reesesWeb

I went to look at the new MacBook today at the Apple store. I feel this desire to replace both my G4 PowerBooks with another Macintosh laptop.

Now that I've validated its functionality, I'm ready to migrate the Mac Mini to be a home theater pc, and I miss the dual screen functionality afforded by having a laptop with screen-spanning ability.

That said, the MacBook non-Pro will not be replacing anything at my house any time soon.

The good:

• The keyboard is much nicer than it looks. I expected a Mattel Aquarius experience, but it types almost as well as my PowerBooks. It took about three femtoseconds to adjust.
• The size. It's tiny.
• Component upgradability. The sales rep said that it's almost trivial to pull the HD out, almost as easy as the Pismo was, and swapping the RAM involves popping out the battery and undoing a couple screws.
• You can multihead without a hack, which is new to the iBook line, but common to all of the intel products.
• The screen is brilliant in dark light, the blacks are black and the colors are vibrant.
• DUDE, IT'S BLACK. For only $200 more, and it's like they throw in a slightly bigger drive for free!

The bad:

• No expansion slots. No PCMCIA, CardBus, or whatever that new weird 34mm thing is they put on the MacBook Pro. I know this is historical for the iBook, but jeeeeez.
• The white one looks way ghey.
• The "Glossy screen" is exactly what it sounds like. No glare filter, so you get every reflection. It's also very small and looks strange inside the bezel, because the iSight takes up a lot of space. It reminds me of the old laptops with 1" all the way around the screen.
• 1280x800 on that shiny screen, and 13" is very tiny, unless you're used to the 12". It's still way too small.
• The magnetic latch is cool, but we know how well Apple is at designing laptop closing mechanisms. Expect your laptop to flop open exactly when you'd rather it not.
• Almost as expensive as the much better MacBook Pro when configured with the necessities, and you give up screen size, silver beauty, external accessory expandability, etc.
• Horrible battery life, but that's been the name of the game for a while now.
• 5400 RPM drives.

I didn't have a chance to take it for a test drive on my lap to see if it was a nut roaster like the MacBook Pro is, so I can't speak to that. I did fire up Terminal.app and type for a bit, and I didn't find it any more fatiguing or awkward than most laptop keyboards, although the 3' height of the counters at the Apple store aren't especially ergonomic anyway.

I definitely won't be buying one of these, and will probably be waiting for the next rev of the 15" MacBook Pro, the one with the Firewire 800 and other features that are currently available only on the 17" model.

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P.S., if you want a very, very slightly used, top-condition 15.2", 1.67Ghz G4, 2GB RAM, 100GB 7200RPM HD, Dual-layer DVD burning superdrive, firewire 400 and 800, gigabit ethernet, airport extreme, bluetooth 2.0+EDR, modem, high-res 1440x960 screen, PCMCIA card slot, and dual-link DVI out, with about 2.5 years left on the fantastic AppleCare waranty for a reasonable price, let me know. If you're in San Francisco we can save on shipping as well.