It arrived here yesterday: The brick, aka Apple MacBook Aluminum or Unibody MacBook. I'm sure you've read about it somewhere. Isn't it amazing how much press this company gets when they introduce a new product? I mean in relation to their market share. But that's only surprising at first sight, because Apple has been and still is a pioneer when it comes to computers and user interfaces. Even if only few people buy Apple's products, they have a huge influence on other manufacturers' products.
Apple's switch from PowerPC to Intel in 2006 was exciting in that their computers got a nice speed-bump and were more competitively priced. But it also made the computers somewhat more PC-like. Not that they got that bad, not at all, but some of the charme of the old times was lost. For example, ventilator noise or waiting for the system to wake up from (hibernation) sleep mode was something hardly known to Mac users until then. But they really made up for this with the great Mac OS X and the beautiful designs of their machines. But Macs and PCs are since then apparently easier to compare.
Since the competition is not sleeping, PCs have improved, too. It was time for Apple to come up with something to set themselves apart from the rest again, and the new Aluminum MacBooks are exactly that. Here's my review.
Apple's switch from PowerPC to Intel in 2006 was exciting in that their computers got a nice speed-bump and were more competitively priced. But it also made the computers somewhat more PC-like. Not that they got that bad, not at all, but some of the charme of the old times was lost. For example, ventilator noise or waiting for the system to wake up from (hibernation) sleep mode was something hardly known to Mac users until then. But they really made up for this with the great Mac OS X and the beautiful designs of their machines. But Macs and PCs are since then apparently easier to compare.
Since the competition is not sleeping, PCs have improved, too. It was time for Apple to come up with something to set themselves apart from the rest again, and the new Aluminum MacBooks are exactly that. Here's my review.
More photos
- Unibody case
The case is machined from a massive block of aluminum, so it's missing most of the usual gaps where parts are joined. When I first saw pictures of the MacBooks, I thought they were renderings, they looked so perfect. But the actual MacBook looks the same. Perfect lines, perfect finish. At the same time it's lighter than its predecessor, the white (or black) MacBook, and it's very sturdy. Not a bit of flexing or even squeaking noises. Macs used to be good in this respect compared to most PCs but now they are lightyears ahead.
The aluminum seems quite thick on the edges, which makes the Kensington lock slot very trustworthy. I have heard stories about locked (PC-)notebooks being stolen, with the lock just ripped out of the case. This won't work here. - LED-backlit display
The display is the same 13.3" as in the previous model. A size I like very much as it keeps the notebook small while the resolution of 1280x800 pixels is high enough to fit enough content. It's significantly brighter than before and dimmable over a greater range, in other words the lowest setting is lower in brightness than the lowest setting of the previous model - nice if you sometimes work in total darkness.
The display got thinner and a lot stronger. When you take it on one corner to close it, there is no more lateral flexing. - Keyboard
The keyboard looks just like the previous MacBook keyboard in that the case is indented as much as the keys are high and the keys extrude freely by themselves. The layout is also exactly the same and just like the small Apple wireless keyboard. Great if you have several computers and keyboards and every one feels the same. One small difference though: The keys seem to go down a little deeper and a little softer as on the previous MacBook (at least my 2006 model). - Trackpad
This is one of the phenomenal improvements. If you don't look at it and just use it, you won't notice a difference. And after clicking you think: How did I click, there's no button?! It's simple, you press down the whole trackpad, but it feels just like the button that used to be there. Leaving the thumb laying on the trackpad while using your index finger for pointing doesn't bother the trackpad at all but when you are using two fingers simultaneously. The new trackpad supports some new gestures: Zooming in and out like on the iPhone, swiping with three fingers for page up/down (or back/forward in the browser), swiping with four fingers for Expose and switching application and finally the two-finger twist for rotating an image (so far I have only seen this one work in iPhoto, while the other functions work across the board).
I took some unboxing pictures the MacBook and made some detailed shots. You can look at them here.
Even louder than the yippies about all the great improvements were the complaints that some things are missing and the computer press seems to love to bash Apple for that. Here's a look at the two most important points of criticism:
- Display is glossy and glossy only
I understand that you could get the previous MacBook Pro with a matte display as a built-to-order option. But the MacBook has always had a glossy display.I was skeptical about the glossy display at first, but since the first day I had my white MacBook, I enjoyed the new display. It was a big improvement over the matte display of the iBook. Yes, sometimes you get reflections, but with a small movement (turning or tilting the display a little) you can get rid of them. When inside, this almost never happens, or you don't notice it. I guess that's because your eyes focus on the screen at let's say 50 cm distance, but the objects that are reflected are at least twice that distance from the eye. - Missing Firewire port
This is something that also hurt me at first. I've been using (or trying to use) USB peripherals since the beginning (version 1) and there was so much pain involved. Somehow that attached itself to the word USB for me and everytime I hear USB some of those feelings come back. So the Firewire port on my first Mac was a great relief. Things just worked, external disks were seemingly as fast as internal disks, 2.5" external disks didn't need a power supply and the target mode was great back in the days when you had no WiFi or Fast/Gigabit Ethernet to copy some files over.
Now where are we? USB 2.0 has been around for a while and works ok. Still we love Firewire. Now Apple has dropped it from the MacBook. I wanted to know what that meant for me and made some real-world performance tests. I used my external Samsung 3,5" 1 TB disk (Pleiades USB 2.0 / Firewire 400 case) and connected it via Firewire and USB 2.0 to both my old MacBook 2006 1,83 GHz and the new MacBook Aluminum 2.0 GHz and copied (read & write, 2 runs each) 940 MB of data in 63 files and one large file of 1,9 GB. Here are the results:
MacBook white Firewire average: 23,7 MB/s
MacBook white USB 2.0 average: 26,7 MB/s
MacBook alu USB 2.0 average: 32,7 MB/s
In general I thought those transfer rates are rather low, but now I'm not worried anymore about the missing Firewire port as USB 2.0 performs very well on the new MacBook. Of couse if you have a Firewire video camera or need to daisy chain several devices it's a different story.
All in all I think this MacBook is a great step forward. I really recommend going to a store and checking it out in person. Should you buy one right now? Yes if you really need a notebook, but no if you can wait a little longer. I think the price for the entry level MacBook Aluminum is a bit high. The first MacBook in 2006 was much more competitive in price when compared to a PC notebook (CPU, RAM, hard disk, etc). The Unibody case is probably driving up cost pretty much in the beginning. I expect that with the first refresh the price will go down (they'll probably drop the white MacBook then).
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