We just took delivery of
Apple's new MacBook -- it's an interesting revision to the MacBook formula, built using the same unibody techniques as the Aluminum Pros but with white plastic. That means it feels much more solid than the previous plastic MacBooks: there's zero flex when you pick it up by a corner, and the keyboard is nicely rigid. There's a price for that heft, though -- the battery is now sealed in, although we're guessing it won't be too hard to replace if you remove the soft-touch rubber bottom panel. Unlike the Pros, the screen is still set in by a plastic bezel instead of edge-to-edge glass, which means it's a little less glossy overall -- but make no mistake, it can still serve as a mirror in a pinch. Ports are looking pretty dismal -- there's no FireWire, no SD card slot, no dedicated line-in. Instead you get just two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, Mini DisplayPort, and a combo headphone / line-in jack. That's pretty weak in a thousand-dollar machine. We're going to spend some more time playing with this thing before we dish out a proper review, though -- anything you want to know?
posted Oct 20th 2009 12:50PM
Bummer is has that awful new trackpad. BUTTONS ARE GOOD SOMETIMES, APPLE!
sorry the new trackpad owns
tap-to-click makes buttons on a trackpad mostly useless. i only ever use it for dragging
yeah the new trackpad shits on any other trackpad i have ever used.
new design?
looks just as ugly
The Mac trackpad is awesome and by far the best input method for pointer control on any laptop.
As for these laptops, I like them. They make good entry level Macs for people who don't want to shell out too much - £799 in the UK is not too bad at all.
@ Mark Anderson
I don't understand how it's the best input method.. but whatever, I won't argue with that
I just find it funny how you are trying to justify spending $1000 on this junk.. in your own words "its not too bad", meaning it's overpriced but that's okay because I'll buy anything that's shiny and made by apple
this thing should be at most $799, then with my student discount I might consider it an option..
I have no problem spending well over $1000 on a notebook, but on this I can't see where all that money is going.. I know what things cost to make and I don't like feeling robbed
"I don't understand how it's the best input method.. but whatever, I won't argue with that."
Because you can't. I've used Dells, HPs, Lenovos (trackpad and nipple), Acers and other laptops and the Macs trackpad beats them all easily. Until you've used one for a while you can't appreciate just how good and intuitive it is.
"I just find it funny how you are trying to justify spending $1000 on this junk.. in your own words "its not too bad", meaning it's overpriced but that's okay because I'll buy anything that's shiny and made by apple"
No, it means it's solidly constructed, made from good quality parts and has an excellent reputation for quality. I would expect this from any premium laptop manufacturer, even for their entry level models and I would expect to pay a bit more because of that.
Ultimately it's personal choice. Sometime you just pay a bit more for something that's a little bit better than the rest.
@rube
I said this before and it still stands:
Battery Life + Productivity software+ LED display + thin (when compared to a $700 laptop) + good keyboard and trackpad + solid construction = $300
If you don't like macs, that is fine, but facts are facts.
@Mark..
I agree it is well built.. but well built doesn't mean it has to cost a minimum of $1000...Why can't they be better than the rest and at the same time be a better deal than the rest? If I went into an apple store to purchase this.. it would make me feel stupid.. that's all I'm saying. This thing has barely changed since I bought an ibook 5 years ago.. In my eyes, the ibook is better because it has a matte display and the case is actually smaller..
and also.. another reputation they are well known for is excessive beach balling action and shi* web browsing.. I guess that makes them better than the rest though
@sacapuntas: you say:
"I said this before and it still stands:
Battery Life + Productivity software+ LED display + thin (when compared to a $700 laptop) + good keyboard and trackpad + solid construction = $300
If you don't like macs, that is fine, but facts are facts."
Those are not facts.. those are opinions of what you think make it better..
preloaded "productivity" software does nothing for me... LED display is worthless because it's glossy, thin? it's the same thickness as before and thinness does nothing if it has a large footprint.. good keyboard is subjective (I prefer the ibook keyboard), solid construction? even though many people complain about cracking and warping.. and the bezel, looks terrible because it just looks like wasted space and they could have made it smaller
ZOMG!! Are you saying I can get a Macbook that has tap to click????
Other laptops only had that for the past 10 years... : /
omg, this is soooooo revolutionary and innovative!!!!1
@rube
I'll start with the battery, in order to get the same amount of battery life from a rival notebook you would have to buy at least 1 additional battery and possibly 2 just to get the same amount of battery life. So there is so additional cost.
Like it or not, the display is glossy, people have choices, but regardless of that the LED Display shipping on current MacBooks is by far the best display on any notebook period.
Track pad, again you may like it or not, but it is by far the most advanced track pad available to date. Competitors track pads are small and have cheap plastic buttons, I can move my mouse across the entire screen on my MacBook Pro without lifting my finger once cause of the track pad, I have to pick my finger up and reposition it to move across the screen on the same size and resolution Dell.
Build Quality, every manufacturer has build problems, I have a Dell(15" Studio) with a dead battery after 3 months, another Dell(Inspiron 9400) with a discolored display where the fan failed and countless desktops with memory errors and hard drive failures. Apple by far invests the most money into quality materials. You can knock them all you want about cracks and discoloration on previous models, but fact still stands this is a new model, and has addressed any issues that may have existed.
Thinness is great, you might think thinness isn't so great cause the foot print is still large, which is wrong. Thinness allows you to fit more items into your backpack/manbag that was designed for that certain footprint of a laptop. You could stack 2 MacBooks in sleeves into a backpack where as if you were to do the same with a similar spec'd Dell notebook you could only fit one.
Alot of your ramblings have been trivial, but don't take away from the MacBook, it's a well designed machine and hopefully will help drive innovation among other manufacturers such as the Air did with Dell's Adamo line. I don't take either side Mac or PC cause I enjoy and use both daily, but to try and discredit the MacBook for being $300 more is ridiculous, especially considering the additional technology and engineering placed in said device.
@7
ha whatever
I'm happy to hear that it fits inside your manbag
i honestly wasnt a fan of the trackpad on my buddies new macbook ... i would rather have buttons than have the whole thing click in... but thats just me.
naturally im not suprised they took out all of the useful ports such as firewire and card readers ... i guess the only people who actually USE their laptops are the ones who buy the 17" pros?
and are they even still allowing you to buy the matte screen? hell i would pay the extra-extra apple tax just to get a screen that works in daylight.
@ rube
"@7
ha whatever
I'm happy to hear that it fits inside your manbag"
Aaaaaaaand now everything you've said before (no matter how inaccurate) is a completely useless, since you've shown yourself you be a troll. And a terrible one at that.
@7egend
My Aspire Timeline, with its 8 hours of real-life use, begs to differ with your assertion about battery life. And it looks classier. And it might have a slower processor, but it also comes with twice as much memory and costs just over half the price of the Mac. And I'm pretty sure it isn't any thicker.
Apple has been providing the absolute best trackpads on the market for at least 6 or 7 years, starting the giant trackpad on the iBook G3; they've had multi-touch trackpads for almost 5 years now. The tiny little trackpads the PC makers provide are a joke, and I don't understand why they're always at least 2 years behind what Apple is doing, hardware-wise.
And now HP has glass "no button" trackpad just like the Macs, but it's unusable because HP couldn't write a decent hardware driver for it. Swing and a miss, yet again.
"Why can't they be better than the rest and at the same time be a better deal than the rest?"
I'm sorry - let me run this by you gain.
You want a company. To make better products than everyone else. At the same time make it cheaper ... than everyone else.
This idea will probably work for maybe a toilet paper company? But a computer company? That's rare.
The bummer is this looks like it is killing the curent macbook with the firewire and interchangable battery.
Actually the Dell RGB LED on the XPS is far better than any mac display, period. AND I OWN MACS HOMEY!
When will people understand that premium features like LED displays, wireless N standard, a multitouch glass trackpad, a high quality durable unibody construction, productivity software suite, and an advanced unmatched battery technology simply cost money, period. Apple makes all their products come with these premium features standard, therefore their products cost more. If you don't want a premium notebook, then don't buy an Apple product. Its simple. We all know Apple to be the first to adopt and push new premium technologies to become industry standards, so you find a lot more things on Apple products before you find them on competitors products. But to simply say they are overpriced just because of the brand shows incredible ignorance on your part and basically just shows you to be a troll.
You don't have to like Apple or Macs. Everybody is entitled to their opinions, and not everybody is going to like a Mac or find them to be practical for them. But there's no reason to slang senseless hatred on something just because you don't like it.
Jesus why can't people just appreciate everything? Why do people have to either like Windows PC's or Macs? Why can't just they just like and appreciate BOTH??
Please Americans, stop buying all this crap and go on holidays, like we europeans do.
we americans don't go on holidays since we get them for free instead we go on vacation
As a european I say WTF are you talking about.
as an American I also drop a WTF on ThatOneKid
Let's all point and laugh at ThatOneKid!
"we americans don't go on holidays since we get them for free instead we go on vacation"
What does that even mean?? American's get free macbooks? or they get free vacations? which still makes no sense. : |
Yeah, like all the Europeans who go on holiday to the US to buy Macs.
Go to the Apple stores in Florida and that's all you'll see: Europeans on holiday stocking up on laptops and iPods like crazy.
Yes, some people wan't them others don't remind me why you care?
holiday is a day like christmas.. new years.. etc.
vacation = spend money to go somewhere
Wrong.
In Europe, to go on Holiday basically means "to go on vacation".
take the lift to the parking garage, put the luggage in the boot and get some petrol before hitting the road
This is what the original MacBook should have been. Finally, those design flaws are corrected.
I'm gonna miss that FireWire port, though. The ability to have it mount to another Mac as a drive was great when troubleshooting...
Hold on a sec!
No one knew what this stuff was this morning. But not only did you have all of your write-ups ready with graphics, you also have the damn computer delivered, unboxed, and a hands-on?
You guys basically had this info likely for hours, and played some game like you were all in the dark. complete with "Ohh the Apple store is down. Wonder what it could be???" act to boot.
Sorry, guys, but I really hope you weren't working in coordination with Apple marketing, because that's plenty shady.
Of course engadget knows this shit before it happens.
Its their job to make hype, keep rumours floating.
Whats the problem with that?
It's called a non-disclosure agreement, and it's likely the only way they were able to get this MacBook so early.
They prob got it from the apple store, as they are saying is available NOW is stores.
It's just a few pics with some quick background thrown together. You act as if it takes hours to put a short blog out..
I'd be more concerned about how this affects their neutrality. There's an obvious bias, I guess now we know why...
New macbook looks good although I'm not a huge fan of the new trackpads... and where's the SD card slot? Come to think of it, where the heck is my brand new front row?!
My bet is that Apple went up to Engadget about this, not the other way around. It would also make no sense for Engadget to turn down the offer, as /they do get paid for the page views on this site/ (it's their job). There was probably some sort of non-disclosure agreement involved too so that there was no leaking of information (as we all know Apple is all about secrecy). There's nothing shady about this.
The information was available on apple.com before the store page was updated.
Also, large blogs are treated like traditional press. I'm sure there are plenty of newspapers and print media receiving the same shipment of stuff now; and I wouldn't put it past Apple at all to ensure the merchandise was shipped via a courier instructed to deliver to a specific time frame.
Remember, Apple has to be on top form this week to try and steal Microsoft's thunder. Maybe engadget knew beforehand; though I doubt it. Don't think it's tin foil hat time just yet.
I agree, it's shady.
"My bet is that Apple went up to Engadget about this, not the other way around. It would also make no sense for Engadget to turn down the offer, as /they do get paid for the page views on this site/ (it's their job). There was probably some sort of non-disclosure agreement involved too so that there was no leaking of information (as we all know Apple is all about secrecy). There's nothing shady about this."
Here is the problem
Corporation goes up to blog and says, "Hey we want to funnel the info for our new products to you, but you need to play like you dont know nothing".
Engadget has the info, but begins to manipulate it's readers with the usual hype-up in the form of:
The Apple store is down act. (complete with Nilay posting a picture of his tip box again AS IF THEY WEREN'T IN ON IT AND DIDNT ALREADY HAVE THE INFO)
Then they "leak" a parts list...While still pretending not to be in on it. Keep the hype balloon going.
Then BOOM flood the blog with Apple stories.
You may not ultimately care, but Engadget has real image issues with readers when it comes to what is seen as a overly cozy/friendly relationship with Apple. Now if they were playing a game to pump up Apple's products that they knew about so blatantly, then what else are they doing, and what are they getting for the "news" they are posting?
@Look_Around_You 100% agreed. This is really suspect and disappointing.
Yeah, that "Ohh the Apple store is down. Wonder what it could be???" act was stupid. And it has *nothing* to do with non-disclosure-agreement.
If Engadget acted like they knew about everything, what's the point of having an NDA? If they didn't post all the rumours and the news of the Apple store going down, people would begin to develop a negative image of Engadget as a blog that's late on news (and since this is an Apple topic, people would probably develop some thought that Engadget is pro-MS). There's nothing shady about this, the fact that you don't see this with other devices like the HTC Hero, Zune HD is because those companies are a lot more public with their products so a hands-on is done at a press-conference.
Ah, yes the conspiricy theorists - and I suppose the statement: "Ports are looking pretty dismal -- there's no FireWire, no SD card slot, no dedicated line-in. Instead you get just two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, Mini DisplayPort, and a combo headphone / line-in jack. That's pretty weak in a thousand-dollar machine." was straight from Apple's marketing dept. too?
Let's be clear -- we didn't have any information on this stuff when I put up the store post, and our tips inbox really was flooded. We also didn't have the machines. I picked up the review units from Apple at 1210PM, after the PR went up, and raced to our offices to get these hands-on up. We've done similar for any number of big product launches, from any company you can think of. No conspiracy, just us trying to get this stuff in front of you as fast and as best as we can.
Remember: you might hate us, but we love you.
1 word -- embargo.
Apple has historically liked to put on a show. And media centers like to cover it because it brings in hits/readers/ratings.
It's a lot more exciting than Dell silently updating things without telling anyone or the endless Atom machines that are almost all identical. You still see articles about them, but there's not much to add to it. Apple updates everything all at once so that sites like Engadget can know when to shift over reporting focus to them.
It's pretty easy to understand. You'd do the same thing if you were in the business and biased primarily to get viewers. They might not even like Macbooks very much (note they said it was 'pretty weak' for how expensive it is) but it just makes a good show.
Also, because Apple does things differently that also prompts news sites to have to write more information about what they did. They can't just say 'it's the same specs as that DV2 you saw in July' and say pretty much everything you need to know about it.
Very few other companies do anything unusual. Whether it's good or bad it hardly matters. It's still news.
Sorry Nilay, not buying it. Pandora doesn't go back in the box, it only comes out..
"Remember: you might hate us, but we love you."
Awww, Nilay Patel is like Jesus.
Hey fuck-nuts. Did you even read the post? They're dissing the feature set versus the price. You think Apple coordinated that with them?
oh right, after months of apple-bashing post after apple-bashing post, and laying the microsoft hype machine mustard real thick, you fools still think engadget is apple biased? hell, even in all these new apple product posts there is a tinge of "eh, big deal.." in each story. i've been reading engadget for years and things tend to go in cycles, but at this point in time engadget seems to be getting more money from MS at the moment.
SD card slot?
That would make to much sense for Apple...
When apple gets around to adding one of those to a laptop it's going to be such an amazing innovation!
@McPow
The new MacBook Pro's have them.
No card reader, two USB ports, only a mini-displayport, no standalone line-in... and a mirror for a screen. I'd pay $700, tops, for the novelty of the unibody design and the (theoretical) seven hours of battery life coupled with a regular laptop processor. And then I'd have to worry about the Nvidia chip crapping out on me. Apple, come on.
Oh, and make the thing black without jacking up the cost. White looks good for two weeks, tops, and then real-life use starts taking its toll.
No more cracked top cases!
w00t.
did they go keybooardless as well? I can see the keys nonetheless the letters on the keyboards?
Unibody == Good.
Seal battery == Bad.
Eh. I realize a lot of people complain about the sealed battery, but I gotta think at least 90% of people never change out their battery until it craps out. No one I know at least.. and the cost of a new battery from Dell or HP is comparable to taking it in to the Apple Store. Or so I've heard.
Looks like crap. 999 for that?? Apple has stupid people figured out...
Even trying to disregard my applephilia, I would say that this is a very nicely designed plastic notebook.
Saying its not seems to suggest that another bias, equal and opposite to apple fanboyism is coming into play.
MacBook wars: return of the unibody without FireWire?
lawl @ apple's timing on this (Hence the debut of the Microsoft Store). This will surely take much of the spotlight from the introduction of thoes but in my opinion all this could have made a super apple event. I guess they are prepping for some more... ^^
I guess we'll see a 98% clone of the new iMac made by HP being released in a year or two.
I feel for anyone that buys this and also has kids. That keyboard will look crummy in a matter of weeks if not days! They should offer a black option.
Actually, that is one ugly piece of apple.
I don't like the rounded corners like that, it looks like some bubble food package. Much prefer the old style.
Me too.
So there's no glass above the display, as it is on the MBP?
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/10/2009-10-20macbookunbox-18.jpg
How about a direct comparison of MPB 13" vs. MB 13" with active displays, PLEASE!
Plastic Apple Laptop = Good
Plastic Windows Laptop = Bad
/sarcasm
I don't see what you find confusing there, just equate Bad to negative Good, combine the equations, and divide both sides by 'Plastic' and you get "Apple != Windows", which explains 60% of the markup difference between such machines. Another 20% is that not only is it /not Windows/, it IS OS X, with the final 20% being that it doesn't look like crap.
Only 2 USB ports really sucks, I'm sorry.
Looks like a considerably smaller footprint, that is a big deal in my opinion!
A lot of people seem to have forgotten that USB is daisy-chainable.
The new design is okay but I just can't bring myself to buy an "all white" macbook. Every single one I've seen at the university is disgustingly brown and dirty from the oil and grime on people's hands after they have used it for a couple months. I guess if your a fanboy and buying the latest and greatest every refresh, it's not a big deal, but I like to get some mileage out my purchases. Especially at that price.
my ibook from 2004 is still perfectly white.. I'm a pretty clean person though, I guess that makes me weird or something
Gawd dam that's a lot of white.
Please take it away.
All I want is eSATA.
I'd like to know how well it performs as a Dual-Boot machine with Win7, and/or using a VM.
Give us back a black option please !
Also needs an SD card slot seems cheap not to include it, and 2 USB ports ? if not for the cracking I'd rather have my old macbook.
Mind you those new iMacs are hot as fresh shit.
999 for a lesser MacBook? Besides, that white plastic looks so cheesy. I'll stick with my fully loaded T400 that costs $900 AND beats the crap out of this AND has better aesthetics.
Let's face it - the only reason why people will buy this and not the aluminum Macbook is because they couldn't afford the latter.
Hi, does it have an IR sensor for the old apple remote?
Its not a massive deal, but its handy.
AGAIN Apple is making the SAME MISTAKE with the MacBook unibody. No firewire port, I will recommend to don't buy until they realize that we need firewire ports to connect our video cameras to our computers.
I dont know what if they think about what we need or if they want to buy and they re sell it and spend more money in a new one.
Looks even cheaper than it did before, shiny white plastic still looks like a chunk of lego no matter what and it shows up keyboard gunk something terrible. Give it a few weeks and you'll be constantly fingernailing chunks of sweaty crud out of it's cracks.
Or not, most people don't bother and let it build up. The shallower keys compared to a normal keyboard make the problem worse, there's more right angles for oily human gunk to scrape off on and collect in.
Buying the white plastic one kinda defeats the main point of buying apple, to show it off and advertise the fact that you can afford it.
It screams "I wanted to buy a mac to be cool, but I couldn't afford the aluminium one".
The article states that the applying the unibody process makes it solid than previous generation plastic macbooks.
I'm confused as to why unibody is such a plus....Don't most engineered structures use multiple parts to increase rigidity and strength while saving weight in the process?
I may have worded that question oddly, but it seems to me that unibody is a way of using brute force(metal/plastic thickness/weight) to achieve solidness rather than actual engineering elegance.
I don't know what to make of a plastic unibody.
If that thing cracks or warps then is there the risk that it could spread.
Make of it what it is: a cheap copout. All the iFanboys are always mocking windows notebooks for plastic cases, but now that Apple is doing it again its GREAT!
It's a simple formula: Apple = INNOVATIVE, PC = lame
While I agree a black one would be nice, it's hard not to notice that this is essentially the same machine as the 13" MacBook pro, minus firewire, minus SD card slot, and with 90gb more hard drive space. If you're looking at getting the cheapest MBP, it's worth considering just how much you would use firewire or an sd card slot.
Seriously, you save 17% off the cheapest MBP if you don't need firewire or an sd card slot. I don't need either, so I'd rather have the $200.
I still wish they offered a black one again, but we all know if they did they would charge an extra $100-$150 just for that... making it stupid to get versus the MBP.
I would like to see a side by side comparison of the 13" MB and 13" MBP. They seem to be the smae machine minus a few extras.
How much is apple paying you engadget?
If there is no removable battery how do you replace RAM or HDDs ?
Pull the bottom off. It's like 8 or 10 screws, didn't count. The battery is held in place with 5 pointed "high security" torx screws.
u know when I use an SD slot on my laptops? NEVER! I don't see what the big deal is about
I boot my netbook of a sdhc card every now and then, but yea, I never use the one on my macbook. My camera uses cf cards.
SD slots are good for transferring pics from cameras and moving files to my PMP (some companies actually have SD support on their players) and ebooks to my Sony Reader.Card reader = good.
Does anyone else think covering the whole bottom of a laptop with an insulator would cause heat dissipation issues?
I'd like to know the same thing. I don't see any vents for the heat to escape out of.
Not if it's designed to dissipate heat a different way, like say out the back.