“Apple today quietly refreshed its entry-level MacBook laptop, boosting the processor speed and inserting a longer-life battery. The MacBook remains priced at $999. Apple bumped the MacBook’s Intel Core 2 Duo processor speed to 2.4GHz, up from 2.2GHz, and replaced the battery with a 10-hr. battery to match the estimate that it uses in the higher-priced MacBook Pro line. Like the batteries used in those more expensive cousins, the MacBook’s is within the case, and cannot be swapped out by the user. The MacBook now sports Nvidia’s GeForce 320M integrated graphics, the specially-made-for-Apple successor to the GeForce 9400M, the MacBook’s former chipset. The GeForce 320M also powers the two lowest-priced 13-in. MacBook Pro laptops, priced at $1199 and $1499.”
Although the battery is non-removable, even when I had a laptop with a removable battery I never replaced it in the 2-3 years I owned it. For the average person they would be lucky to hit even 200 recharge cycles in the life of the product. The fact that the batteries used now by Apple have up to 1000 cycles pretty much only impacts on individuals who heavily use their laptop when on battery power. With that being said, however, you can purchase an external battery which can almost double the capacity.
Regarding this refresh, the GPU is pretty good but it is disappointing that Apple hasn’t upgraded their OpenGL to 3.3 yet given that 9400M and 320M are OpenGL 3.3 capable
Rumour has it there are graphic driver improvements in 10.6.4, hopefully Apple will take their time and fix heaps of those bugs and performance issues 
10.6.4 testing is commencing.
Yeap, I noted that on my blog a few hours ago – 10F54 has been released which will hopefully mean translate into it being released just before WWDC. MInd so, so far I’ve been pretty happy with Snow Leopard. Like anything there are things here and there that I’d love to see in the OS but those features being absent isn’t something that’ll drag me to the Windows world by a long shot
Are you really defending them? They could easily make a flush looking case and still have a removable battery. I doubt anyone would care if there were a couple lines on the bottom (GASP).
This is just a lame way of encouraging people to buy a new system.
Of all of Apple’s shenanigans this one probably annoys me the most.
So long as you used it plugged in at all time, basically as a desktop computer I see no problem with a non-changeable battery.
SO yep, I agree with you.
It has nothing to do with wanting to create a flush case and everything to with wanting to cram the biggest possible battery they can within that confined space. Surprise, surprise, the decision has nothing to do with something nefarious of Steve Jobs wanting to take over the world, forcing you to pay an installation fee or what ever concocted mythology you wish to dream up. The issue was simple, how does one put a big ass battery into a device without making it bigger – and voila, you have the solution you see today.
So whilst the Dell purchasing people go out and grab one which will give them a wimpy 2 hours of battery life – an individual can get a MacBook and confidently get minimum 3 times the amount of battery life. You may not care about that but I like the fact that my laptop I can get 5 1/2 – 6 hours on a full charge.
This can be done without sealing the battery in. It’s called engineering.
OSX is good for battery life but I’d still rather buy a Windows laptop that gets 3 1/2 hours and then get another battery. There are 13″ Windows 7 laptops that get around 10 hours but they have clock speeds of about 1.3ghz. Not a good work computer but if you just use it for cafe surfing then it is fine.
Engineering isn’t the cure all buzz word that you try to claim; if something can’t be done, jumping up and down screaming, “engineering” won’t some how magically remove the bulkiness of a case and connectors and yet maintain a reasonable battery size.
So hang on, so if you want good battery life and yet either have an under clocked computer or you get one with bugger all battery life but haul around a second battery. How about this, I’ll keep my MacBook Pro and when I need to get a new battery in 3 years I’ll go into MagnumMac and they’ll replace it for me which IIRC the battery price includes installation. Assuming the replacement will be NZ$200; I hardly think that paying what would be the equivalent of $1.25 per week over the 3 year life span of the computer. If you’re going to ‘moan’ about the battery costs then why don’t you moan about new software every 2-3 years, or new hardware every 2-3 years etc.
They could have it pop out like a drive bay, no magic required. You’re naive if you think it was required to seal in the battery. I suppose you think they were also forced to seal in the iphone battery?
The complaint is in comparison to other laptops. It has nothing to do with the lifespan of other products.
But with the Macbook giving 10 hours battery when new, 3 years from now, even with 50% battery health, it will still give 5 hours, which is better than most new laptops from other companies.
I wonder how many ‘charge cycles’ it uses if you keep the power cord connected for 8 hours a day…
From what I understand they recommend using your battery occasionally to at least 40% full and then attaching it back up. In my case I’ve owned this MacBoo Pro for around 1 1/2 months (got it just before the refresh) and have only done 11 recharge cycles.
But this is very light usage. I would expect that if you spend more than $1200 on a laptop you would use it at least 5 days per week and you would charge it at least one time per usage right? And that is with someone who would only plug it in with low battery and immediately unplug at 99%.
I’ve got a slightly older MBP.
It’s Unibody but with the removable battery.
On the first day I got it I opened the battery door once and said “hey look the battery”, haven’t opened that door since.
I’ve had it about 18 months for 149 battery cycles. I’m typing at a cafe with wifi now.
1000 cycles sounds like it would see me for quite a few years.
That’s just me though YMMV of course.
The reason Apple claim 1’000 charges is because the battery has a controller to manage charging spread and overcharge, solving the very problem you’re mentioning.
…more RAM and a larger HD by default, without the need to spend an extra 225 Euro?
Who gives you 2GB RAM and a 250 GB HD on a 999 EURO computer nowadays?