Unibody Macbook Review
After my white Macbook of over one and half years started developing cracks around its exterior, I knew it was time for a change. So I plunked down the funds for a 2.4GHz unibody Macbook [Amazon Link].
The Exterior
The casing is the first thing you notice. Due to the unibody construction that composes most of the chassis, this new Macbook is the most solidly built notebook that I’ve ever used. Gone is the Tupperware feel of the white Macbook. Instead, the palm rest feels like a solid block of seamless aluminum. One minor complaint, I wish the power button was bigger.
The underside is where you can access your battery, hard drive and memory. One press of the seesaw switch pops off the access panel. If you want access to the memory, you’ll need to remove several screws to access the bottom pan.
Some people have complained that the bottom access cover is poorly constructed, and overall fit with the rest of the notebook is rather poor. This can result in some play issues where the cover wiggles around a bit.
So far, I’ve had zero issues with the cover. I removed the cover only once to upgrade the hard drive. The mounting tabs on the cover look fragile and I could see someone accidentally bending the tabs during that brief moment when their attention nods off. Bottom line, I wouldn’t recommend removing and mounting this cover on a regular basis.
The rubber feet mounted on the bottom of the notebook are slicker. I found this annoying since it was easy for the Macbook for move around if I put too much lateral force on the notebook while typing.
Heat is not an issue with this design. It can get slightly warm at times but the temps never got to the point of discomfort. This is a huge improvement over the toaster oven design of the older Macbook Pro.
The keys are similar to the earlier Macbook designs. With the 2.4 GHz model, the keys are now backlit. I will say that they now have a slightly lighter feel to them. It took me a few days to get accustomed to this new feel. The keys are a good design but if I had to make a choice, my preference would go towards the previous Macbook Pro. They just felt more precise and almost rival the keys found on the Thinkpads.
The sound coming from the speakers sounds deeper. The highs still retain the precision of the previous Macbook. I’m judging notebook speakers so this is all relative. Any decent eternal speaker solution will be huge improvement. Of the notebooks I’ve used only the Dell XPS with its built-in woofer sounded better.
The Trackpad
This new trackpad is constructed out of glass. There is no separate button. Instead, the entire trackpad is the button. The top of the trackpad is hinged so it’s better to input your clicks towards the middle or bottom of the trackpad.
The surface of the trackpad pad feels nice and adjusting to this new no button design wasn’t as jarring as I thought it would be.
Multi-Touch gestures are available as well. I didn’t have a chance to use all of them. For heavy duty work, I still prefer using a plug in USB mouse.
The Screen
The screen is now LED backlit and is also covered in a sheet of glass. Unlike a most of the critics, I was not annoyed by the glare inherent in this design. The display itself is a bit of a disappointment. Compared to my previous Macbook, it looks identical. That means I get decent horizontal viewing angles and horrible vertical viewing angles that include drastic color shifts.
With LED, you get that instant on feeling and a more uniform backlighting. I just wish they updated the display. My two and a half year old generic pre-Vista Asus notebook has a vastly superior display.
Performance
I specced out this unit with 4 GB of RAM and a 7200 RPM 320 GB hard drive. As expected in everyday tasks, I saw only minor performance improvements (web surfing, email, working on office documents).
More graphic intensive tasks will see a good boost thanks to the brand new Nvidia 9400M integrated graphics. This chip offers a sizable boost in performance over the crappy graphics chip from Intel.
World of Warcraft with most graphical options set to high is now very playable. Frame rates usually stay in the 30-40+ range with occasional drops to 20. This finally makes the Macbook a decent gaming platform. However, I won’t be throwing out my SLI Quad core desktop anytime soon.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a notebook that delivers value, look elsewhere. For hundreds less, you can get a similarly configured Dell.
But for those who have a strong preference towards the OS X operating system and want an elegant and well-built solution, this new Macbook will fit the bill rather nicely.
If your work involves graphic design or photography you may want to look at the Macbook Air and Pro, both of which have noticeably better displays with superior color accuracy.
Also understand that you’re not getting Firewire or the card slot expandability of the Macbook Pro.
If you’re willing to live with these limitations, you’ll get a solid platform that can support most of your endeavors.
[Pic from Apple]
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