The best worst MacBook 

Would you pay $150 for a 12 inch MacBook? Since filming I've actually been enjoying it quite a bit, despite the slow performance! Rather surprised that the listing showed so many issues- in total they said it had no power, bad battery, bad speakers, and a trackpad that wouldn't click!

The laptop turning on unexpectedly is a common thing with me. I always bring my old laptop to the shop whenever there was an issue and when I do... EVERYTHING MAGICALLY WORKS!

I've never owned one due to their numerous problems, but I've always had a soft spot for them because of that ambitious form factor and how appealing it is to me as a secondary laptop. Imagine one with an Apple Silicon chip inside, it might just work.

Would love it if Apple brought this design back with an M1 and the new not-butterfly keyboard.

My wife carried a 2015 in her purse as a doctoral student and college professor. She LOVED it. It no longer holds a charge beyond running between plugs, but especially when the battery was good, it was perfect for her use case. It did get a logic board and audio board under warranty, and the keyboard replaced under the extended butterfly keyboard program. So it wasn't exactly reliable, but the form factor was PERFECT. And all she needed, really, was a web browser, full Office suite, and iCloud - and a real keyboard (she actually really liked the butterfly keyboard despite its issues), making her gravitate to the Retina MacBook for work, and leave her iPad Pro for grading electronically submitted assignments with the Pencil. She has a 13" M1 Air now, which is great, and obviously a more capable machine that's better in almost every way, but she feels like it's huge and heavy. It no longer fits in her purse and has to go in her school bag. This form factor with Apple Silicon and a magic keyboard would be AMAZING. She'd probably line up to buy one.

Imagine how incredible it would have been to combine the efficiency of M1 with the form factor of the 12" MacBook.

I had one of the 2015 models and loved it. Used it for infrequent travels to corp office (otherwise used 27in iMac). Light as a feather, fan-less, Retina display. Lots of "oohs" and "awes" when people would see it and touch it. Even used a USB-C to VGA adapter and drove projectors with it. For me, it was great. The ONLY thing I didnt like was the keyboard feel (altho never failed) and if I typed too quickly, it would miss characters or have false palm reads (even if disabled). For me, the "Macbook Nothing" was perfect executive travel Macbook.

An incredible form factor. I have been using this for the last 6 years for work. Its retina screen is really great. Yes it is slow and yes the keyboard (butterfly) sucks. But as you said it was ahead of time. Didn't have the right components to carry out the job. And don't recommend buying it now in 2022. But hear me say: If Apple puts an M2 chip into this form factor (which I hope they will) it will be one hell of a portable computer.

I've used the 2016 version for 6 years, I've recently upgraded to M1 Air. I'm not sure if the battery did not fail, I might have not made the purchase. 12 inch MacBook was more than enough for me for the first 5 years, it was light, cute, gold & efficient. Now my mom uses it as storage & a media consumption device. In my own personal opinion, it is still a good device.

Love mine. I don’t do a lot of heavy lifting so it’s perfect for daily use and travel. The weight and screen clarity are on point. At this point I wouldn’t want a laptop over 2 pounds, definitely not over 2.5.

If they only could release same design with M1 and usb 4 🤤

I used one of these for several years and LOVED it. I was a student, so mostly what I did was carry it around in a backpack. It was so light and small! When I used it, it was for typesetting math (using LaTex), or sending email, or looking something up on a web site, or watching a video. It was almost perfect for these activities, once you got used to the feeling of typing on concrete. At home, I had an external keyboard, so the typing was a lot better. I eventually upgraded to an M1 Air, also a fanless machine, once I stopped going to school every day, but I could never bring myself to sell the 12", and I still pull it out now and then to admire it. Just holding this work of art in my hands is a real pleasure. I hope Apple eventually does a ultralight MacBook again; I would certainly buy it.

I have to disagree with a few things said here, I bought a macbook 12 back in 2017 and used it for 4 years intensively, then gave it to my wife and she still use it today, it is holding very well, and perfect for normal average user, safari, Word or Excel. It's not over heating as you said and the battery is still working good.

When I first considered moving to the Mac ecosystem, I looked at all the shiny MacBooks online but eventually decided to go to an Applestore to give them a go. This was such a disappointment; I loved the OS but this laptop… it was small, the keyboard was dreadful… not for me. It was another 2 years when the 2018 Mini came out before I eventually got one, because this was so bad. The only good thing is that it was the low point, Apple learned from it and it probably gave them the final push to Apple silicon. Which is brilliant.

I’ve got exactly this model and honestly it works fluently. I really like the butterfly keyboard. Nice option for a writer (like me)

I adore the form-factor of this machine, I wish they would bring it back and put an M1 chip in it!

I have the 2017. Still love it and have no plans to replace it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Had one of these as my first ever MacBook, hammered it for years and frankly loved it, did everything fairly well, so portable and light, enjoyed the keyboard and never failed me! I’d have another in a heartbeat

I bought the original 2015 version when it first came out, and I used it throughout my undergraduate studies and career. And although it has seen better days it still sits on my desk everyday along side my trashcan Mac Pro as I use it as secondary machine. All in all, it has held up and still continues to work like "The Little Engine That Could."

I still have mine, and still enjoy the look and feel as well as it's capability to be compact in size. It makes it easy to work with in an office or travel environment (only for work). It's never meant for high intensity stuff and its understandable. For me I have never faced any issues as mentioned and therefore was a great buy.

I'm currently viewing this video, and working on my school paper on a MacBook early 2016, connected to an external monitor. It's not as zippy for sure but boy do I love how charming this thing is. I hope I get to use this for as long as I can.

I really love the design of this Macbook and hopefully they will bring it back with a powerful processor and a better keyboard. Awesome video, as always!

I have one for years now. It's surprisingly fast, super compact and the keyboard is amazing. I use it to watch movies, download and transfer files and apps, I use it for work (mostly writing) and webbrowsing. Never thought it was slow in any way. I absolutely love it!

I actually have the worst version of this worst MacBook (ie 2015 version) and let me tell you: no, there isn’t any justifications to have this abomination of a computer. I swear, it can barely play YT videos, and any time I have to edit a bit of video or music I wanna end myself and anything I do, that’s how miserable that machine makes me feel, because of how awfully slow it is. I bought it in 2020 because money were limited and I wanted a mac to type texts basically, but wanted to have good screen, force touch trackpad, and 500GB of ssd, and at that time I didn’t have an option to buy MacBook Pro 2015 because it simply was like $200 more expensive. I regret that decision every day of my life. P.S. Oh, and the battery is dead now and replacement of it is actually pretty costly because it’s all glued to the chassis, so it’s hard to replace it by yourself. Garbage piece of a device, trust me.

Thanks Luke! Great one. 💜 In 2015 when I was looking for a replacement for my 2008 MBP, I was excited when the first MacBook was introduced. Beautiful machine. But I’m glad I waited for the first benchmarks, because it turned out to be only 30% faster than that 7 year old machine. And this was peak performance…. I did not buy it.

The only thing I really liked about my 2015 12" was the speakers. They were fantastic! Way louder than my 2020 M1 MBA

The MacBook is known for the failing/random battery, so the reaction at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="210">3:30</a> makes sense, but so does the fact that it works

Watching this video on my base model 2017 12-inch MacBook! The computer has been great for me for the last 4+ years. I mainly use it docked at my desk with external peripherals. The most intense work I do on it is graphics with Photoshop and very light video editing and creation. This is a great machine for most people.

We got one of these for my daughter years ago. It's still running like a champ and works perfect for her. She only does school work and media consumption on it so she doesn't need much. Only issue is battery life isn't great on these compared to newer models.

My wife and I both got one, and I still use it to this day. It was not very powerful, but it was GREAT for portability, and I would take it with me for plane rides, when my MBP was too big.

I’ve still got one of these and love it still. Not had any problems (apart from changing battery). I’m no video editor or anything but for browsing, watching movies and making documents it’s still a good computer.

Got a 2016 12" MacBook personally, it has been an amazing machine for travel and light use, sadly even web browsing with more heavy sites is becoming unbearable though. Shame there really isn't a good replacement for it - the Air has always felt a bit awkward and bulky in comparison.

I still have and use (I'm typing this on it) an Early 2016 MacBook (m7, 8GB, which may have been the equivalent of 'maxed out' for this). When I first got it, the thing that impressed me most was the battery life. My daily driver was still a 2010 MBP at that point, and being able to take notes for up towards 10 hours was astonishing, even if I was taking 10 hours of notes on a butterfly keyboard. The keyboard has survived pretty well, as has the battery. It runs Monterey (I’ve even had Win10 running via Bootcamp, y’know, for fun), and even if it isn’t the fastest thing around (though given the relative cost the Geekbench 5 results don’t compare that poorly to my late 2016 i7 MBP - 19% slower on single core, but 55% slower on multi-core), if all you’re using it for is a bit of email and writing, it does the job well and is very portable. For the past couple of years I’ve been thinking of using it as trade-in on a new, smaller, MBP for myself (I’ve got a 16” MBP for work), but I never seem to get around to it. Maybe on March 8th.

Am fairly new to macs. Have been going through your videos. Very informative great channel.

I literally been waiting on you to make this video cuz i've been considering getting this macbook to take to work with me to do light things. Shoutout to you!

I love my 2017 12 inch MacBook. Keyboard is actually great, and it’s quite fast. I disagree with almost everything in this video. It’s the best laptop I’ve ever had and I’ve gone through a lot of them. Priority for me is that it must be reliable, quiet, small and light. Today there are other options but 2017 this was the very best.

Thanks for an insightful video. I actually have the original 2015 model and use it as my primary device. I have (touch-wood) NEVER had any issues with it, other than because of its age, the battery needs replacing, which is quite normal. I use my 2015 model (which seems to have rubbed you the wrong way) for coding, illustrating, Final Cut Pro editing and much more and it never skips a beat.

I bought one of these brand new for my wife after her college graduation 7 years ago. It has held up quite well for the minor specs it has. Now she isn’t doing anything other than making classroom lessons or working on masters assignments, but it has held its value and then some.

I had one of these and due to some financial issues i had to sell it but I really adored it and for my personal use it was perfect! I will always desire one too! ♥️

I remember when the 2015 model was released and some people were saying that it didn't matter that it was underpowered, OS X optimisation would make it as fast a any other modern Macs, unlike the bloatware that was Windows. Then the first reviews came out and, surprise, Windows 10 ran better on it than OS X, because El Capitan was an unstable POS at release on the new MacBooks and because Windows 10 was really lightweight at the time (oh, how that changed since then!).

I think you're missing the point with this model laptop - and I had the original 2015 one from new and LOVED IT. It is still, to this date, my FAVORITE Apple laptop I've ever had. Because it's passively cooled with no fan, it's of course limited to what it can do, but it's a MacBook...Not a MacBook Pro - therefore it isn't designed to run Cinebench and have high numbers or it's not a Final Cut Pro machine. It's designed to be an ultraportable machine with an amazing screen web browsing, word processing, music player and other 'light' stuff. I used to run the odd VM of Windows 98 or DOSBOX, play emulators for SNES or MegaDrive, surf the web, listen to music on mine and even though it was a 2015 1.1GHz Core M - it did what I wanted it to do. I accepted the compromise that it had one USB port, but I used AirDrop or the USB-C to HDMI + USB-A connector on, or the four port USB hub. The prices you can pick these up for now is crazy if all you want is small and light laptop with adequate performance for a bit of online shopping or social media consumption then get one of these rather than the MacBook Air. Your eyes will thank you for it. Don't be put off getting one purely on the results of a benchmark. Strangely mine never got that hot - it would get Luke warm (see what I did there ;) )

I think that the 12” macbook is one of the best… I wish apple would bring the m1 or m1 pro to it… I don’t mind it being a little thicker for MagSafe and another usb c port

I still use my 2017 12 inch MacBook every day. Luke keeps making videos on why he hates this thing lol

I bought one, it’s the most useful little MacBook I’ve ever owned, the problem is the chips, the SSD card and the motherboard are prone to fatal crashing And self-destruction at a moments notice

I really wish the 12” would be revived. I feel like it would excelled with an Apple silicone chip + the scissor mechanism keyboard. I love the design of it.

Great video Luke. I've always been interested in these as a couch computer to use alongside my main desktop. I am currently using an i7 2012 Macbook Air for that purpose (which I adore) and it mostly does fine. Occasionally bogs down, fans come on, but it handles youtube videos, browsing reddit, and doing email just fine. The size and weight of the 12" is appealing to me, as is the Retina display. A couple questions: Would this 2017 12" Macbook be more performant than my i7 2012 Air for those tasks? Would I be able to use it for a few years for youtube/reddit/email/etc? Would buying a version with upgraded processor/ram make a noticeable difference? I know that cost goes up in that case. Bottom line, I've always liked the form factor of these and have always wanted one. Wondering if a 2017 can replace my '12 Air as a daily couch computer. Cheers! PS: Stick an M1 in one of these with the modern keyboard and I will buy it instantly.

I have one of these, exactly the same specs, year and color, and have loved it ever since I bought it secondhand in 2019. I travel a lot, prefer a Macbook to an Ipad and use this mainly for some light work (email, writing docs, light Excel work) and watching movies or listening to music in the airport and on the plane. For that it is just perfect: it weighs nothing, has a good display, 256 GB of fast storage, has a tactile keyboard (which is very important to me) and is super portable. I understand all the issues with and complaints about this laptop, but for me it is not the best worst macbook; it is the best macbook for a very limited use case. I would never use it as my primary computer, but I always take this on short trips instead of my new Macbook Pro, and love it for what it is.!

I was thinking about getting one as a travel computer. I recently upgraded my 2012 unibody MacBook Pro with a M1 Mac mini and I am loving it so far. The issue is that I want something newer that is portable. Because yeah my 12.9 inch iPad Pro is good for traveling sometimes I do need a actual computer to work from. But yeah great video Luke!

We’ve got one of these and I find it surprisingly awesome. You could say it’s slow, but it’s faster than the fastest laptop from 5 years ago and if you’re using office, web browser and even a bit of dev work, it’s more than fine. It’s tiny but so usable. I love it.

Owned a 2015 Retina 12” MacBook since the beginning as my main driver. Haven’t had any issues I couldn’t deal with

Wow early hi Luke! Love how your format has evolved over time!

Great video Luke! I bought that exact model new in 2017 for travel and it accidentally became my daily driver for 3 1/2 years 🥹. I loved it! Mostly in clam shell mode. I could very comfortably edit 4k iPhone footage, and traveling was awesome 😎 I sold it for $300 and got an M1, but I loved our time together. 🤗

I still use one of these every day for general tasks, I use it as an ipad that can actually get stuff done. I have a main desktop which is a gaming pc with a 5800x, 32gb ram and a rtx 3080 so if i ever need grunt for anything then I have that. The 12" macbook serves a place for people like me who want something super light and portable but dont need a whole bunch of power. Its worth noting that I've not once felt that the machine held me back in the use cases that I have for it as I know that it isn't powerful so i dont do anything thats super demanding on it. The most demanding thing being xCode development when out and about. I am however looking to upgrade to a new macbook air hopefully after they redesign it

I have a 2015 one and I modded it to improve the passive cooling of the CPU using some thin copper plates and thermal pads. It's not good for the battery, but it made the MacBook faster and should preserve the CPU and SSD. I think it's one of the best MacBook I ever used. And, if I really need power, I can use "Screen Sharing" to control remotely my iMac when I'm away, so it's also a very good professional VNC client.

A fun video idea may be to compare this MacBooks performance to that 2007 black MacBook you did a video about before. I have a 2008 model black MacBook, and with Ubuntu running and an ssd it’s fully useable even today.

This review was very similar to my thoughts on the 2012 Air I just bought. It could be beat by a new base iPad yet it’s form factor as a computer and $100 price tag still make it a solid option as something I can always have with me but if it breaks or some one steals it I wouldn’t be upset.

I wonder if the M1 MBA thermal mod would be applicable to one of these devices. And if it is, how much it would help..

When you threw the MacBook in the air at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="509">8:29</a> I got a mini heart attack :O

It’s worth mentioning that the 2016 and 2017 models are also compatible with Monterey. I picked up a 2016 model recently in very good condition for this reason. No scratches or marks and only around 65 charge cycles on the battery (I avoided ones with high battery cycles or service battery issues as replacing the battery is just added cost and too much faff). I bought it as a second Mac, as an ultra portable alternative to my 15” 2015 mbp and 11” 2018 iPad Pro. So far I’m quite pleased with it. Sure it’s not a high powered machine, but as a casual sofa surfing laptop it’s great. I considered a similar period MacBook Air, but once you’ve gone retina, it’s hard to go back, and the form factor is delightful. It works great as a second screen via Luna Display with my main computer (slightly but noticeably larger screen res than the iPad Pro) and is ideal for chucking in a bag or suitcase for tasks that the iPad just can’t do - such as HX Edit for my Line 6 Helix. I love the fact it’s fanless which not only makes it silent, but also means it has a standby battery life similar to the iPad. Oh, and because it’s retina, I can force it to run higher resolutions than a few years ago would have required a much bigger screen. All in all, I’m quite enjoying using it. It even seems to run Lightroom (not classic) adequately for my needs. Could be a useful alternative to the iPad for this task.

@Luke Miani Does the 12 inch MacBook you reviewed preform better or worse than a 2017 base MacBookAir?

i bought the 2015 version a year after it came out, i just fell in love with what they did with the design. In the end it overheated constantly and couldn’t even handle my zoom meetings. Never doing that again

I've had one of these for several years as a second / light duty computer. That form factor is wonderful, it's basically the size of a ipad, but has a real keyboard and mac OS. I agree with everything pointed out in the video though, it's way too slow for anything beyond the most basic computing tasks in 2022, but everything else about it is still really great. Honestly, if they just updated it with an M1 processor and zero other changes, I'd highly consider buying one.

If you still have it, can you show us a real-world performance test, because the low performance for you might be a great upgrade for others 😁, and thanks for your efforts

Before getting my M1 air, i had an 11 inch i5 macbook air and i loved how small and light it was. If they made a tiny one with an M chip im interested

Loved the 11" MacBook Air, and loved this 12" MacBook too - I have the 2017 model. Still dreaming of an M1 or M2 12" MacBook, but don't think it'll ever happen sadly. It laid the groundwork for the new gen fan-less MacBooks!

Man i really hope this new 2022 macbook is just called the macbook. Then theres a $999 macbook air, a new $1199 macbook, and then the high end $1999 macbook pros

Hello there! Great vid ... congrats. Can you please help me finding a new battery for my A1534... yes I ended up with one of those... What I see here in Italy have obscene prices... Thank you. Giovanni

Luke has done a couple of videos on this Macbook. I have read a lot of comments saying they really enjoyed the experience. I did the same as Luke and purchased 2 different ones for around 300 dollars. The beat up one had the "ultimate" 2017 i7 1.4 16gb 512ssd logic board. The other had a dead logic board. I did purchase a grade A used battery with 23 cycles which was 29$. This was a nice little project but I wouldn't recommend this for everyone not familiar with taking apple laptops apart. I would like to see Luke pick up the fully maxed out 2017 because the performance is pretty decent. I have also done a thermal pad mod I found on mac forums if anyone is interested, just google macbook 12" thermal pad mod.

I've got all 4 colors. The silver one is a 2015 model with a new battery and new keyboard replacement. The other 3 colors are 2017 models with no battery or keyboard issues. They are not my primary laptops but they are useful when traveling or on vacation.

I have always loved the 12 inch MacBook, but never owned one (yet). Good video especially on the differences between the later revisions. I thought they all had motherboard problems.

I daily this thing and it’s AMAZING i won’t be upgrading for a while

I have one of these, and I like it. It's also 2015 version...

I bought the 12-inch Macbook to my wife in 2015 and she still uses it as her only computer, 7 years later, and is very happy with it 😃

I'm watching this from my maxed out 2015 12" Macbook. *chuckles*

Just recently found your channel when I bought my m1 Mac mini. Gotta say , your channel is addicting man lol. Also a bad influence cuz now I am getting apple crazy.

My wife used to have this and she actually liked it. The problem began when COVID hit and she would do a lot of Zoom and Teams calls and the apps would just crash because of high temperature... so we just traded it in for an iphone 12 pro and she's supper happy lol

That moment when the robotic vacuum cleaner has more CPU cores than your laptop...

I love the design and hope this type comes back with an M1 too. I did own one of these as my first MAC (which was later stolen). I thought the keyboard was fine, actually.

I found one destined for the recycling bin. It works great so far. Can't argue with free.

I bought a 2016 version new and never regretted. It’s a great companion to my heavy 15 inch MBP as well as the 16 M1 Max I have right now. To me it is a real computer in a form factor of an iPad (Even smaller than my iPad Pro 12.9)

Bought an Apple-refurbished 2017 model for college classes, with a desktop Mac mini setup in my dorm. Fortunately mine never had any issues, was a dream to carry around, battery lasted a day away from home, and if I just uploaded everything I needed to iCloud, I was set. I knew I wouldn't need more than 1 USB C port either...this computer is perfect for SOME use cases, I'd be interested to see what Apple could do with this form factor now or in the coming years.

What do you use to clean the MacBooks?

I learned my lesson on the 2015 the hard way. Bought it used and was in excellent shape, zero scratches. Like new…the motherboard died 3 months later

I currently own the 14 inch MacBook Pro of 2017, Ventura 13.6 in silver, 256GB and 8 RAM. I got it for 380 euros. It has slight battery issues so I'm definitely thinking of replacing the battery because it drains fast and the laptop overheats, and also eventually upgrade the SSD card for better performance as I am thinking of using it as my primary laptop for the moment due to my budget efficiency, mostly for emails and other work performance, RU-vid and hopefully a bit of gaming. Other than that it has great display and does it's job as long as I don't overwork it which honestly is a bit exhausting at times... However do you think it is a good deal?

I got a 2015 version some time in 2017 for about 400€. Decent deal back then. I had a cheese grater Mac Pro as my primary machine then, so it made sense to get something from the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Also, it was fanless and I could use it without making a sound when my wife was asleep. And you know what? Nothing ever failed on the thing (knock on wood) Nowadays, my workflow has changed completely and I’m almost 100% mobile. The Mac Pro is gone, to the detriment of my energy supplier, and I’m still using the 2015 Macbook for those few tasks that can only be done on a desktop system. Funny how things go sometimes.

I love this chanel and this man

Take that macbook, give it a scissor switch keyboard, put an m1 chip in it, maybe give it another usb c port, and this device has some potential.

Apart from the terrible butterfly keyboard and the dumb-weak Intel Core M, the form factor is very portable and really nice to have when travelling. I've used it for Office stuff and browsing machine, it actually does the job very nicely.

I use this laptop for traveling (I don’t travel a whole lot) if a client needs something I grab it off my big computer at home from the cloud. The other thing I use it for is writing. You never notice slowness if you’re literally just writing a book with it. Now I got mine used and there were several sticky keys from the start, so I tore the thing apart, cleaned the keys and boom. Perfect. The butterfly keyboard DOES take some getting used to, feels like my fingers are just slapping on the keys all the time but I can live with it.

Very lucky find!!!! Just curious as to which parameters you used in an eBay search (I assume?) when you searched for this MacBook? Thanks! Can't wait to see your video on the Apple Event of 3/8!

Thanks for this video, wish it came a few weeks ago before I bought a used MB 2015 12" Retina with a cracked screen that I wanted to use as a desktop media server; Can you point me to any online sources that talk about all these 2015 problems? Thanks again..

Watched this on my 2016 m7 12" Retina MacBook, like your model my battery needs replacing, will you be doing a video of the battery replacement ?

bought the 2017 macbook 12" because of its size and weight and to learn Mac OS. I am not disappointed. I have 15% lung function and am a VP at a large medical foundation working mostly at home and carrying a heavier laptop is problematic. So far this has done everything I have thrown at it including making explainer videos, light video and sound editing. Battery life has been acceptable and it is updated to the latest OS. It does exactly what I need it for and does it well. I can take it with me to appointments easily and keep up with my workflow. I has been a great machine! My primary machine is a windows desktop.

I bought one for school('17 base), I loved its 2nd-gen butterfly keyboard but invariably had battery and thermal throttling issues. I bought a new battery for it but that battery assembly is gathering dust in my closet now that I've got the 14" MBP. Steve would have loved the form factor, I really hope they bring it back, I don't see myself needing another Mac for some time but if this chassis came back with Apple silicon I'd buy it in a second.

One thing that is amazing with the 12 inch MacBook (and was great with the MacBook Air 11) is if you have a work laptop you can carry them in tablet pocket of bags, and keep work and personal laptops separate without extra bulk.

Got my wife’s one at the beginning of the year and it’s running Ventura really well. The form factor is amazing and it’s currently with me on my travels. If you’re not a power user and not video rendering etc it’s amazing although it surprisingly does anything I throw at it. I even use it sometimes as a VM for windows 10 and Linux and it does it no problems.

I have both this 2017 and the M1 mba. Love this form factor as it fits in my small sling pack for the minimalist lifestyle while the mba cannot . However as you said, the performance is just enough for some light tasks and 4K video playback, speaker n screen is decent but no redundancy with one single port. Currently as a spare laptop for testing new Mac OSX releases and other testing.

I bought this 12 inch 2017, i7, 512 GB like new used 3 years ago for $750 after taxes, and this is my favorite device ever! I love it more than my ipad pros, my iPad minis, all my windows machines, everything! I’m a huge fan of the keyboard, the minimalist trackpad, the speakers, the completely SILENT fan less run time, the battery is about 8 hours, and it is amazing. It runs Final Cut Pro well, it’s the smallest MAC OS - NOT IPAD OS. It feels amazing because it can fit anywhere, works well for years! It is not as weak as you may be guess it to be. I’ve had no problems with lag at all. I just love that it’s smaller than the 13” macbook air. It fits everywhere!

I have a Google Pixelbook and it pretty much ruined most other laptops for me. I'm now a die hard fan of ultra-thin small form factor laptops. The MacBook just wasn't ready for this kind of form factor at the time, but now with Apple Silicon, it has the potential to become one of their best computers in years. If they made a new revision of this MacBook with a cut down SoC and fixed the keyboard, then positioned it as a low-cost MacBook with some compromises to meet that lower price (basically a MacBook SE of sorts), it would probably be one of Apple's best and most accessible products ever. For the SoC, I'm thinking something like an M1 Lite with 2 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores, and 6 GPU cores. They could even underclock it a little to reduce heat output and save some battery life if they really had to. All in all, it would allow usable chips that didn't quite make the cut to be used in a product instead of becoming eWaste. 8GB should be the only RAM option and storage should only go up to 1TB for less money than it costs to make the same upgrade on full M1 hardware. These cut backs would allow Apple to target a $699 base price, ideally even $599 if they're feeling generous. It's a very accessible price point without going into garbage territory. Of course, none of the stuff I'm talking about has any meaningful chance of ever happening, but one can dream. EDIT: Made some further tweaks to my M1 Lite concept and removed a section suggesting the Neural Engine could be cut down to reduce costs by using lower binned chips. The Neural Engine is used to great extent in day to day use and should be left intact to ensure there's no compatibility issues.

I had a 2015 inch, bought it for around $900 it was great for what I used it for, just casual stuff but then it got dropped and messed up the screen, still worked, considered keeping it for a little bit as just a random device to have, glad I sold it tho, got $400 out of it😬