The MacBook is Apple's first 13-inch laptop and occupies the sweet spot between ultra-portable 12-inch models and desktop replacement 14-inch models. It's also the first time since the launch of the iBook G3 clamshells that the company has released a laptop in two colours. The traditional white model is joined by a more exclusive black offering, which has 20GB of extra hard drive space and a higher price tag. Both are very portable and feature impressive styling, but they have a lot to live up to in the excellent MacBook Pro.
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.
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User reviews6
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jamesjingyi 15 February 2012
Good: Everything! Its such a good laptop!
Bad: Fingermarks
Comment: This laptop is my favourite! I got it wanting a black Macbook and as I am an avid Apple lover. It has not let me down apart from a hard drive failure. Apple replaced it for free including a new keyboard as the old one had a chip in it. This laptop has now been upgraded to a 320GB SATA HD and 4GB of RAM (3.3GB supported*) and it is running Lion. Another great Apple product!
*officially only 2GB
ex-mac-user 30 January 2009
Good: the operational system
Bad: read below
Comment: I had my 13' Macbook for over 3 years. Through out the whole time I had nothing but bad experience. 5-6 months after the purchase I had noticed a chip on the right side of the keyboard panel close to the mouse pad. It was impossible to fix and because I did not have a warranty I could not return it; the plastic quality is appalling. Some half a year later I had my hard drive replaced due to a fault in many Mac. Unfortunately, I discovered the scale of this issue only when it affected me. Read the blogs online, you will be surprised. The replacement didn't cost me anything (as one would expect), but a lot of my personal data was lost, which had a great sentimental value to me. About another year later I had to buy a new battery, because the old one just would not last for more than 15 minutes! Again, a fault common in MacBook.
Another 4 months or so later, my hard drive failed again. This time I lost about 2 years worth of photos, a lot of my academic work and research documents.
READ THE REVIEWS ONLINE BEFORE YOU BUY.
atilac 28 November 2007
Good: Almost evertyhing.
Bad: Almost nothing. ;-)
See all 6 user reviews