The tech industry has a predilection for making anything and everything thin. Heck, “predilection” isn’t strong enough of a word – obsession! The marketability of tech today seems to be measured in millimeters, as opposed to RAM or storage capacity. Of course, we have the kingpin of the tech world to blame for this skinny craze – the corporation that is famous for fitting size seven hardware into a size six exterior. Apple.

I’m not going to lie: when I saw the Macbook Apple unveiled recently, a little, superficial part of me started slobbering. 13.1 millimeters thick. Two pounds. What’s not to love? (Quite a lot, incidentally.) Then, like the self-respecting PC user I am, I stopped myself. No! Apple has sung the siren song once more, luring my ship farther and farther towards the shoreline! Blast ye, Apple!

Apple’s iPhones and iPods are some good tech, no doubt about it; but, in the laptop department, Apple blanches completely. For fashion’s sake, I could see shelling out a few hundred bucks for something frivolous like a decked-out iPod. However! When it comes to a machine built for doing actual work, it’s silly to spend $1,300 on Apple’s low-end laptop. For that dough, you could buy a high end Windows machine with an i7 processor, beyond a 1080p screen, multiple USB 3 ports… the works.

Okay, okay. Apple’s new Macbook is outrageously overpriced, but that’s not really a shocker. We’re talking about the company that charges $70 for a mouse. What really sets me off about the new Macbook is the amount of carefully crafted deception that Apple has poured into its marketing. Their website showcases a super-thin powerhouse of a computer when, in reality, the Macbook’s innards were gutted to accommodate its new – slimmer – form. There is only so much compression of hardware that can be engineered before compressions become cutbacks: cutbacks in storage capacity, computing power, you name it. Stripped away.

The most notable reduction to the Macbook’s insides is its processor. It runs a Intel Core M instead of your trusty i5 or i7. A Core M is what you’d find something low end, like a Windows tablet-laptop hybrid. In short: the new Macbook won’t do your heavy lifting. Keep fantasizing about a two pound workhorse of a machine, ‘cuz the Macbook isn’t it.

But wait! There’s more!

For reasons unbenounced to the public, their new Macbook has a measly one port. I’m not kidding. I can’t make this stuff up. There is one, measly slit in the whole computer, where you can plug in your charger, USB, HDMI, and VGA. Hey, I’d be all over that concept if there were, say, four of these magical omni-ports. But no – someone at Apple decided that one port is enough to accommodate the needs of the working man/woman. Fire that guy, immediately. What if I want to charge my machine while I have a USB drive in? What if I want to plug in my laptop to a projector and charge my phone? Answer me this, Apple!

I don’t know. Maybe Apple was going for a tablet-esque rendition of their Macbook. In a day and age when people get by with a smartphone and little else, the dumbing down of laptops doesn’t surprise me all that much. I would call the new Macbook an iPad for people that need a little more computing power, or a bigger screen, or a physical keyboard… but it’s $13,000. Too pricey to be called a tablet. Too wimpy to be called a laptop. I don’t know what it is. Don’t buy it. Please.