BBC reviews the MacBook, says Dell and HP have sleepless nights ahead

The BBC's Alfred Hermida has reviewed the MacBook – and it is good. He had (almost) nothing but good things to say about this first major revision to Apple's consumer notebook line in five years: "The new MacBooks are powerful, fast and sleek machines, at a price to rival similar offerings from the world of Windows". Alfred hailed the MacBook for its leap in power and surprising offer of typically high-end features, but understandably dinged it for being just slightly on the 'scalding hot' side, as well as lacking some Windows-specific features like memory card readers (because you just gotta be able to pop in this week's card format) and a modem (no seriously – that was a real criticism). Alfred also found the keyboard at first to be a throwback from the 1990's, but then settled into it: "the keys are responsive and the gaps between them mean fewer mistakes". Interestingly, this review also pimps the ability of these new Intel Macs to run Windows, either via Boot Camp or Parallels, which makes me all the more suspicious about that whole issue with Parallels Desktop replacing Boot Camp on Apple's page about Windows.

All in all, it's a well-rounded review that is echoing what we're refreshingly seeing from so many other non-Mac-obsessed publications: people like the new MacBook; they like it mighty fine indeed.

[thanks Nigel!]