Apple’s WORST Laptop! - 2015 Retina MacBook 

You’re totally right. If we got an an M2 MacBook in this style but with a scissor switch keyboard that would be such a nice laptop for portability! Great video man

2017 12" has served me well. No issues and runs Ventura with latest updates. Use case is for browsing, RU-vid, streaming to apple TV, light coding etc. Virtualization even works on it for when I've booted Windows and Linux. I don't expect it to keep up with the latest MacBooks by any means but for a tiny machine in its final form its exceeded what I thought was capable and has been an excellent laptop.

bought this endearing gold MacBook in 2015. Through the thick & thin of uni life, the machine served me well mainly because of its portability. This thing is light that even the charger is 'sexy'. My friends' chargers were generally bulky but mine, even my pocket is capacious. I cannot argue with its performance but my life was about academia so I have no problem. As long as it streamed my movies and submitted my assignment, no biggie-ed. Switched to M2 MacBook Air this year, that was a transformation!

Best way to describe the butterfly keyboard is every key is a power button.

The font issue is because Apple was in a weird transition that year between using Myriad Pro (old font) which also varied between semi-bold, medium, and thin and Apple’s in-house “San Francisco” font (new font). The packaging on their products at the time was reflective of this too.

Had exactly the 2015 model, id agree. Had to repair it way too much until i gave up. The latter year models seem to be a lil more reliable tho and id love to see apple revive this form with an m2 chip and thinner bezels, cause it was amazing to use due to how small and light it was

Well, I sure dodged a bullet! Needed a new laptop in 2015, and agonized over which to get for months. It was between the Retina, and the 2012 MBP unibody which was still in production. I wanted all the ports and optical drive, but the other was cheaper. Lucky for me, one of the big box stores decided to sell the MBP unibody as a doorbusters item, only $900! And it didn't sell out! I went that night and they still had some left, my guess is people were like "2012, that's a dinosaur" not realizing it was still a current model (discontinued in 2016.)

I have one of these, bought it new with maxed out specs. It’s a very niche market, and I am within that niche. Still use it today, no regrets.

about the macbook white unibody, the white keyboard is GORGEOUS

wasnt the 2016 the worst one they made because of the touch bar issues and the gross keyboard

it feels like you atleast have 100 thousand subscribers, Love the content please dont quit

Great video👍 I wanted the 12in MacBook when it came out just because how tiny and portable it was. I didn’t get it and ended up just getting a m1 mba later.

I actually want to buy one because of the design. I know the keyboard is bad and it’s not good for the long term but it’s such a interesting part of Apple’s history. It’ll be cool if they made a budget M1/2 version.

I have one of these from 2015. I still regularly use it due to the form factor. If Apple release a version with M1 or M2, or even just the efficiency cores from one of them, I would buy it immediately.

“I mean it works fine enough i guess” Proceeds to shut down

I have the 2017 MacBook and it’s really pretty good. It’s slow obviously by today’s standards, but having looked after it i don’t have any issues with condition or reliability. I really love it’s size. Completely agree that an apple silicone version would be so great to see. And what better way for Apple to show how much better their own chips are compared to the intel days.

Wasn’t a thunderbolt port, just usb-c. It was meant as a replacement for the MacBook Air 11”, while covering the gap left by the absence of a base MacBook. I had one, hated specs, keyboard and just one port, but absolutely loved the portability.

I had one of these and really loved it for school. So light weight and portable.

I actually just upgraded from this exact same model to the m2.. The 2015 started complaining when I'd run RU-vid. It could be the only safari window open, not even fullscreen.. and it would constantly urge me to close the window. However, FWIW, the thing was always reliable and generally did what I wanted it to. Only ever got one stuck key as well. Had to pop the key off the clean the spec of nothing out of the mechanism. getting those keys back on really sucks. Anyway, I never had any major issues with the thing for its first 5 years. I did regret upgrading the OS.. That definitely cost a couple performance points. The m2 absolutely embarrasses it though. In my defense, I did find it gently used in 2016 for about half of it's original cost. Its main purpose was also meant to be media consumption and it did (still does) have a pretty great display. The fanless aspect also made it a great laptop to watch in bed.

I have a 2017 retina MB that I use for the basics. I also have an M1 Pro MBP that I use for creative work. These Macbooks are pretty easy to shit on, but the form factor makes it a huge win for people who don’t have to do much outside of the basics. I would kill to see Apple use binned last gen chips (currently would be the M1) on these and launch them at a lower price point instead of hanging onto the M1 air. I’d legitimately pay up to $1500 for one of these if it had Apple Silicon based on the space saving aspect alone!

Coming from a typewriter, the butterfly keys made me type with less effort and noise. The 2nd ver of that keys made it feel better and design looks seamless like a touchscreen.

I have a 2019 Air which I believe uses the second generation butterfly keyboard and it’s not good but so far at least still works. They don’t seem to have the same issue the first gen had.

I never had any problems with the butterfly keyboard, I do prefer the travel of the scissor switches, but the butterfly wasn't as awful for me as it seemed to be for most. I used that one port 12" MacBook when I worked for a newspaper and mostly only needed word processing and email. It wasn't as horrible as it's being portrayed here, but we all have different experiences.

I had 2 PowerBook 12” 2005, which still work, I had the MacIntels prior to the Unibody case, the Unibodys prior to the Retina, I have 2 MacBook 12” 2015 and 1 MacBook 12” 2019. They are great machines and already the PowerBooks showed that they could compete with larger diagonals (I did video editing while at work I used a Mac Pro to do it), and I continued to do it with the MacBook 12". Today's equivalent would be the iPad Pro 12.9”, which in landscape are 1mm wider, but cost twice as much, weigh twice as much, and remain a tablet without macOS. Comparing the 12” with the 13” means not understanding anything of what the purpose of a 12” is, which is an ultrabook and cannot be compared to a 13”, which is only a reduced 15”. I'm sure Apple won't do it anymore and that's okay, because to make miniaturised products it takes capacity and Apple shows that it doesn't have any, since it can't even produce an Apple Watch under 41mm anymore. It will remain the lightest and most portable Mac in history, and those who don't understand it will continue to buy that scrap iPad Pro, hoping that one day they will have macOS, or those stupid 6.1” iPhones.

The White Plastic Mac was so slow that it took 1 hour to do an MP4 Calculation, while the 2013 intel Mac took only 10 minutes to do the same Calculation

The font matches the 2015 iPhone which was the 6s and with the iPhone 7 the next year, they started using San Francisco for the product fonts.

My mom use to have one of these, and it stopped turning on, and apple support did not help us. It turned out to be a motherboard issue. This happened back in 2020. It is now in our basement stripped (Not really stripped, but I took a lot of components out and destroyed it. Clumsy me 3 years ago)

I bought a 2017 with m5 512gb and 8gb for 150 and its pretty cool being so thin, the down arrow key is broken though.

I remember wanting a Retina MacBook in 2017 back when I didn't know anything about computers. I just thought waow so thin. Looking back, I'm glad I got a MacBook Air instead, even though it had a much worse screen

Let’s get you up to 1k subs asap! Your video quality matches far more successful channels…

Which macbook is this ? There was loads of models made in 2015 , mine is the early 2015 and it's a beauty.

I have been on eBay a lot lately and now know why there are so many 2015 Retina MacBooks on sale for cheap. Honestly though, after seeing this ai may get one for super cheap.. why not. Good stuff. 👍👍

I wish they'd try the 12" MacBook in plastic again with an m2 or something

Honestly I still rock with my 2015 MacBook Pro, as it’s the last MacBook that you could upgrade, I have a 1TB and 16gb of ram and it works sooo great

Loved the 2009 MacBook. Got one from school, great memories

4:43: A small correction. MacBooks, before the 2011 ones have a Mini DisplayPort connector, not a Thunderbolt one. Everything after/including the 2011 has a Thunderbolt port

weird, im here on 2015 macbook pro retina 2015, wrking almos as new, changed battery unit once, and so on, i do run into some issues doing some heavy professional photography and some video, also music production, and yes its not ultra smooth on everything all the time, but so far gets the work done, somewhat easily

Apple probably tested the Apple Silicon chips in these laptops in 2019-2020 but they picked the 2020 Air because it's the one that suits most people's needs. I know the portability of this thing is still superior but the Air is so much similar to the Pro and is much more reasonable to have Apple Silicon than this thing. But the MacBook isn't a failure, it revolutionized the next generation design language of the newer MacBooks until 2021

Funny how Apple's worsts are also debut all of the designs and features that future MacBooks will take cues from. First MacBook Air started the "ultrabook" market. MacBook 2015 also started a new design trend.

I think my Powerbook G4 12 inch with 1.25 GB RAM, old keys and flash storage is probably better, or on par with the original Macbook 12 inch in terms of how it was built, and it can still run pretty well for a 20-year old machine. But I get the point of the Macbook and what it was supposed to be. Unfortuately, it just wasn't built well, originally.

I want this with M3. But Apple will just link you to an iPad Pro 13'. But the form factor I really like is the MacBook Air 11' - that was a cutie.

I have my 2010 macbook rocking mojave (patched) and i have a black keyboard. I live in belgium, and this macbook has a very special story, when i bought it secondhand here locally, i glued feet on the bottom of the macbook so it stays nice :p my white model came from the USA, olleyvalley school district . . . It was locked to this school, and whenever you installed a macos version, it would make 2 profiles automatically, no mather what macos version it has! But i contacted the school and they removed it from their deployment thing. They never sold any macbooks secondhand, so it must've been stolen or lost and somehow ended up in my hands. The school was stunned that the macbook ended up here in belgium. I had a M1 pro macbook pro, but since i am a gamer, i got rid of it, i have an asus rog strix now and i didn't regret it one moment.

i have this model since 2015, used on charge for work purposes (battery cycle is 100ish) and its alright if you dont count the heating issues.. and its understandable bc it doesnt have a fan..

My wife has one of these. It sucks! Amazingly the keyboard still works, but it's slow as hell, the battery is now dying and it also just randomly dies like this one. The screen has developed a weird fault which makes the brightest areas go darker. To get around this you have to turn on night shift permanently, and then counteract it with a colder white point in the colour calibration. Not sure why it fixes it, but it does. Even without these faults it's still a very flawed machine, the keyboard is one of the worst I've used and I don't like the feel of the haptic trackpad.

I think a 12 inch M2 MacBook would do very well. I would buy one. A far as I remember the 2015 - 2017 12 Inch MacBooks did not support Thunderport.

The 2015 MacBook would be amazing with an M series processor. Imagine a fast netbook that lasts all day. I'd love it.

i have a white macbook like that! the bottom is just as clean as yours too! and mine has the original battery from 2009 in it! and it still works! i only paid like 33$ for it too!

Non of the 2015/2016/2017 12” MacBook has Thunderbold. It is just ordinary USB 5 Gb/s. And my dad kinda still enjoy his 2016 12” MacBook.

I have it and always loved it. It's wonderful in its compactness.

Had one, literally sold it yesterday to buy a M1 Mac Pro. He really served me well until now, little fella still had it on him and will serve well his new owner!

I understand that it’s not even thunderbolt lol, just a USB 3.0 port with displayport 1.1 and type C connector xD

Those old Macbooks did not have Thunderbolt. Those are just standard Mini DiaplayPorts. Thunderbolt didn't arrive until around 2011.

I really hope one day Apple starts making budget laptops again, cause I love macOS, I grew up using a MacBook Air, but the price of their hardware is just too much for me, an average Brazillian, Apple is just a luxury brand nowadays. I know they will never do good budget stuff again, but one can only hope

A concept for iPad Pro with M1 and later, like what the iPod Nano 6 became the Apple Watch design. Nobody talks about it but looking at the devices you know where Apple started cold then some redesign reignited the engine. It just wasn't a Lamborghini with a proper engine at first, that was all.

My 2017 12 inch Macbook decided to die, I think it was having graphical problems which is unheard of because I tried to research around to see if it was a common problem but it happen to be very rare, I liked this laptop I had the top of the line with the I7 16gb Ram and 512gb ssd which wasn't that fast but still got the job. Until it start crashing and showing lines and artifacts on the screen right after the apple logo boot screen. Luckily I got a good deal on an early 2015 13 inch Macbook pro 2.7 i5 with 16gb ram in great condition, I also upgraded to a 2tb nvme and replaced the thermal past, also what's great about it is that I don't have to deal with the battery since it only has 130 cycle count.

My recent Mac gets dirty easily I’m worried I have to take keys off to clean off all the dirt. It’s impossible to clean without taking it apart. It catches fingerprints easier so I have to wipe down for moistness

I hate that keyboard 😂😂 every time I’ve used one it’s been so weird to type on

Watching this on my 2017 Retina MacBook in Intel m3. 😳 Still pretty zippy on Ventura and quite perfect for my marketing job.

wait, the 2015 ones got stuck at Big Sur? Are you telling me the 2015 11 inch air got 1 more year of support, while being cheaper and much more reliable? I guess the screen is a lot nicer and it does weight a couple grams less... I don't think it would've been worth it. Nowadays, I find the 2017 interesting, mainly because that has the hardware needed for sidecar, my 11 inch air doesn't

It’s not a TB3 port - it’s a simple USB C port, which makes things even worse. Extremely slow 3.0 standard, especially when a hub is connected and the bandwidth is splitted.

It’s slow, gets fairly warm, but its the ideal size for portability, Apple should have made a M1 MacBook Air the same size as the 12 inch MacBook.

6:25 On the Production team at my church. Every Tuesday im up there programming lights and as im editing things into the app we use to schedule services everyone can hear me. I have a 2017 Macbook Pro and I don't got the money to get a new one. Everyone else has a Newer macbook and can work quietly as they hear my keyboard going CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK. (me spamming backspace key because I didn't notice one of my keys was jammed and i missed a ton of letters) And to top it off only one of the two of my usb c ports work so I carry around this annoying usb, hdmi, sd card hub thing around with the laptop all the time.

The 2015 Retina 12" MacBook also had a lower powered Intel processor than the 13" or 15" 2015 MacBook Pro (PS: I actually have a 13" 2015 MacBook Pro with Retina Display)

My 12" (2017) is actually pretty good. Its not very powerful but it gets the job done.

i have always wanted a macbook. what a coincidence that this is the only macbook our family currently owns.

Hah... I'm watching this video on a 2009 MacBookPro5,5 13" unibody. I maxed out the RAM (went from 2 to 8 GB), swapped out the 250 GB HDD for a 240 GB SSD, and installed Mojave on it. Honestly, this thing is not bad to use, even in 2024. Sure, 1080p60 just doesn't work, but this screen is 1280x800. So, 720p60 is good enough. And I like the scissor switches on it. I'll keep it around, and maybe I can get a newer used MacBook sometime.

What a difference from the 2015 Retina Macbook Pro. I still have mine, and it still runs well. The keyboard is the best I have tried on any laptop.

Don’t understand why Apple will not make M4 laptop like this, this would be a bestseller

I think it is a mistake to say that pretty much everything is USB C nowadays. Most of the mice are still powered by USB-A as well as flash drives and other peripherals. Most of the people I know regularly carry a dongle with them to plug everything in.

Too bad your speakers are busted, that is the single best feature of that model. Amazing for the size

me just watching this on my 13inch early 2015 macbook thats just better. Yes still using my 2015 macbook still working for what i want it for

2012 macbook pro's has 2k while this macbook 2015 has 1k 💀💀💀

I wonder if they reused the iPad screens for it. Also had a visceral reaction to the dirty rubber and said OH out loud

You said the 2015 Macbook is Thunderbolt but it's actually just normal 5Gbps USB-C. They didn't put Thunderbolt 3 till the Macbook Pro 2016

Early 2015 pre butterfly keyboard are the best! That is the late 2015 model with usb c. And it was crap! I got a 13 inch early 2015 retina MacBook Pro for $180 in near mint condition. Love it!!! Retina came out with the early 2015 model. They stopped glowing Apple logo on the late 2015 model

ok now i like my 2015 i have not had a single issue and i have duel boot for arch and macos and its still going good one thing i had to do replace battery

my 2017 Macbook 12” runs logic pro x with ssd problem up until i need to make a bootable ssd 😂 but okay it can still survive

*tiny macbook dies* Me: "You killed her, dude."

That single port wasn't even a Thunderbolt; it only supported USB-C.

I LOVED my 2009 unibody polycarbonate MacBook!

Those macbooks doesn’t even have thunderbolt, it’s just usb c :D

This was my laptop for 2 years, I edited a music video in 1080p on it as well, it was so slow but I really milked that thing

You mean worse than the Apple III? I bought a rMBP 13 back in 2015. I passed this up so fast.

What's up guys it's "sound I can't pronounce due to my accent" but man that name is unforgettable, an earworm of a name

I used a White unibody MacBook when the pandemic started that I got passed out from my uncle, sadly that MacBook died because water.

tbh I'd rather this come back than own any modern iPad. the form factor is so much better than any iPad will ever be for the stuff Apple claims you can do on a iPad.

Holy shit you have a toilet seat iBook! I haven’t seen one of those in years!

I have one of those and it’s not that bad actually. I use it for storage.

I’m lucky my butterfly keyboard never failed any single time since 2019 (mbpro 2017) As for me it’s the best keyboard form factor

Yeah but the usb c port wasn’t thunderbolt 3 :/ Which, even if it WAS wouldn’t have been that much more useful.

For defending 2015 mac 12- it's usable now for studying easy stuff (word etc) and, with hurting in da ass it can run some games, dj software, davinchi resolve (not joking, easy projects can maked)... Ye. P.s. I use it right now... Hurts, but works, and pretty well.

It’s kind of a shame that Apple Silicon came out too late to save this form factor. I think Apple would rather focus on the iPad than make a small MacBook again

6:00 music id ?

i dont share your hatred the slightest…imo all your issues come down to the 2015… i have the 2016 its not the fastest thing, but its by far my most favorite pc ever and the only one i take on trips along an ipad pro! the macbook air is just not that portable vs the 12 inch which is just amazing!

Apple changed the font to San Francisco with IOS 9. that’s why the font is different compared to M1

So you aint had it long and you can happily slag it off? What web browser are you using? I have had one now for 2 years or so, can't fault it and it will happily edit my 50mp DSLR photos. Try using it for longer, it might surprise you it did me.

I only laughed sooo hard bc I had one, I just wanted the space grey color sooooo bad lol but then like a year later the pros came with more ports. I have an M1 Pro now and I don’t think I’ll upgrade for like 6-10 years😂😂😂

if it wasn't for the keyboard and the price, this would have been a nice laptop for studying... But yeah just listening to this keyboard makes my fingers hurt.

i got that macbook yesterday its pritey good for simple tasks it last about 5-7 hours

I mean We now do have leaks of a cheap MacBook, because apple wants a piece of the Chromebook sales and they want to get into the education market hard too. So we might see something like this with a A12Z or M1 and honestly if its cheap its gonna sell like hot cakes because everyone wants a MacBook especially for school