I was just given one of these and plan to use it when I travel as my beloved MBP14/M1, while a wonderful and powerful computer is too heavy to carry around in a knapsack or bag all day.

The battery has only been cycled 61 times according to the system software, so it would appear to have a lot of life left. It seems to be rather speedy, even with current, modern apps despite being what seems to be a humble m3 Intel chip.

Anyway, my questions:

1-I upgraded the OS to Monterey 12.6.3, but there is no "battery optimization" check box; does this mean it is not available for this computer or is it because it is always on?

2-how durable were the batteries from 2017 - should i leave it plugged in all the time, or am I better off not doing so, and manually managing its charging to keep it around 80% as if it were "battery optimized"?

3-is there a way to test the battery to see how much life there is left in it in terms of hours of usage for a full charge?

4-WTFF doesn't Apple make an 11" or 12" ultrabook/laptop like this, which is VASTLY more portable than anything in its lineup right now? Has anyone heard of rumors that Apple will be offering one again? The current MBA is not even close to this thing.

Don’t get us started on wanting Apple to make another ultra portable 12”. Just look at the Macbook form and you will find your answers.

loby said:

Don’t get us started on wanting Apple to make another ultra portable 12”. Just look at the Macbook form and you will find your answers.

The 13.6' MacBook Air is about as big as typical tablet. I think they nailed the form factor, going any small it would just look daft.

Audit13 said:

The latter. Surprised its not under the "Air" umbrella given how light it is. IIRC this was the point in time where the macbooks were lighter and more portable than the Airs, and Apple had kind of lost its handle on its product lines.

transphasic said:

is there a way to test the battery to see how much life there is left in it in terms of hours of usage for a full charge?

Use it and see how far you get?

I don't obsess too much over battery cycles and optimal charging patterns, but I do find it useful to run Coconutbattery in the menu bar, and include a readout of how many watts the machine is drawing at any given point. If you do that fora while you start to get a feel for what's normal with your laptop. My M1 Air, for example, usually pulls about 3-5 watts and gets upward of 10 hours battery life. My previous 2020 Intel i5 Air would pull more like 10-15 watts and get correspondingly lower battery life, like 5 hours, maybe 6 under low-demand usage.

That 12" Retina MacBook was a cool little machine. I couldn't stomach using that butterfly keyboard for any length of time, myself, but I passed it on to my wife who got a few years' use out of it before Zoom proved to be too much for it to handle consistently. I think a lot of people are hoping Apple will revisit the ultraportable laptop form factor now that they have the processors to truly pull it off well.

shenfrey said:

The 13.6' MacBook Air is about as big as typical tablet. I think they nailed the form factor, going any small it would just look daft.

If Apple made an 11" macbook I would actually consider buying one... The main reason I'm not a mac user is because you sort of have to lug those things around vs. just comfortably carrying a tablet in your arm or just holding it

shenfrey said:

The 13.6' MacBook Air is about as big as typical tablet. I think they nailed the form factor, going any small it would just look daft.

I thought the 11" and 12" macbooks were much more effectively designed for portable use, but then apple doesn't want to eat into the sales of the awful ipads...

Onimusha370 said:

Oh how I miss the 12" MacBook....

This is a marvelous little machine that would be the first choice of any high school or college student, heavy traveler (like me), or young women who want a very small, portable notebook they can fit in their shoulder bag for jaunts to Starbucks or lunches with their lady friends.

Ok, being a little bit much here, but you get the point - there are massive audiences for such a notebook, and it is infuriating as both a user/consumer AND a significant shareholder (thousands of shares owned) that they have clearly abandoned them completely.

Apple Computer and Cookie (my not-so-fond nickname for Jobs' less-than-talented-or-capable successor) think that they can just force these markets into using their current offering, which is not so light at almost 3lbs. Their marketing team needs to step up their game and convince operations that they need a better alternative to the current Air lineup.

transphasic said:

This is a marvelous little machine that would be the first choice of any high school or college student, heavy traveler (like me), or young women who want a very small, portable notebook they can fit in their shoulder bag for jaunts to Starbucks or lunches with their lady friends.

Ok, being a little bit much here, but you get the point - there are massive audiences for such a notebook, and it is infuriating as both a user/consumer AND a significant shareholder (thousands of shares owned) that they have clearly abandoned them completely.

Apple Computer and Cookie (my not-so-fond nickname for Jobs' less-than-talented-or-capable successor) think that they can just force these markets into using their current offering, which is not so light at almost 3lbs. Their marketing team needs to step up their game and convince operations that they need a better alternative to the current Air lineup.

Click to expand...

I have both 12 inch MacBook Retina with Core m3 processor and Surface Go 2 with Core m3 processor. What I can say is these machine are not powerful at all.

Especially for 12inch MacBook Retina, it was way too expensive for how underpowered it is back then. Something can be said for Surface Go 2 and it was not fund to run Windows on it.

The garbage butterfly keyboard was introduced with 12inch MacBook Retina. I hate this keyboard and I am going all the way to avoid any Macs with butterfly keyboard. I can't image Apple has sold tons of these MacBook back then and if you looking at secondary market, price is not worth for the money.