Apple's new fanless MacBook thinnest ever with 12-inch Retina Display, redesigned trackpad and keyboard, starts at $1,299, ships April 10 (hands-on)

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SAN FRANCISCO -- It's long been on the list of most-rumored new Apple products, and now we have a new MacBook.

This is the thinnest Mac that Apple has ever made: at its thickest point it's just 13.1mm (about half an inch), 24 percent thinner than the existing 11-inch MacBook Air. It's also the lightest at 2 pounds (0.9 kg).

Making the laptop this thin required complete redesigns of just about every component, including the keyboard, trackpad and battery.

The keyboard, for example, uses a new butterfly mechanism for keys. It uses a single assembly that's four times more stable than a traditional scissor mechanism, while being 40 percent thinner. Apple says the keyboard is shallower, but with a larger face for each key. The backlight has a light for each key, which is nice -- backlit keyboards sometimes blow you out in low light.

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