
For me it's manageable, but for others it can be a continual annoyance. You have the choice between 4K 60 Hz and USB 2 at the same time or else 4K 30 Hz and USB 3 at the same time. The other problem is that is not Thunderbolt 3, so you can't run 4K 60 Hz and USB 3 at the same time through a hub. The problem with this is if say you want to give a presentation, you can't plug it into power, unless you have a specific dongle that has a power pass-through. It just has a headphone jack and a single USB-C port. The one main drawback of the 12" MacBook is the lack of ports. It seems the keyboard is quite susceptible to crumbs and such so YMMV. Mine is still fine after 3 years, but I baby it, and never eat around it. As for the keyboard reliability, if you get it from Apple, they provide a 4 year warranty on it. The feel of the keyboard is OK, and better than the 2015-2016 models, but not as good as the MacBook Pro. It is definitely not underpowered for the work you describe. I have the 2017 12" MacBook with 16 GB RAM, Core m3-7Y32, and 256 GB storage. The refurb i5 MacBook is around £1300, while the Air is £999! The main idea is to keep my school work separate from my personal stuff, while being lightweight and tiny.įinally, is it really that underpowered? I will be using it for typing word documents and creating Keynote presentations (and possibly presenting from it). I also do not want a new Pro as this one is serving me really well for my other "at the desk" work. I already have a 2014 13.3 inch MacBook Pro, so going for something like the MacBook Air is not something I want to do, since its basically the same screen size, and I want something very light and the thinnest one there is. Is it really an issue? How likely is it to affect me in my daily usage? My problem is with the issues that the MacBook had - i.e the keyboard. Both of them are selling the June 2017 variant. I am happy to buy it refurbished from Apple, or from Amazon (I've seen them as "new" on there?). I really love the small size of the 12" MacBook, and I would really love something like that for work (I am a teacher) to be able to carry it around, while looking elegant at the same time.
