Apple MacBook (white, 2.16GHz) review

The MacBook has been given a refresh and it's now cheaper and faster than ever. There's a quicker 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 1GB of RAM and a bigger hard drive to look forward to, all inside the same gorgeous chassis.

It's available in three delicious flavours: a white chassis with a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 80GB hard drive for £699; a 2.16GHz CPU and 120GB for £829 (model reviewed); or 2.16GHz processor, 160GB hard drive and black chassis for £949. All are available from Apple's site or through other retailers.

Design
The new MacBook is physically identical to the old model. It has the same 13.3-inch widescreen display encased in a chassis measuring 325mm wide by 227mm deep by 28mm thick and weighing 2.31kg. It's very portable, but is noticeably heavier than equivalent 13.3-inch laptops such as the 1.8kg Dell XPS M1330.

All the MacBook's IO ports are located on the left side, for convenience

There's no disputing how good it looks. As before, the MacBook is available in either black or white. This time around Apple has sent us the white model, but we much prefer the black version. The black edition commands a hefty £120 premium over its white counterpart, although you do get an extra 40GB of hard disk space to play with.

It's the small touches that mark MacBooks out from the competition. The lid is secured to the base section using a magnet, as is the power cable. This means you won't tug the MacBook on to the floor if you trip over the cable. We also love the slot-loading DVD drive on the right, the tiny, circular infrared port at the front, and the way all the input-output ports are grouped on the left side.

Features
The new MacBook benefits from a raft of new components that make it better value than its predecessor. Firstly the CPU speed has been boosted from a maximum 2GHz to 2.16GHz. It doesn't sound like much, but it makes a difference when carrying out demanding tasks. There's also 1GB of RAM instead of the paltry 512MB in the old model, so the MacBook is a much better performer all round.

Other improvements include much better storage capacity. The standard 80GB hard drive has been replaced by a 120GB model in our review unit (or 160GB in the black MacBook). This lets you stash a third more MP3s and videos, as well as those fun multimedia projects the latest Apple commercials like to tell us about.

Sadly, that's about it for newness. The latest MacBook doesn't benefit from the new Centrino Duo technology used by the latest MacBook Pros. Neither does it have an LED backlit display, which is theoretically brighter and uses less energy.

Instead, you get all the same bits as in the previous edition. There's an integrated VGA webcam, an Intel GMA 950 graphics card and a double-layer SuperDrive DVD rewriter (this is replaced with a more pedestrian Combo Drive in the cheaper model). As before, the SuperDrive is capable of reading dual-layer (8.5GB) discs, but is incapable of writing them. The Combo Drive is able to read and write to standard and dual-layer discs.