Apple MacBook (2.0GHz) review

Apple MacBook (2.0GHz) Review

Reviewed by: Rory Reid

Reviewed on: 26 May 2006

Design
On first impressions, the MacBook is slightly heavier (2.3kg) than laptops of a similar size, but you can't fail to be impressed by its looks. Its attractive matte-black finish is punctuated by a bold, contrasting, back-lit Apple logo on the lid, and its gently curved edges help it stand out from the glut of ugly Windows-based laptops. Our only gripe in this area is the fact that the laptop is very prone to accumulating fingerprints, and gets dirty very quickly.

It's slightly less impressive on the inside, though. Open the magnetically-locked lid and you're greeted by a keyboard that's reminiscent of an old ZX Spectrum computer. The keys are spaced approximately 3mm apart and don't have the sloping edges seen on other laptops. This spacing means the MacBook is unlikely to trap foreign particles between its keys, but the overall aesthetic is somewhat retro.

Despite this, we found the keyboard extraordinarily easy to type on, and the elongated mouse touchpad, which is around twice as long as those on rival laptops, reduces the need to make multiple strokes when moving the mouse cursor. Unfortunately the laptop lacks any dedicated shortcut buttons for media playback, so you'll find yourself relying heavily on the mouse or using multi-button keyboard combinations to access common functions such as playback or volume adjustment.

There are no ports at the rear of the laptop, but there's a slot-loading DVD rewriter on the right side, and a set of input/output ports on the left. There are headphone and mic sockets, two USB ports, a six-pin FireWire port, Mini-DVI, LAN and power ports, all arranged according to size.

Apple's use of a Mini-DVI port helps improve the laptop's looks, but it means you'll need to carry the supplied VGA adaptor if you intend to use the MacBook with an external display. This isn't a major problem, but we were more impressed by the fact that the laptop uses Apple's magnetic (Magsafe) power port. This means the cable easily detaches itself from the laptop should you accidentally trip over it. Also impressive is the power indicator strip on the battery, which lets you see the level of remaining battery power at the touch of a button without powering up the laptop.

Features
The black MacBook uses the same components as the entry-level MacBook Pro. It inherits the Intel 915GM chipset, and a 2GHz Centrino Duo processor, but the base model only comes with a paltry 512MB of (fast) DDR2 (PC2-5300) memory, so we'd recommend you upgrade this to 1GB if you're a demanding user.

Interestingly, the MacBook is the first Apple laptop to feature a glossy 13-inch screen. This is highly reflective and proved difficult to see when using the laptop in direct light. That said, we were impressed by the overall picture quality of the TFT panel. It was bright, had excellent contrast, and produced warm colours.