Macbook 12" Retina Early 2015 - Waste of Money?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,292 words · ~11 min read
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the MacBook early 2015 is here is it as
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amazing as Apple's inability to keep it in stock anywhere and the appearance of
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sealed units on eBay for greater than retail price would indicate or is it a
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colossal failure and only worthy of being burned with fire or given my usual
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water treatment well one or both of those things is definitely coming so get
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subscribed now if you aren't already
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Kingston casc 310 series business grade ssds feature firmware based power loss
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protection massive capacities and performance to spare in fact we're using
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them for our new production server click right here to learn more about them this
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video promised to be one of the
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easiest that I'd ever written and yet it ended up being one of the most difficult
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I thought it would be easy because I summed up with the help of our buddy
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John ringer from TechnoBuffalo my thoughts on the thing over two months
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ago and figured I could pretty much Point vaguely to my left and say
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basically that but it was difficult because now that I've actually been
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Hands-On and using it as a daily driver I'm finding the 12-in retina MacBook
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early 2015 edition whatever it's called
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man I hate their naming scheme a little bit more difficult to hate a little on
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the top of the unit under our protective dbrand vinyl wrap is a plain blasted
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anodized aluminum finish with an app app logo Square in the middle on the bottom
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is more plain aluminum and I guess this would be a good time to point out that
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it can be silver gold or space gray with some assembly screws and four black feet
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that are surprisingly non grippy making it easy to slide around on the desk then
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on the sides we find one of the main sources of the controversy that exists
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around this product a 32 mm combo audio
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jack on the right and a single tiny USB
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type-c connector on the left that's it
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so out of the box you are expected to use the built-in Wireless ac867 megabit
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Bluetooth or that USB port so it better
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be one special USB port then right well actually it kind of is so for starters
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and this is important it is not a USB 3.1 10 gbit Port rather it runs at the
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older USB 3.0 5 gbit speed but because
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it uses the type-c connector it gets some extra fancy functionality number
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one is power it can both deliver more power than a standard USB 3.0 type a
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port and it can receive power to charge
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your notebook which is good because it's sure not getting power from anywhere
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else number two is alternate modes which
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use auxiliary pins in the type-c connector to enable extra functionality
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like HDMI or DisplayPort video output with more fancy adapters soon to come
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but lonus you might say I wouldn't have needed any any of that adapter stuff if
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I just had a Meg safe power connector and a couple of normal ports on it
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Lenovo and Jus managed to devices this th without removing all the ports why
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couldn't Apple do that great question
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moving on the MacBook has a silky smooth albeit a little bit flimsy feeling one
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finger hinge that opens to reveal some of the actually more interesting things
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that Apple has done under the hood I'll start with the webcam it's a piece of
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crap and I'd say Apple's design team should be embarrassed but this is the
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same company that put a microphone on the back of an all-in-one PC so I guess
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anything goes around there so let's move on to the display why is it that apple
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is the only one willing to Buck the industry 16x9 aspect ratio Trend and put
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a 16 by10 display on smaller devices
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where that extra vertical space is a freaking godsend thank you Apple for the
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Bright Beautiful 2304 x440 stunner of an
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IPS monitor that you've cred into this device since I use a Razer Blade 14 as
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my daily driver I instantly started swiping around on it only to realize
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that Apple still thinks a fraction of a millimeter is more important than a touchscreen so the rules are similar to
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the local strip club but hey it's better than a p and Ice Cream Sandwich and I'll
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take it under the screen are the surprisingly not horrible speakers most
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devices this thin are basically unlistenable and will actually cause
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vibrating Distortion when turned up to the max but while I didn't experience
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any thunderous base while watching The Avengers Age of Ultron trailer the
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experience was actually not too shabby which leads us finally to the meet and
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potatoes of any notebook video what's it
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like to actually use the thing well the story starts before the device was even
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shipped when dbrand thoughtfully offered to pre-load Windows for me I told them
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no don't worry about it it's okay to which they replied are you sure you'll
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need the type-c breakout adapter from Apple which is out of stock and a USB
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hub just to plug in the two flash dri required for the boot camp setup
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process and that's really the experience in a nutshell want to do casual things
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like watching HD YouTube videos around the house willing to use another
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separate computer every time you want to plug in a mouse or transfer files off
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your camera great experience want to do any kind of power user stuff on the go
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although that stuff I just mentioned hardly feels power user to me buy
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something else because you'll either be carting around adapters that negate the
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ease ofuse benefits of thin light or you'll be constantly frustrated but
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while it's easy to hate on and the lack of ports all but eliminates this MacBook
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as an option for someone like me there were some things I really liked about
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the device the haptic feedback touchpad and keyboard both very controversial
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design choices stood out to me actually as a step in the right direction I'll
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start with the touchpad instead of a hinge at the top and a mechanical
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downward movement to make it click to save space that Apple assures us was
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used to cram in more batteries for that 99 hours of web browsing per charge the
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entire surface of the spacious glass
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toop capacitive touch pad is pressure sensitive and vibrates when you press a
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little bit to simulate a click then again with an adjustable pressure
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threshold in software when you press harder it's awesome this isn't your
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dad's haptic feedback that makes the whole device shake and sounds like it's
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going to fall apart it's incredibly subtle and I'm willing to bet that if
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you didn't tell your mom that the touchpad doesn't actually press down she
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would swear that it was moving down and
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on top of that it's really useful since there's no driver support in Windows for
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the feature not to mention the annoying delays on double touch to drag I had to
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fire up OS 10 which thankfully I somewhat know how to use thanks to this
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video series where it does loads of cool
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stuff like allowing quick renaming of files and folders file previews getting
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shipment details when you force touch a tracking number previewing links in your
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browser and much more Paradigm shifting
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I wish it was more customizable but who knows maybe that's to come then again it
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is Apple the keyboard though is one that
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many more people are raising hell about and I get it Apple's butterfly switch
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another space- saving feature does not have the same satisfying tactile
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feedback of a mechanical switch or even a half decent scissor switch but I have
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to give them credit here I may not enjoy the typing experience and I don't but if
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I evaluate it objectively then all I can say is this unlike ASUS they squeezed an
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ambient light sensitive backlight in there like Microsoft's original touch
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cover it's extraordinarily slim and
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without practice I am similarly fast with a similar number of Errors compared
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to my razor blade that's impressive
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which I guess lands us at the conclusion for this video where I usually try to
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summarize what the product is and who it's for so that'll take a bit longer
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than usual because those answers are anything but simple here what is it on
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the surface it appears to be a MacBook Air usurper with no IO that apple is
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cramming down our throats by refusing to modernize the air with a decent screen
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and storage but if we dig a little deeper and look at that tiny basically
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iPad sized PCB that apple is bragging about we discover what it really is a
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tablet whose touchcreen was stolen and replaced with a keyboard cover while it
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wasn't looking making it a proof of concept product for two things at least
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two things number one the rumored upcoming Apple CPU if a core M can power
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a hyper mobile yosity experience then I
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wouldn't be surprised to see an A10 or a11 chip do that in a couple of years
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and number two USB type c since it gives
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Apple a chance to ship this undoubtedly thoroughly validated but not yet field
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tested connector in a relative L low volume product before they risk
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deploying tens of millions of phones and tablets in the upcoming refresh only to
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discover that it caused all kinds of problems and as usual the what is it
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goes a long way towards helping us answer who is it for not me that's for
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sure as much as I absolutely love the battery life and I can't help but feel
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just a little bit cooler when I whip it out and start typing away at the airport
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I've got to do and you'd have a much easier time selling me an air with a
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decent screen thanks to it much more powerful Hardware not to mention the
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unassailably technologically Superior Thunderbolt and Meg safe power connector
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combo whose benefits range from additional speed and device daisy
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chaining to the fact that some in Starbucks isn't going to trip on your
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cable pulling your1 thousand computer off the table right as you were about to
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save that latte powered novel you've been working on in fact the only
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downside is that Thunderbolt stuff like docks is generally more expensive than
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USB stuff but on top of the MacBooks inexplicably large price premium
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compared to similar devices like the ASUS Zenbook ux 305 Apple wants $80 for
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a fracking USB breakout dongle anyway negating a lot of the cost savings but I
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told myself this wasn't going to turn into a rant so I won't do that and I'll
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just do a Snappy ending line like um so if Apple wants your devices to reflect
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who you are as a person then I guess if you bought a Macbook 12-in late 2015
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retina you're the kind of person who's not in a hurry and even if you were you
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don't have anything particularly important to do but you need to do it
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for a long time in between charges and look really cool while you do it
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speaking of looking cool Ting's mobile network supports the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus
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so you can look cool while talking on your phone without paying more than you
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have to they're the mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and
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customer satisfaction which means when you call them you don't talk to a robot
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you get through directly to a person you
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also pay for only what you use with the average Ting bill at about 24 months 24
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months $24 per month per device if
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you're stuck in a contract te will cover up to 25% of your cancellation fee up to
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$75 and if you head over to lin.com and
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try out their savings calculator and sign up you'll get $25 on service credit
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or towards a new device so check that out
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now so I think that's pretty much it guys thanks for watching like the video
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if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment preferably at the form Link in our video
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description there also linked in the video descrip deson is uh our merch page
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where you can buy a cool t-shirt like this one a contribution page where you can give us a monthly contribution if
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you want us to keep making videos and a place where you can change your Amazon
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bookmark to one with our affiliate code so we get a small Kickback whenever you're buying MacBooks on Amazon or do
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they even sell MacBooks on Amazon I don't know if you do buy a Macbook on
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Amazon I really don't recommend this one wait for an upgraded air hopefully it's
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coming thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe not to
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mention there are many excellent options for PC notebooks too just saying
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