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Ars Technica Reviews the MacBook
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has performed another of their in-depth and thorough hardware reviews. The subject in this review is the newly released MacBook. From the article: 'The Apple portable web site proudly announces that the "family is finally complete." What began with an announcement from Steve Jobs at the MacWorld conference in January has come full circle with the release of the MacBook this week. Every Apple laptop is Intel powered and moving in what I would consider is the right direction. The laptop line is finally better delineated by pro and consumer features, and the prices have been fixed at points that better reflect the minute differences in the models.'"
and Jobs said, "let them eat paste!"
I spent a couple minutes checking out the MacBook at my local Apple store.. It looks good. I think it will do well at that price point.
But, I did not like the keyboard. Compared to the keyboard on my PowerBook, or the MacBook Pro's, it didn't feel nearly as good. Maybe it's something you could get used to. But, I really like the old PowerBook keyboard..
Yeah, right. Not even the Dells in this price range have separate graphics cards. Good luck finding a 2Ghz dual-core laptop for a grand or so without integrated graphics. Hell, good luck finding a 2GHz dual-core laptop in this price range, period. To get the equivalent from Dell, you have to get a high-end Inspiron, and that'll set you back more than $1500. Of course, with that you'll get a 17" screen, which is cool, but if you want to stick close to the $1200 price point, you'll have to settle for a 1.66GHz Core Duo.
Just junk food for thought...
Don't take the Xbench OpenGL scores Ars reports too seriously. In MacWorld's benchmarks with real-world OpenGL (UT2004), the MacBook Pro, with real video, delivered three times the framerate of the MacBook.
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I was really glad to read about how easy it is to replace the HD.
Some of you might also find this interesting: step-by-step take apart. Text is in Japanese, but fortunately the pictures are in English. =) Click on the left hand picture. Looks like the whole unit is much easier to disassemble than were previous 'books.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
K maybe I like those types of neat little nuances.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I went to the Apple Store today, and this was the second thing I tried! It was able to play the 1080i version trailer of Art School Confidential without any problem (except for some bandwidth issues downloading the 150MB file). I didn't look at how much processor was being used at the time though.
The Cars trailer (it was 8xx X 3xx something resolution) also played without a hitch.
What, me worry?
I go to Dell and check out the same model...
2 GHz Core Duo, 1 Gig of RAM, XP Pro, 100 Gig 7200 RPM drive, glossy screen, you're looking at $1746 shipped.
The price YOU quoted was for 1.66 GHz, XP Media Center, 5400 RPM drive, non-glossy screen.
By the way, both prices are after a 22% SALE that Dell is holding. I know they're always holding some sale or another, but even with the sale your price is flat out wrong for the specs you quoted.
This doesn't include all the great software that OS X comes with like iLife, iWork, and more. Also, the Dell is 50% thicker than the Mac. The video out is VGA only (not DVI). On the plus side, you do get the 5-in-1 media card reader (I'm still surprised Apple hasn't done this yet with all the media stuff they push).
If I make a white Macbook match the Dell (by upping the RAM, the hard drive, and adding Apple Care)... it costs $1798.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Macintosh premium: $52
That's 3%.
I'd GLADLY pay $52 to get OS X, iLife, and a laptop that isn't 50% thicker.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I have the last g4 powerbook and ibook as well as the last g3 color ibook. Both the g4s have the airport card which does b/g, and the color ibook only does b. All of them connect flawlessly using WPA to a basic consumer Netgear wireless router and also to a wrt54g (version 2 I think). A while back before my Siemens Speedstream died, I had some issue with WEP which was solved by prepending "$" to the WEP key when entering it into the mac.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
from the Apple Support site: "If you have a MacBook, the Final Cut Studio (Universal) crossgrade Installer does not prohibit you from installing the pro applications, but this configuration does not meet the minimum system requirements for Final Cut Studio. See the Final Cut Studio system requirements for complete requirements. Note: The integrated graphics processor in the MacBook does not permit float processing in Motion and will result in degraded performance and other issues in Motion and other Final Cut Studio applications." http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303 782