the "designated charger" recently. I assume it's all bollocks, and you're free to plug the juice into either side. Which is a huge win. I've always loathed having to work around necessary cables.

Now the real question: is there a USB C to USB A adapter so we can plug in our mechs? And is there enough juice to power a solenoid equipped beamspring! My old 12" PowerBook can do it.

[andrewjoy]

if they do a docking station that can drive 2 1440p monitors has 4 USB ports and gigabit Ethernet all will be forgiven.

[Muirium]

Well, I just saw this:



It's a start. Not cheap, of course! But everyone will be making USB C stuff soon enough.

[abhibeckert]

if they do a docking station that can drive 2 1440p monitors has 4 USB ports and gigabit Ethernet all will be forgiven.

Presumably their 27" display will be updated to use USB Type-C.

It has three USB ports, FireWire 800, Gigabit Ethernet, a mini display port allowing you to daisy-chain a second 27" display, and a MagSafe charging cable compatible with every current MacBook (except for this new one).

However, if you're going to use this thing as a "serious" desktop replacement, the fact it only comes with 8GB of RAM will bite you in the ass. This thing is really meant to be used on the sofa or in a cafe, it's not a proper workstation.

[Muirium]

Exactly. The processor is pretty weak too. It's basically 2015's equivalent of 2008's original MacBook Air. But with a much nicer screen and a stronger bag of tricks for connections.


Yeah, nice try, first gen Air!

Another thing USB C can do (so I've heard) handle resolutions all the way up to 5k Retina! Not even Thunderbolt 2 can do that at 60 Hz. The next generation of Apple's desktop displays should be Retina as well as USB C. I'm not convinced this MacBook will be the best thing to actually drive them, but it's clearly the first model of a whole new generation; like its unibody ancestor.

[abhibeckert]

Another thing USB C can do (so I've heard) handle resolutions all the way up to 5k Retina!

Are you sure?

5K requires something like 40Gbps of bandwidth. As far as I know, USB Type-C is only 10Gbps.

[jacobolus]

Pretty sure USB 3.1 isn’t going to be able to handle 5k displays at 60 Hz yet. The new version of Thunderbolt should be able to though. I think if you want a 5k display you’re going to need a Macbook Pro for the next couple years. (Not to mention, I’m not sure if the graphics hardware of the new Macbook can handle churning out that many pixels.)

I hope Apple gets around to releasing a couple sizes of external “retina” displays soon, in any case.

[abhibeckert]

Pretty sure USB 3.1 isn’t going to be able to handle 5k displays at 60 Hz yet. The new version of Thunderbolt should be able to though.

Thunderbolt 2 is limited to 4K, and it can just barely pull that off.

5K allegedly requires twice as much bandwidth as 4K.

AFAIK dell is working on a 5K panel that will run off two cables, but it'll only work with GPUs that partnered with Dell (at least for now).

[bhtooefr]

USB Type-C supports DisplayPort Alternate Mode, which basically supports using up to 4 of the USB 3 lanes as DisplayPort lanes instead (and if you do use all four lanes, USB falls back to 2.0 mode). Then, it's a matter of what the GPU's DisplayPort interface supports.

[jacobolus]

It’s Thunderbolt 3 that will be able to handle it. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/04/ ... connector/

(And a new incompatible connector? Yeesh.)

[Muirium]

Well, might as well bow out with a gaffe. USB's positioned to obviate Thunderbolt now. Assuming, perhaps unwisely, USB keeps the pressure on and responds to Thunderbolt 3 with better bandwidth of its own as well. JUST KEEP THE SYMMETRICAL CONNECTOR GUYS, KAY!

Pretty sure I heard the "5k Retina works well over USB C" tidbit on this podcast, but they don't have a link for that in their notes:

http://atp.fm/episodes/100

Anyway, we live in transitioning times. As always…

[abhibeckert]

Well, might as well bow out with a gaffe. USB's positioned to obviate Thunderbolt now. Assuming, perhaps unwisely, USB keeps the pressure on and responds to Thunderbolt 3 with better bandwidth of its own as well. JUST KEEP THE SYMMETRICAL CONNECTOR GUYS, KAY!

Keep in mind thunderbolt is currently using copper but was originally fibre and intel does intend to bring out fibre versions one day, promising speeds of 100Gbps over cables 300 feet long.

USB will take over for consumer hardware, but Thunderbolt isn't going away completely.

[jacobolus]

There are already fiber optic versions of thunderbolt cables.

For example, http://store.apple.com/us/product/HE125 ... by-corning

[Muirium]

Yeah, Thunderbolt was originally an Intel project called Light Peak and was all about the fibre. They switched down to copper at Apple's request, so I heard, to make an actual shipping product. Apple needed something to replace FireWire and Ethernet, and suggested the MiniDisplayPort connector so they could down a whole flock of birds with one stone. It made a lot of sense for them both.

I'm not anti Thunderbolt by the way. I like it the same way I was into FireWire back in the USB 1.1 days. But USB's gotten much smarter lately. If we do end up with one port to rule them all, it won't be Thunderbolt.

[Mal-2]

I'm not anti Thunderbolt by the way. I like it the same way I was into FireWire back in the USB 1.1 days. But USB's gotten much smarter lately. If we do end up with one port to rule them all, it won't be Thunderbolt.

No matter how much raw speed gets wedged into USB, backward compatibility and a lack of standardization of protocol pretty much ensures that at least some subset of USB devices are forever doomed to be pantsu-on-head retarded from a design standpoint. So long as arse-backward semi-broken shit "just works", there will always be semi-broken arse-backward shit made. (Should that be 'shite' for maximum regionali[z/s]ation?)

[Muirium]

Uninspired Shitey Behemoth.

[bhtooefr]

It's certainly not universal (latency isn't where it needs to be for some applications, and it's not implemented the same way twice), as of USB 3.1 it's no longer serial (2 bits wide instead of 1, that's how it got twice the bandwidth of 3.0), and it's not really a bus either.

(In a true bus, every station receives every communication on the network. For instance, a segment of 10Base2 is a bus - every station sees every packet. Same for a UTP Ethernet segment using a hub. In USB 1.x and 2.0, every device on a hub saw every packet from the host, although only the host saw packets from devices (partially because of how USB treats the host and device differently, so it could be argued that those versions of USB were still buses of sorts). In USB 3.x, a host can specify that packets are only to be sent to certain devices, meaning that USB 3.x "hubs" are now actually true switches, and USB is no longer a bus.)

[jacobolus]

It's certainly not universal, as of USB 3.1 it's no longer serial, and it's not really a bus either.

On the other hand, it’s a EU-mandated plug that will soon be used for every cellphone in the world, and not long after that, every other kind of small gadget, and it does 100W DC, which hopefully means it can be used as a power plug by all sorts of little appliances that just need DC power and don’t want to include their own onboard transformer/rectifier.

I can’t wait until every wall outlet has a couple spare USB C ports on it, so I can use it for my LED desk lamp / coffee grinder / printer / tiny stereo / wifi router / clock ...

[abhibeckert]

It's certainly not universal, as of USB 3.1 it's no longer serial, and it's not really a bus either.

On the other hand, it’s a EU-mandated plug that will soon be used for every cellphone in the world, and not long after that, every other kind of small gadget, and it does 100W DC, which hopefully means it can be used as a power plug by all sorts of little appliances that just need DC power and don’t want to include their own onboard transformer/rectifier.

I can’t wait until every wall outlet has a couple spare USB C ports on it, so I can use it for my LED desk lamp / coffee grinder / printer / tiny stereo / wifi router / clock ...

Last I heard, the EU standard was always voluntary, it was never madatory to use USB, and it's expired now anyway.

But I agree, soon this thing will be everywhere.

[Ace]

Ugh.....................the new MacBook.

At first, I was all over it.But then all of it's main potential drawback got to me.

Lack of power: There are many advantages (both "actual" and cosmetic) to the machine, but at the end of the day, it all comes back to the point that it runs off of an M processor. This thing is nice, and considering that it does come with 8 gigs of RAM (something I've learned (through my father's experience) is necessary to really get anything done) and a Retina display. To be honest, if I needed to get a laptop solely for recreational use, this would be top candidate. I wouldn't buy a MacBook Air over this. As pointed out by this article, the only real reason to buy the Air now is if you need a cheap computer. If you need to go pro, go Pro. Unfortunately, that's me at the moment. I need to go Pro. Which makes me extremely sad that the MacBook Pro didn't incorporate Apple's new keyboard technology. And say I accept that I won't get a terrific typing experience on the go; they also didn't include a USB-C port. I know Apple wants to keep attention on it's latest product, but come on! Fine, I'l accept that they didn't include the keyboard, new colors, enhanced layout etc. They were gimmicks (to most people; I'm sure most everyone on this forum would have appreciated that keyboard). Apple could have used them as bait. But the USB-C port?! That was critical, and I'm quite unwilling to forgive them for not including it on the MacBook Pro.

Apple didn't fail (IMO) by any means. But they didn't manage to grip me like they could have. My attention is now turned towards Microsoft and what they can do with their next Surface. If the last one could replace my laptop, I'm hoping this one is able to replace my Mac.

[andrewjoy]

I don't see why anyone would buy the macbook over the air. Quite frankly the air is superior in almost every regard.

[Ace]

I don't see why anyone would buy the macbook over the air. Quite frankly the air is superior in almost every regard.

I just don't see it. Battery life is comparable in both. The MacBook's keyboard as well as trackpad is superior. It's design is more compact. It's resolution is much higher. If it is to be used lightly, a USB-C port should suffice.

The only aspect in which the Air is superior is it's raw power.

[bhtooefr]

Reviews are indicating that the MacBook's typing experience isn't far off of that of a tablet.

That's not superior at all.

The ports are an issue for some people.

And, a Core M 5Y71 (the fastest MacBook processor) is going to be quite a bit slower than a Core i5-5250U (the slowest MacBook Air processor), as you did imply.

[Ace]

No..................no. Nonononononononononononononononononononono
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Damn you Apple and your fancy keyboard porn!!! You had me convinced there was something better!!!
YOU LIED TO ME! WELL, I'M GOING WITH THE SURFACE (4) NOW! AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!

[Muirium]

You got your hands on one or is this just a lucid dream?