nmenaker

I know we all knew it was coming, but they are finally here.

Size and shape pretty darn close to the recent mockups/photoshops of what it MIGHT look like.

Pricing seems to be nice and cheap, for what you get.

Highlights are, Core Duo speeds,
built in isight camera, for mobile video conferencing with ease.
glossy 13.3" widescreen display.
starting at 1099$

read on.

www.apple.com

SEA_Tigger

Bout bleedin time!

Going to order a black one for my b-day next month. Be nice not to have to haul the 17" with me on the plane.

Morrissey

I don't find that pricing to be very cheap. And it appears the only difference between the white 2.0GHz vs. the black 2.0GHz model is that the black model has 20GB more hard drive space, yet it costs $200 more!

GadgetFreak

Just ordered a black one with 2GB RAM and the 120 GB drive for my wife. I have a Dell on order that weighs half as much. Im going to have to think about getting one for myself. Been using a Mac for the last few years but I really wish they would make a light one.

nmenaker

yes, the black model costs 150$ compared to a same spec white model.

that is JUST about how much the third parties would charge to paint it,

red
or yellow
or green,
or teal,

or whatever your fancy.

since this will be my first mac powerMacBook in about uh, 15 years, i'm going for white

Tummy

I like that these new MacBooks draw less than 60 watts of power, so it should work with airplane power inverters or Empower ports now. I haven't been able to get my Macbook Pro to work.

Apple also just discontinued the Macbook Pro 1.83ghz, which I what I just got last month.

BiziBB

Thank you for the news - this is timely for our tax year ^
[edit:] What's the news of shipping dates for early orders of the basic white one?

Arthurrs

For standard configurations, Apple Online Store says 3-5 days, it's in stock at most Apple Stores worldwide. They ramped up production of these computers for 2 weeks prior to today's announcement.

Emma65

In UK the price difference between black or white is greater. I priced up a black one with extra ram and it ended up costing more than my MBP.

But it does look nice though.

/E

BiziBB

If any of you see one in an Apple Store, can you post your impressions of it here?
I'm wondering if Apple would have any running Word, Excel etc and whether these are usable.

Will you be using it purely as a Mac, or running Windows on it with BC or Parallels?

Can I transfer my XP Home license from an old Toshiba to the MacBook?

SFO_Runner

Heh. For $225 you can get a bare 160GB laptop drive.

Order the white model, the 160GB drive, eBay the built-in drive, and you can pay some mad hax0r fata1ty-wannabe to paint the thing black for you at a cut-rate.



You can get them at a discount now if you're in the market for a Pro and don't mind the slightly slower processor (vs the new one).

Mikey likes it

Nice looking piece. Two questions:

a) anyone seen the display? Is it super or just OK?
b) why is black an extra $400?

Efrem

It's not $400, it's $200. And that includes a larger hard drive, which is (I think) a $50 upgrade otherwise. So it's really "just" $150.

However, I too would like to know why it's an extra $150. It's not like they used metallic paint or anything. Same molded plastic, isn't it? Does black plastic cost more than white plastic? Does it have a special light-absorbing surface? What gives with this?

murphy

It looks sharp and bright, but I don't like glossy displays on laptops. I like the matte ones. Other than that, it's the best value Mac available right now. (The white one, I mean. $200 for black is just gouging.)

nmenaker

Here is my mini review from a user.

Just got back from Apple Store, Palo Alto
Well, not too many people hanging, at least not at 14:00 on a Wednesday, so got a lot of time to check it out.

I was heading in to check out the black books, ended up playing the whole time with a white one though.

Here are my thoughts.

Snappy, not as fast as my 20" intelimac with 1GB ram, but snappy. All things loaded very fast, safari, iphoto, itunes, MSFT office, word, excel, etc. I would put any slowdown at 3%, not 5% and certainly not 10%.

I did some photo manipulation in iphoto, 3.6MB images, all in full screen and it was fast, again maybe 3-5% slower than on my 20". I think that is going to be graphics rendering, and that the CPU is doing two things at once here, not leaving whatever graphics up the a dedicated graphics card.

Web pages were fast, load time of Safari, was actually faster than the MacBpro that was next to it.

I DO like the glossy screen, it is differant but one thing that I will use this product for is photo editing and sharing and the images looked AWESOME on the screen. I think the screen is a better representation of what a printout will look like and I LIKE that.

I DO like the keyboard. I can type 150 WPM+ and it was not missing a beat. I found it quite tactile and recon that most who use it, and use it more than 15 minutes will do fine with it.

I DON'T like the fact that it is so hot. Now, mind you it is not MacBookPro hot. Read my post about that from a few months back, that thing isn't hot that thing is SMOKIN'. Everybody said, nah, not hot, but now all we hear is how hot the MBP is.

Well, the MacBook is no slouch when it comes to producing heat. I think the plastic shell makes it better, I had both side by side, MBP and MB and the MB was definitly COOLER than the MBP. Not sure if the guts will show a better cooling solution, more cooling GOO that has been applied, or just a CPU better managed. Regardless, I can live this this one, but not the MBP.

I was going in thinking, that the BLACK was going to be the ticket for me, but actually, I don't like it. It makes it look a bit cheap. Regardless of whether or not it chips or not, I think it just looks like my IBM or something and not something interesting. So, when I buy I will buy a white one for sure. this is, or course, a subjective decision. I noticed no differance between BLACK and WHITE as for hot hot it got.

All in all, for the money I think 4.5 STARS.

Now, the good news is that AMAZON is now stocking and the REBATE program there is alive and kicking, so sub 1K$ for the MBP is GREAT news.