Hands-On With the New MacBooks

Paige Philuer writes "Macworld has a hands-on article examining the new MacBook and MacBook Pro — not a quickie look from Tuesday's event, but a lengthy, in-depth look with laptops they actually have in their offices. Some interesting observations: No FireWire on the MacBook; the TrackPad doesn't feel like you're running your finger across a pane of glass, though that's what it is; and switching between graphics cards in the MacBook Pro requires you to log out." Reader Bourbon contributes three links at CNET related to the new models, too: a positive written review (giving a score of 8/10 to the new MacBook), a video review, and a behind-the-scenes look at how the new models are machined.

Comments

Am I the only one who thinks

[dancingmad]

I'm a huge Mac fan (I'm typing this on an older MacBook Pro), but man, I really think these new laptops are ugly as sin. I really prefer the look of previous model MacBooks and MacBook Pros, though when the Air came out it was probably inevitable that the other laptops would follow its lead.

Brightness

[victim]

Great! The displays are bright.
How about dim? Can they be dim too? My 24" iMac is painfully bright to use in a dark room at its lowest backlight setting. Some people resort to software that puts a neutral gray, transparent window over the whole screen just to keep the pain down at the expense of color resolution. I keep sunglasses by the computer so I can see to work on late night emergency calls while my eyes adapt to the light.

Re:Brightness

[ceoyoyo]

The LED backlights seem to dim better than the old fluorescent ones did. My not-quite-latest-generation-now MBP with LED backlight works just fine in a dark room and goes nice and bright for a non-dark room.

Re:Brightness

[CODiNE]

It's not a real solution but holding control option command and 8 inverts the color making the screen a negative. Works well at night when you want to keep the light level down.

Graphics switching disappointing beside Lenovo

[Anonymous Coward]

The Lenovo laptops running Vista with two graphics cards can switch completely on the fly. It's a bit disappointing that Apple, with full control over everything, couldn't manage the same. See http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=154.

Re:Graphics switching disappointing beside Lenovo

[niteice]

Apple doesn't use X. They probably didn't have time to fix WindowServer before launch, but I'd imagine that it will be fixed for Snow Leopard.

Re:Am I the only one who thinks

[aliquis]

The black border isn't that great imho, but it's ok. Same for keys I guess.

But new macbook vs old one? Definitly. Way better than plastic.

Firewire

[bladx]

Wish the low end still had Firewire, though.
Even if you get the new display that can fit along with the new MacBooks... it has three USB ports in the back yet no Firewire!

I wonder if it's a power issue...

Re:Who cares about the hard drive

[catch23]

One doesn't only replace the hard drive due to failure. The last time I replaced my laptop hard drive was when I discovered I needed more room and didn't want to carry around another drive. I'm guessing most people upgrade their laptop drives for this reason.

MacBook Hardware

[SLOviper]

More information at ifixit.com with complete tear-aparts as usual:
MacBook: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/First-Look/Mac/MacBook-Unibody
Pro: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/First-Look/Mac/MacBook-Pro-Unibody

Re:Am I the only one who thinks

[MojoStan]

But new macbook vs old one? Definitly. Way better than plastic.

Way better than the white plastic MacBook, which looks like a tacky toy IMO. OTOH, I think the black plastic looks pretty good.

I must be the only one who thinks Apple's white plastic products (iBook, iPod, iMac, MacBook) look lame. I like Apple's current move away from white plastic and toward uncolored (MacBook, iMac) and colored (iPod nano) aluminum.