Apple MacBook (2016) review: Updated, but is it any better?

Updating the MacBook

Last year, Apple revived the MacBook name with an all-new super thin and super light ultraportable notebook. It’s Apple’s thinnest and lightest ever notebook and it’s an impressive piece of kit, requiring Apple to redesign major components such as the Retina display and keyboard, in order to achieve the MacBook’s svelte figure. However, as slim and as portable as it is, it’s not perfect. We criticized it for its lack of performance and the fact that it only came with a single USB Type-C port. You can read more about it in our original review here.

A year on, Apple has updated the MacBook, but do the upgrades change anything? That’s what we are here to find out.

What’s new, and not?

Before we talk about what’s new, let’s talk about what’s not. First of all, the size of the display, dimensions, and weight are the same. That’s a good thing because this means the new MacBook is just as compact and portable. If you need a reminder, the MacBook is just 920g heavy and measures just 13.1mm at its thickest point. A year on, these numbers are still pretty impressive.

Also unchanged are all the technical wizardry that went into making last year’s MacBook so thin and light. The re-engineered Retina Display, innovative Force Touch trackpad, and the special keys, are all present on this MacBook. We won’t go through these in detail and you can refer to our review from last year to find out more.

Much to our chagrin, the MacBook still comes with a single USB Type-C port, which has to be used for power, data and video. It supports USB 3.1 Gen 1 and the maximum data transfer rate is 5Gbps. We talked about the limitations of a single port before in our review, but what this means for most users is that some type of adapter or USB hub is a must.

So what’s new? The most obvious update to the new MacBook is that it is now available in a new rose gold finish. It’s the same rose gold finish as you’d find on Apple’s iPhones and whether that’s a good thing or not, we’ll leave it up to you. Generally speaking, we find that it’s a very divisive color choice - people either really love it or hate it. However, there’s no denying that it’s the most obvious way to tell others that you just got a spanking new MacBook.

Underneath, the MacBook has been given several internal upgrades. The most significant upgrade is that the MacBook is now powered by Intel’s latest sixth generation Skylake processors, specifically the ultra low TDP Core M processors. Like last year’s model, the new MacBook will be offered in two off-the-shelf configurations, with the differences being the processor and storage capacity.

• The entry-level MacBook will receive a 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Core m3-6Y30 processor (4MB L3 cache) and 256GB of flash storage.
• The higher spec model gets a 1.2GHz dual-core Intel Core m5-6Y54 processor (4MB L3 cache) and 512GB of flash storage.

If you are familiar with Intel’s new Core M processors, you’d find that Apple has once again specified its MacBook’s to run at higher base clock speeds than Intel’s base specifications. Intel’s specifications lists the Core m3-6Y30 with a base clock speed of 900MHz, while the Core m5-6Y54 has a base clock speed of 1.1GHz. Clearly, Apple has either overclocked it for more performance or at least qualified their CPU batches to operate faster.

Both new Core M processors will feature Intel’s new Intel HD Graphics 515 integrated GPU. It’s Intel’s new low-end integrated GPU and features 24 execution units running at 1GHz. Although it only looks like a small upgrade over last year’s Intel HD Graphics 5300 integrated GPU, Apple claims that the new Intel HD Graphics 515 integrated GPU will provide the MacBook up to 25% better graphics performance.

The final update is the storage subsystem. Last year’s MacBook already had fast PCIe-based SSD storage, but those were running over a PCIe 2.0 x4 interface. The SSD in the new MacBooks will employ the use of a PCIe 3.0 x2 interface, which benefit from lower encoding overheads. As a result, though theoretical maximum bandwidth remains about the same, Apple claims that sequential read performance is up to 20 percent faster, while sequential write performance is up to 90 percent faster compared to last year’s MacBooks.

So in a nutshell, the new MacBook has three significant updates. It is now available in a new color; it gets newer, faster processors; and it has an improved storage subsystem. And as a result of all these updates, the MacBook now offers an additional hour of battery life. According to Apple, the new MacBook will deliver up to 10 hours of web browsing or 11 hours of iTunes movie playback.

Do their claims live up to our expectations? Hit the next page to find out.

Performance Benchmarking

To evaluate the new MacBook, we have installed Windows 10 on it using Bootcamp. This will allow us run our usual suite of benchmarks and let us peg its performance against comparable Windows notebooks that we have reviewed. One thing to note is that Apple has dropped Bootcamp support for Windows 7, so Mac users who wish to run Windows on their MacBooks will only be able to choose between Windows 8 and Windows 10.

For comparison, we have included results of last year’s MacBook as well as last year’s 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display and the 13-inch MacBook Air. As for Windows machines, we have included results of the Dell XPS 13, winner of the Ultrabook category in our last Tech Awards, along with the HP Envy and Microsoft Surface Pro 4.

This is the list of benchmarks used:

• Geekbench 3
• PCMark 8
• 3DMark 2013
• Tomb Raider

Geekbench 3

To get a sense of how the new MacBook stacks up against its predecessor and Apple’s other notebooks, we decided to run Geekbench. Geekbench is a popular Mac benchmarking software that measures a Mac system’s performance by running a variety of tests that taxes individual components of a system such as the processor and memory and then gives an overall score of the system’s performance.

Unsurprisingly, the new MacBook posted higher scores than last year's model. In single-core operations, the new MacBook and its Skylake Core m3 processor was around 7% faster. But it was in multi-core mode that the new MacBook really impressed, racking up a score of 5023, which translated to 11% increase in performance and brought it close to the performance of the MacBook Air. The MacBook Pro was untouchable as the model we tested had a much more powerful Intel Core i5-5257U processor.

 

PCMark 8

Moving on to PCMark 8, we can see that the new MacBook holds a steady and significant advantage over last year's MacBook in most workloads. On the Home, Work and Creative workloads, the new MacBook's scores were consistently over 20% greater than last year's MacBook, and was also quite close to the scores of the MacBook Air. However, the new MacBook still can't match up to the MacBook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pro 4, and also the more powerful UltraBooks like the Dell XPS 13 and HP Envy.

3DMark 2013

Apple claims that the new Intel HD Graphics 515 integrated GPU will offer much more performance, but its performance on 3DMark 2013 was a mixed bag. On Cloud Gate, the scores of the new MacBook and last year's model were almost identical. But on the more intensive Fire Strike scenario, the updated model posted a score of 634 which translated to a performance gain of around 24%. Despite the performance gain, the MacBook still offers significantly less graphics performance when compared to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and also others comparable Windows-based Ultrabooks.

Tomb Raider

On Tomb Raider, the new MacBook recorded significant graphics performance gains of over 10% when compared to its predecessor. While that's certainly good news, it unfortunately doesn't mean that Tomb Raider is playable on the new MacBook. In fact, as you can see from the graphs here, integrated graphics still have quite some ways to go before they can be used for gaming.

Battery Life and Power Consumption

According to Apple, the new MacBook will provide an additional hour of battery life when compared to last year's model. However, our battery test, which consists of tasks like video editing, web browsing and gaming, did not confirm their claims. In fact, the new MacBook recorded 293 minutes or 4 hours and 53 minutes, which is just 6 minutes longer than last year's model - in other words, negligible. In fact, because the new MacBook has a slightly larger battery (41.14Wh vs. 39.7Wh), its power consumption is actually slightly higher (8.48W vs. 8.3W). That said, 293 minutes still translates to nearly 5 hours, which is very decent. However, the MacBook was no match for the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, which easily managed over 5 hours.

Portability Index

Our Portability Index factors in battery life, weight and volume so you can see which notebook is the most worthwhile to carry around. Unsurprisingly, given the MacBook's extremely compact dimensions and lightweight, it was the runaway leader in this category. In fact, thanks to the slightly better battery life, the new MacBook actually managed a higher score than last year's model. What's more impressive to see is the difference in scores of the MacBook and the already very portable MacBook Air. The MacBook also scored significantly higher than other super portable Ultrabooks like the Dell XPS 13 and even the Microsoft Surface Pro 4.

Still the most portable Mac, still the same problems…

The Apple MacBook is a stunning example of the company’s prowess in design. And even now, a year on, it doesn’t look or feel any less stunning. The thinness is amazing, and in your hands, it feels just like a slightly heavier iPad. If portability is your top priority, you’d be hard pressed to find another notebook that is as portable as the MacBook.

Overall, the new MacBook represents an incremental update over last year’s model. But these updates are much welcomed. The new rose gold finish is not for everyone, but it will appeal to users who already have a rose gold iPhone or Apple Watch Sport Edition.

Personally, even though it looks more pink than rose gold, I am quite fond of this new finish. But if it were up to me, I’ll pick gold in a heartbeat. That said, colors are really a matter of personal preference and the addition of the new rose gold finish just serves to offer consumers more choices to choose from, and that’s always a good thing.

On the performance front, the MacBook has received upgrades in the form of new Core M processors and slightly faster SSDs drives, and the benchmarks do show noticeable improvements. In fact, the new MacBook's performance now comes close to that of the MacBook Air.



But to be honest, most users will be hard pressed to notice the difference in real world day to day usage scenarios. Which is also to say that the MacBook is still an immensely capable machine for running productivity apps and tasks like web browsing, watching videos and emails.

Unfortunately, much of the issues we had with last year’s model still holds true for this year’s one as well. For example, the keyboard still needs getting used to, and the Core M processors are still susceptible to heat soak - especially if heavily taxed for extended periods.

But our biggest gripe with the MacBook is still the single USB Type-C port. Despite USB Type-C’s many benefits - smaller size, reversible operation, and the ability to transmit power and data - there’s only a handful of devices that support this new connector. And because the MacBook only has one USB Type-C port, on which it has to rely on for both power and data, what this really means is that adapters and hubs are necessary. We wrote about the problems of the MacBook’s single USB Type-C port in detail in our review and you can read it here.

As for cost, Apple has left the pricing of the two models unchanged, which is great. The entry-level model with a Core m3 processor and 256GB of storage will set users back S$1,788; whereas the higher-spec’ed model with a Core m5 processor and 512GB of storage is S$2,288.

In short, our assessment of the MacBook hasn’t changed with the updates that it has received. It’s a fantastic notebook for users who seek portability above everything else, but for more casual users, it’s best to stick with the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.

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