Nearly four months after release, the new 12-inch MacBook is starting to become available for personal pickup in Apple Stores in the United States. Previously, some stores have had sporadic stock for walk-in customers, but it now appears that stock is substantial enough for Apple to offer personal pickup.
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The personal pickup option isn't universal yet however, with only select configurations at select stores being available. For example, the 256 GB Silver MacBook is not available for personal pickup in New York, NY while the 256 GB Space Gray is widely available.
While some Apple Stores and Best Buys have had sporadic stock for walk-ins, most Apple Stores around the world have only had the unit on display. In the MacRumors' forums, users have been reporting which stores around the world have had the new MacBook on display, whether they were available to purchase or not and how many units they had left in stock.
The MacBook is currently showing shipping estimates of at least 1 - 2 weeks when ordered online. Comparatively, both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are showing shipping estimates of at least 1 business day.
Pricing for the 12-inch MacBook starts at $1,299 for the entry-level model with 256 GB of storage while the higher-end model starts at $1,599 with 512 GB of storage and a slightly faster dual-core Intel Core M processor.
Top Rated Comments
$1299 MacBook Pro: 2.7 GHz Core i5, 8GB of RAM, Intel Iris 6100
10x the processing power, 8x more ports, larger screen, killer battery life. I know which one I'd pick.
Cloud and wireless capabilities is the future and this MacBook is a just glimpse of it. They just need to lower the price a little like they did with the Air. That's all.
I've honestly never seen a Mac that I had absolutely no interest in, until the Retina MacBook. It's just too underpowered. Even if it's "enough" for someone now, a laptop as underpowered as the Retina MacBook isn't going to have anywhere near the longevity of any of Apple's other offerings. It's thin, it's light, but everything else is worse. I can honestly say I do not see a single reason to buy it. It's short-sighted to even consider it.
Couldn't have said it better. Went to the Apple store the other day, played around with every other computer in the store, then I played with the MacBook... It was so sluggish in comparison. I thought Apple learned their lesson about releasing gimped launch products with the original Air, but apparently not...