Submitted by The latest entry-level MacBook rolled out by Apple a week ago offers more than just an improvement on the white laptop it replaces in Apple’s notebook line. According to Macworld Lab tests, this new system outperforms the 2GHz aluminum unibody MacBook that costs US$300 more.
Anyone surprised? I am an owner of the older 2.4Ghz White MacBook and I find it funny people with an aluminium fetish in that they’re willing to have lower performance simply so they can have a ‘cool’ exterior.
Side issue; for those who complain about the MacBook and ‘damage’, I’ve owned mine for over 6months and it is as good as new – if you treat your stuff with respect instead of like a foot ball, you’ll get many months/years of reliable performance. Reminds me when I worked at a school where I’d see MacBook’s coming in caked with dirt and me wondering whether anyone actually gives a toss about their own property – like wiping it regularly to keep it clean.
We make aluminum frames for doors and windows in the family business, so the AlBooks never appealed to me much. The PowerBook G4 still looks much better.
Well, they are Mac users…
I kid, I kid!
lol, but there is an element of truth to every stereotype – sometimes some Mac users can be worse than the stereotype lol
I personally love the Thinkpad design; the only let down is not being able to run Mac OS X with support from Apple. I swear, if Apple licenced Mac OS X and iLIfe to PC vendors for $50 per unit – they would make a tonne of money with pretty good margins as well. Around 300million computers are sold each year, imagine if Apple only got 10% of that market selling Mac OS X, that would be $1.5 billion.
Oh well, one can only dream but for now I’m happy with my iMac and MacBook.
Let’s see… Apple runs out of stock of white macbooks and buys some new cheaper 2.13ghz chips (6.5% faster clockspeed than 2ghz), and sells a cheap laptop where they can make a nice margin on them.
Apple still hasn’t sold all their unibody macbook stock at 2ghz and doesn’t simply refresh the line taking a loss on the unsold unibody Macbook.
Some useless website posts benchmarks that the 1000 dollar laptop is between 5% and 8% faster than the other 1300 dollar laptop which is thinner, and made out of more expensive materials and who’s R&D costs were higher and a lot more recent.
And this is news?
Buying a laptop has always been about looks, build materials, and perceived quality. Raw CPU performance has and will always take a backseat to battery life, size, weight, and connectivity.
The White Macbook is half a pound heavier and with slower dd2 video memory. It is a cheaper system and when the older revision unibodies are updated they will be faster across the board.
Finding third-party RAM that works in the unibody AlBooks is a bit ofa crapshoot. Mac users (that aren’t total babes in the woods) aren’t loco enough to pay the ridiculous mark-up for Apple-branded RAM. DDR3 also won’t fix the lack of FireWire for people who need it but only have money for a MacBook.
Edited 2009-06-07 20:38 UTC
What’s so difficult, at least in the U.S.A.? OtherWorld Computing has been selling compatible RAM for Apple equipment for a very long time and doesn’t charge an arm or a leg.
Obviously, this speed situation was sorted yesterday. I suppose a few days was enough to upset a few people, though.