 The machine sitting in my lap is just a laptop. But it's more than that. It's the future of laptops. And it might not be your next laptop, but it's definitely going to be the one after that. It's the new MacBook, and it's amazing. The MacBook has one purpose in life, to be as small and portable as possible without making you give up having a real laptop with a real keyboard. It's a ridiculously thin, incredibly light, almost impossibly small machine. It has a high-resolution display, a fancy new keyboard, and a trackpad that fits inside this tiny frame, and it lasts about a full day on a single charge. Oh, and it's beautiful. To make it this small, Apple had to invent some of the parts that go into it and compromise on some things like speed and ports. But the result is a 12-inch all-aluminum laptop that only weighs about two pounds. I seriously can't get over how small and light this thing feels. It's like the first MacBook Air all over again. And like the first MacBook Air, it's expensive, starting at about $1299. So how did Apple make this? Like I said, inventions and compromises. Let's start with the inventions. The regular chiclet keyboard that you see on every other Mac was too thick for this MacBook, so Apple redesigned the keys. They're wider but shallower, with all new mechanisms underneath. Even though they don't travel as far, they still feel really clicky, and they even press down more evenly. The first time you type on it, it does feel a little weird, and it sounds kind of weird too. But then you get used to it. You can let your fingers gently glide over the keys, or if you're like me, you can bang away as though you're using a typewriter. Either works, and either way feels really good. I also love the screen. It's a retina screen with 2304 by 1440 pixels. But Apple gives you four different scales to view things, because at full resolution it would be impossible to see anything. The smallest scale is the one I use. It gives me the same effective screen size as a 13-inch MacBook Air, only inside this tiny package. Apple also changed the screen technology to make it thinner, brighter, and more energy efficient. It's probably my favorite thing about this laptop. But the craziest invention is the Force Touch trackpad. Inside it are force-sensing pads that can detect pressure. That means when you click on the top or the bottom, it feels the exact same. When you press down, there is a click, but you're not clicking. Instead, there's an electromagnet inside that makes you feel a click. You can even adjust how strong that click feels. Apple has built in all sorts of tricks into OS X to take advantage of it. You can force click to get a definition of a word, you can speed through a video at variable speeds, and eventually software on the Mac could give you physical feedback depending on what you're doing. Like an iMovie, where the trackpad gives you a small click when you reach the end of a clip. It's a little weird, but it is fun to imagine other possibilities. And there are other inventions inside the MacBook. The batteries are tiered so that more of them can be crammed inside. Apple says it lasts around nine hours, in our tests it lasts around eight as long as you don't push the processor too hard, and if you really take it easy, you could have it last as long as ten hours. Those are all the inventions, but now let's talk about the compromises. The first is that it uses a processor that we haven't really seen on a Mac yet, the Intel Core M. The base model, which is what I'm testing, runs at what seems like a pretty pokey 1.1 GHz, but it can go into a turbo mode. That makes it about as fast as a four-year-old 11-inch MacBook Air. That seems pretty slow, but what matters is that this Mac feels fast enough for most of what I do, and a little bit too slow for the rest of it. Web browsing, email, Twitter, Evernote, all the usual apps that I use the vast majority of the time run just fine, but open up a big photo library or try to edit a video in iMovie, and you'll eventually end up waiting. It's kind of like a Chromebook, but instead of being limited by the web, you're limited by speed. For a lot of people, that tradeoff is worth it. It probably would be for me. Using that processor means that Apple can have a tiny logic board inside it, and it doesn't need a fan at all. It's completely silent, and though it does get a little warm, it's never hot. But there's one more tradeoff that probably isn't worth it, at least not yet. It's this port. It's called USB Type-C. Other than the headphone jack, it's the only port. You use it for power, you use it for connecting up monitors, USB devices, iPhones, cameras, SD card readers, whatever. And for all of those things, right now, you're going to need adapters. Since USB Type-C is brand new, there aren't any devices that use it yet without using an adapter. So for example, I haven't been able to plug my Apple computer into my Apple cinema display because I don't have the adapter yet. That's weird and annoying. You can spend the same or less money on a laptop that's a little bit bigger but doesn't have any of those hassles. Now here's the thing about those two big compromises. They're about the future. Someday we'll have a processor that fits inside this tiny body that is powerful enough to do everything you really need it to do. And someday we won't need all those adapters because everything will just use the same plug. For example, I was able to charge this MacBook off a standard battery brick that was meant for a phone. More than that, Apple is betting that the only thing you'll ever bother to plug into this is the power cable. But we're not there yet. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are great, but they're not as easy or as simple as just plugging something in. I think a lot of people remember the moment when Steve Jobs pulled the original MacBook Air out of that inner office memo envelope. It was jaw-dropping. But a lot of people forget that the very first MacBook Air had problems. And some of the same problems as this MacBook. There weren't enough ports, it was slow, and it was really expensive. But the next version became the MacBook Air that you know now. The one that everybody either uses or copies. The one that changed laptops for five years. That's this MacBook. Even if you don't buy it, it's going to make your life better. Because in the future, all laptops are going to look like this. But the problem with the future is that it's not here yet. In the present, this laptop is kind of a hassle. But someday it won't be. And I can't wait.