The issue with this whole debate is about what 'portability' and 'transporting' mean. In American suburbia where transport is home>car>office it doesn't make much difference. Even in urban routine settings where it's as complicated as home>bus>train>office there's not all that much carry time involved. Maybe it starts to matter a bit more if you're flying a lot and have to go through security, etc. but even then most travellers have a wheeled cabin bag to hold the weight of their laptop bag for the bulk of the on-foot parts of the journey.
Change the work pattern to a freelancer in an urban environment with meetings in multiple city centre locations every day and admin work done in cafes or on trains in between locations though, and then it matters a lot. In fact, it almost becomes worth it to think about your work bag with the same level of scrutiny as an ultralight backpacker on the Appalachian Trail.
It's not always about what you can functionally pack/carry for 5-20 minutes at a time. In some use cases it's much more about the cumulative fatigue of carrying that weight for 5-20 minutes up to a dozen times a day and repeating that 3-5 days per week.
Also this - I described my experience above as an average size/strength man in his 20s-30s, but if I were smaller or more slight (regardless of gender but statistically more likely if I were female) then it would have required even less daily carry time for the weight difference to have the same impact.
And beyond just weight, that aspect mattered a lot too when I was constantly on the go.
Thankfully I'm now past that stage in my career, but this was what the device progression was like for me:
- 2011 MBA 13" - 1350g - felt at first like the most portable thing I'd ever experienced; but over time I could feel its weight on my shoulders after long days. 95% of the time I was just using browser/email, so I wanted something lighter/smaller that still had a full keyboard but allowed me to leave the laptop at home more.
- 2013 iPad Air cellular 1st gen + Logitech Keyboard hard case - 478+332=810g - I took this thing with me everywhere regardless of whether I thought I'd need it or not. It wasn't the most efficient in terms of workflow though, and at the time iOS word processing options weren't amazing so I'd often use it to draft chunks of text which I'd then incorporate into more full-featured applications once I got back home to the MBA. Basically it was an iPhone with a bit more screen real estate and a keyboard.
- 2015 MacBook 12" - 920g - Made my iPad setup almost instantly obsolete. For an extra 110g and a roughly identical footprint I could have a full desktop OS! There was never even a debate for me about whether to bring a laptop or iPad. I'm not sure why exactly, but the 110g from 810 to 920 had no impact on me, whilst the 430g difference between MB12 and MBA13 was the tipping point in major shoulder soreness.
As my working patterns shifted I put a 27" iMac on my desk and was incredibly grateful for the extra screen real estate - big projects got much more efficient and now I prefer it for pretty much anything that's not primarily text-based.
The MB12 feels cramped by comparison and I'm sort of surprised I was ok with it as my only computer for five years, but crucially it still feels
capable and I think this is the absolute heart of what makes that device amazing and why we're still here discussing it. If I had to do significant amounts of visual work while travelling then MB12 would be frustratingly inefficient. If I could 100% rely on only having to do the basics while travelling then MB12 has no real advantage over an equivalent size/weight iPad/keyboard setup. But in reality the iPad setup only covers about 90-95% of what I need to do on the go. With MB12 I'm not necessarily going to be efficient or comfortable in my workflow for that last 5-10%, but at least I have the capability to get through it when needed.
IMO that's who this device is for - a very mobile professional whose needs are mostly covered by an iPad, but who cannot sacrifice short-notice access to desktop functionality as a backup plan.
Because of the iMac at home I've managed to keep using my 2015 MB12 as my only travel computer for nine years now. I had to change the battery a couple years ago and it's started to run a bit slow in the last few months, but I'm still holding out on replacing it becuase I really don't want to take the 320g penalty of going to a current MBA13 at 1240g. Even iPad Pro + Magic Keyboad at 466+601=1067g would be heavier.
Since reading this thread and realising that I have one of the 1st gen 'bad' MB12s I'm actually now wondering if I should pick up a refurbed top spec 2017 model in hopes of extending the useful life of this form factor a few more years. I'm not carrying it in the same way I used to, but when I do need to take it with me even its comparatively small portability advantages still make a big difference to me. I may not represent the majority of the Apple laptop market, but I definitely think there are enough users like me to make it worth resurrecting.
🤞
