"The four sensors allow you to click anywhere on the pad's surface with identical results, and the Force Click effect, which combines the sensors with haptic (or taptic) feedback, allows you to have two levels of perceived clicking within an app or task. That deep click feels to the finger and brain like the trackpad has a stepped physical mechanism, but in fact, the movement you feel is a small tactile haptic tap, which, even when fully explained, still feels like you're depressing the trackpad two levels."
The top of the line $2,499 15-inch MacBook Pro also gets "discrete" graphics that Apple says will be about 80% faster than before. Apple says the flash storage on the new MacBook Pros are also two-and-a-half times faster than the previous generation. Separately, Apple added a new $1999 configuration to its 27-inch iMac lineup with a Retina 5K display, which replaces what had been the top non-Retina iMac. Apple also lowered the price of the top-end iMac with Retina 5K to $2,299.
In the 2015 version of the 13-inch MacBook Air, we noted: "The performance boost, as in most Broadwell systems, is slim to negligible, but the greater power efficiency of those new chips pays a significant dividend." The 2015 version of the Air ran for 18 hours on our video playback battery drain test, which was about 90 minutes longer than the 2014 version, and the 2015 update to the 13-inch MacBook Pro ran for 15:46 in the same test. Also updated is the 27-inch version of Apple's all-in-one iMac with the 5K Retina display.
The system originally launched at $2,499 in the US in October 2014. One new configuration is now available at $1,999, and the original version has seen its price drop to $2,299. Both still use last year's fourth-gen Intel Core i-series processors. The biggest difference between the two configurations is the CPU and included graphics card, with a 3.5GHz CPU and an AMD Radeon R9 M290X in the higher-end version and a slower 3.3GHz Core i5 and AMD M290 in the less-expensive one.
The new, lower-end iMac also has a standard 1TB hard drive, not the hybrid drive found in the original model. The 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro starts at the same $1,999 as previous versions, and both that and the updated 5K iMac are available to order now in the US. We'll update this preview with international prices and ship dates when available.
