Apple quietly updates $999 MacBook, again -- goes back to school with free iPod touch
By Thomas Ricker 
posted May 27th 2009 6:52AM
posted May 27th 2009 6:52AM
Update: Looks like the battery might have been given a nudge to a rated 5-hours, up from 4.5.
[Thanks, Jasper K., Daniel, and Anshu P.]
Read -- MacBook white
Read -- back to school
I guess we will see similar bumbs on the Aluminium Macbooks soon.
whats a bumb?
So you think that they will come out with new Macbook specs? I really want the Aluminum Macbook, but if they are coming out with better specs I will wait.
I am in the market and I have been waiting on getting a new Macbook for a few months due to this special, I guess I can wait until June 8th when they might hint at a new Macbook.
@CAHLITO
B and P are fairly close on the keyboard, typos are expected when the distance is that close.
Anyway, I'd by one of these but they are still too expensive for my poor college ass. Plus I'm going to need money for a Zune HD.
Guys - I hate the engadget comment system!
I already posted that I am wrong, but the comment system won't publish it... I'm not a native speaker, I hope my mistakes are therefore excused :).
@Brianjoy77: No, they will not come with new specs for the unibody-MacBooks. Their plan is to keep the current specs for all eternity.
Duh! Of course they are going to improve the specs sooner or later!
@CAHLITO
"B and P are fairly close on the keyboard, typos are expected when the distance is that close."
really? B and P are close ? ...i'd love to see which bizzaro keyboard you're using.
@Mitch
"B and P are fairly close on the keyboard, typos are expected when the distance is that close."
really? B and P are close ? ...i'd love to see which bizzaro keyboard you're using.
@Mitch
Unless you're looking at a completely different keyboard than I am B and P are nowhere near each other...
sorry about the double post... tagged the wrong person initially.
engadget comment system fails me again :p
@rj and aj121489
I think a *SWOOSH* perfectly captures the sound of Mitch's sarcasm not registering to you two.
I love these promotions, mainly because last year I got a free iPod and a printer out of buying me MacBook. :)
lol i cant tell if you guys are trollin or not...
clearly mitch was just being a giant cave troll and being sarcastic :D
Only Apple could get away with calling plastic "polycarbonate"... I love it.
Please use english when speaking. thank you
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270397302877&viewitem=&salenotsupported
"B and P are fairly close on the keyboard, typos are expected when the distance is that close."
really? B and P are close ? ...i'd love to see which bizzaro keyboard you're using.
CAHLITO, he's using the keyboard that enhances one's sense of humor.
oops! starting to share disdain for this commenting system.
CAHLITO: sorry, it wasn't your post i was responding to.
rj: it was meant for you.
@Khattab I hear ye.
"Quietly"
hardly going to make a big song and dance about 0.13ghz are they?
Yup cuz they are dancing around singing right now...
they didnt quietly update it or anything.
@ShirkPower
Did you actually understand what you replied to?
Its my screen, its been doing weird shit since sp2. I apologize,
i only saw the last line
Subtle fanboi is subtle.
wait. they're still selling these white plastic macbooks? what abt the black ones
Nope no black macbooks. The black ones have been replaced by the unibody macbooks.
In a mac future theres a small minority of white people...... And the rest of the population is aluminum.....
You know, I always wanted to like the black macbooks, but everyone I've known who had one had glossed the matte finish on the outside within a matter of months. It just looks so nasty. I really hope that's not the same material they're going to make the matte iPhones out of, I can't stand that greasy matte-glossy look.
they don't make those anymore...they only continued the white ones.
Mike Hintz
ryan. really? i prefer the matte finish to the glossy, at least you can clean up the greasy spots once in a while whereas glossy scatched is very obvious. also the white one ages like milk, after a while you can see the difference of white between the keyboard keys and the dirty palm rests. apple keeps the white because it suits their image.
Sweet Deal.
Dam those Ipod Touches are flying off the shelves its crazy.
No wonder microsoft is releasing their own ipod touch
I could get any other laptop with 250GB, 2.17ghz and 3GB for less than half the price. This is not a sweet deal.
Hey fanman, no one cares. Really they don't.
no one care if they throw away $500 bux away? really???
wow.
you people must be super rich!
paying for $1000 for a laptop just to check email, music, video. and then boot into windows cause you dont have softwares in mac. and then boot back into mac. sounds like u have time to boot back and forth. must be nice to waste both money and time
Not everyone boots back and forth.
And some people need an OS with decent memory management.
PC Fanboys still don't get it. Hardware is obsolete in 6 months... its not about the hardware specs. That's not what we buy. Apple has always maintained that they are a SOFTWARE company. Apple gets elegant software. The iPhone is a paper weight without it's UI. Period. Is it worth twice the price? In my line of work (video) when the difference between my son eating and not eating is a stable system... yes it is.
@jonshipman
Funny, the only desktops we have in the office that actually have (or need) more then 2 gigs of memory are the ones running OSX and they're not even used for graphic design, video editting or run VM's. Plus not using ram you have is like just throwing away the money you spend on getting that extra pair of ram modules (40 euro's per two gig or 90 euro's in Apple money)
what is there to get?
im not a fanboy.
in my line of work... website designing, having a nice quad core, 37 inch monitor, 4gb ram, vista OS, and having all the softwares/hardwares i ever desire is priceless. it hasnt crashed nor locked up. the computer is powered down whenever im on vacation or extended leave. and i dont get viruses or malwares because i dont download contraband nor venture onto shady websites.
They are probably about ready to drop the 8GB model.
It's still a nice design, and a metal case is not something people at this price range need, but they could at least put the new trackpad in or something.
Though it may look nice I´m surprised to see they actually still sell it. I dont know anybody whose shell hasn´t cracked. For some reason Apple´s plastic tends to crack rather fast in the low end models compared to other laptops and not to mention they sometimes tend to become seriously warm.
I would prefer to see just a metal casing (unibody or not... who cares) and if you like white just powercoat it white, heck you could even toss in a color line by doing so. I do wonder why the upgrade is so minimal, maybe this has todo with the fact they tend to get seriously warm?
They only still make it because it's cheap, why would they make it more expensive by putting new parts in?
My plastic MacBook cracked in an insignificant location (under the right wrist rest) after about a year of use, but I took a bad fall a few months after that (slipped on ice, landed on my butt and the machine) that crushed the CD drive opening. The computer still functions, which is nothing short of amazing IMO but it convinced me that the next Mac laptop I buy will have a metal case.
Of course, with WWDC coming up I'm not about to buy a Mac anytime soon, at least not until the price drops and configuration changes are announced and in effect.
@JZ
I have the late 2006 White Macbook with not one crack. I travel all over the country (broadway national tours) so it's not just sitting idle on a desk. The build quality is quite good on these things.
I got a bad one that cracked at the front, then I got a good one as a replacement.
My 3-year old black one is cracked in 3 places now. Really pathetic, Apple. I'm serious. I'm not saying a laptop should never wear out. I'm just saying that this is a design flaw, it was preventable if they had bothered to do it right. They all seem to crack under the right wrist wrest.
Mine's been through hell and still works, so it's made well. But I really think they could have also made the case properly so it doesn't crack.
take it to apple and they will replace the cracked pieces for free within 30 minutes. they know it's a flaw and warranty is not necessary. let's see dell do that.
people dont "need" a computer. Its a "want"
Hold up there! They didn't bring down their entire site for this major upgrade!?!?! But how could they do that? Does Apple have some new future technology that allows them to modify the contents of their site without taking it down? That is amazing - Apple rulz!
P.S. Engadget, I subscribe to your feed through google reader and I had 8 entries for this story 'Engadget's recession antidote: win Radius earphones for iPhone 3G!", which seems to be gone now. And over the past few days I've seen a few stories that show up 2 or 3 times (again, just in the feed) and only one of them links to the real story - what gives?
System woes, we're working on it. If you can put up with our shit comment system then duplicate RSS entries should be no problem. Fortunately, we're working on comments too.
Thomas
I've had the same thing happen.
"If you can put up with our shit comment system then duplicate RSS entries should be no problem."
Best comment ever.
LOL! @ Thomas.
My only issue with the RSS feed is any time an AT&T story comes up, I get "AT&T". For the longest time, I thought Amp Mobile and AT&T hooked up. :(
A not very overpriced Mac? Amazing O_O
Should be 800$. Its still 1148$ here in Japan, really piss me off the extra price we pay here.
The cheapest aluminium body macbook is 1500$ here. Way overpriced for only 2ghz and 2gb of ram. A nice Studio 15 have 2.4ghz, 4gb, 320gb and a nicer screen for only 800$. As I have a very good Dell experience so far dont tell me the quality is not the same. 6 of my 8 Mac went for repair in the 2 first years. No problem so far since 3 years with my Vostro and Inspiron.
The trackpad is bigger on the mac though which is really nice but nill as I use a mouse most of teh time.
How can you put out the mouse acceleration on OSX? Its really drive me mad. Linear mouse motion is way more natural for me.
someone is scared lol
I have no idea, every time I try out a mac in a store the stupid accellaration makes it a horrible experience.
Well, in Sweden the price just got bumped by 1000 SEK, from 9495 SEK to 10 495 SEK (about €100). It doesn't sing well with the "Most affordable MacBook" tagline.
same dirt-prone keyboard. They should replace that one.
Really? the keyboard is the only thing on my macbook which is remained white? I've had the bezel replaced 3 times by "genius bar" they even apologised and replaced my shot battery for free. Score!
Smokin' deal.
This effectively knocks the price off the laptop to $700 and into the Mac Mini range. $949 (education price) - $229 = $720
Makes me jealous when I got a crappy inkjet printer with my powerbook few years ago, and it was a mail-in-rebate type of free which I never redeemed.
I think these come with a online-rebate of $100 towards a printer in addition to the iPod Touch rebate. That's how they did it last year, at least…
could you be more specific about the whole free ipod touch deal?
because right now you sounds like a bad popup/spam advertising....
You buy a $999 laptop, get a discount AND a free ipod touch ($229-399) ??
that gives you a hint how badly the customers before you got F**ked up the **s.
Max value of the iPod Touch is $229, i.e. the low-end model. Still a good deal.
Great. UK store shows nothing, as usual. How long? Why? WHY I ASK YOU APPLE?!?!
That's odd; why would they make the $999 version slightly more powerful than the $1299 unibody version? This only means they're trying to sell more white macbooks. Whether they're refreshing the aluminum line or if they just make more profit off the white ones we'll have to find out.
I think because this model appeals to college aged people and they're trying to push them out as a summer purchase. These are also the models that I've seen on display at Best Buy, etc.
Still an overprice laptop for what you get. I really want the White Mac but until the price hits below $800...forget it about. I rather take the slightly slower Sony FW with Vista that has a gorgeous 16..4 in screen, blue ray, hdmi, 320 HD, wifi, blue tooth, built in camera, memory slot cards, and more all for under $900. Yes, it's Vista but we all know Windows 7 is just around the corner.
How is that a slower laptop???
Yes yes yes. This Macbook is still too expensive. And to the guy in Japan, I here ya. I just bought a Studio 15 in Japan because Apple products are waaaaaay stupidly overpriced here. Seriously, it's just stupid how much their stuff costs here. With the exchange rate being the way it has been for the last couple of months the price should be LESS than the US. Eff Apple!
Wow Yatesey. Seems there are a bunch of other ill-informed morons voting you up here.
Point in fact, the Sony can be had at a slower processing speed than the Mac.
T6400 (2.0GHz)
P8600 (2.40GHz) [add $100.00]
P8700 (2.53GHz) [add $150.00]
T9550 (2.66GHz) [add $300.00]
T9800 (2.93GHz) [add $600.00]
I suppose (for you) it's easier to be a smartass rather than a smart person.
Hmm...
$1000 for last generation technology? I think I'll stick with my unibody, thanks.
If this is last-gen, so is every other laptop except for the MacBook unibody, since they're all made of shitty plastic.
I meant in terms of DDR2 RAM. Franly I don't give a fuck if it's made of plastic.
Come on Apple, add a SSD option instead of those hard drives !!
$999 for MacBook.
$999 for SSD (with Apple Upgrade Tax).
No thanks.
SSD is nice, but with Steve Jobs around, you will be expected to pay $1500 for the hard drive alone. (no joke)
500GB Hard drive option for the White Macbooks now, which isn't available on the aluminium ones. I guess they'll be updated soon too.
Wow, news of the day. Apple makes slight change to computer. Quick tell the world.
Your right and you don't see million's of ASUS news about their upgrades every month. There is Apple news like this every 4 months, relax.
I see complaints like yours every time there's one of these stories. While I'm a big Mac fan, I would normally agree with you. I think the difference, though, is that Mac has a cool marketing scheme and product line going. What does Sony have, 73 different laptop models? The XCWG536A and the HJSGW883W and the BNMSL9901A, etc.
Apple has the Macbook, Macbook Pro, Air, whatever. It's easy to keep track of them, and Apple doesn't shit out 4,000 different models every year. They have a small product line, and even minor changes impact a lot of units.
Probably doesn't make sense to any Apple-haters out there, and I'm not explaining it well, but I do understand why these stories get posted.
Brainjoy
dont tell people to relax
CRAP!!! I just order one like 2 days ago and it has not been send yet. They had better send me the updated specs. I know it's not that much of an update but still it frustrates me.
hum you should definitively call them, if its not too late you might be able to get them make the changes you want.
Bring back the BLACK macbook
Its gone. Time to move on and get over it.
*Grammar Fail
"Still more is more better especially when it's free $999."
Bill hated companies like Apple!
The real question is what the FSB ratio is and how much L3 cache the machine has. The old 2.16 had 4MB cache but a lower FSB and ram speed. Intel's bottom bin (of whatever series Apple is using... it was T9100) keeps playing with 533|800|1066 FSB even though the ram stays the same speed. The 2GHZ chip had 3MB cache and 800MHZ FSB speed with 533MHZ ram... So the new 2.0 was a bit faster than the old 2.16 because of the internals. so what did they change for this one?
Still not on the UK site. Although I have just worked out that you can buy A macbook Cheaper in the UK than the US if you buy it at Dixons Duty Free at the airport. About $70 cheaper! Can't wait for $2 to £1 again...
Apple's netbook.
Whats sad is thats the cheap laptop from mac...... If they could get this thing to be a bit cheaper their market would open up much much more.....
I doubt that this is an update per say, but an update to the MacBook line of laptops. This laptop has a White polycarbonate shell instead of a Aluminum unibody. For $300 less many people will buy this model instead of the Aluminum models.
It seems to be thicker and heavier than the other MacBook, but has a FireWire port. There are other differences. Those looking for a MacBook take a look.
http://www.apple.com/macbook/white/
Yes, Apple did update there notebook by increasing the speed and hard drive space. My mistake.
the whole 0.13 ghz at once..? wow, that's stunning.
Wait, back to school already? Most schools haven't even let out for summer yet.
Yea I hear ya, but with Halloween and Christmas *right* around the corner, they need to push the back to school stuff meow.
Excuse me, are you saying meow?
Its mostly a college thing and most seniors are getting out with in the next week, while other brats have to wait an extra 2 weeks and come back in the fall
I want a tablet! I want a tablet!
oh snap, the macbooks are almost catching up to my 2.33ghz macbook i bought in may of 07.. looks like ill have to upgrade soon.