Apple Macbook Review!!!

Hope you Enjoy!

Apple Macbook

Overview and Introduction: The Macbook is a consumer-oriented notebook that is made by Apple. The Macbook is a 13.3” Glossy Widescreen 1280 x 800 notebook. Here is my review, and I hope you like it!
Specs:
• 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo Processor
• 2MB on-chip shared L2 cache
• 667MHz front side bus
• 1GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300)
• 60GB 5400 RPM HD
• 13.3 inch Widescreen LCD 1280x800 native resolution
• CD/DVD-RW Super Drive
• Intel GMA 950 Integrated Graphics
• 802.11g/b Airport Express Wireless Card
• Bluetooth 2.0 internal Card
• 2 USB 2.0 Ports
• 1 Audio Input
• 1 Audio Output
• OS X 10.4.7

Reason for Buying: I have never had a notebook or even used one for over an hour. I was really interested in laptops, because then I can bring it with me to all my trips. I have spent the last two months looking for the right notebook for me. I never really used a Mac except for in School. I was looking into the Apple Macbook because of its sleek design; I fell in love with it. I later realized that if I went with dell, and spent about 200$ more, I would be able to get a full decked out Inspiron E1705 with a Nivida 7900 GS for gaming. I debated for about a month, and then after I waited too long, dell took away their awesome coupons. That ruled dell out for me, so I decided not to wait too long and miss out on the Free Ipod deal with the Apple Macbook. I paid 90$ for a 30 GB Black Ipod for my brother, and then I also got a free HP Printer, Scanner, and Copier for my Desktop. I bought a Platinum, Incase Messenger Bag for my Macbook and a Wired Mighty Mouse with a Wired Keyboard. I spent 1900$ USD all together, but I will have about 300 dollars in rebates coming in.

Where and How Purchased: I bought my Apple Macbook at the Apple Store in Irvine California, I got a 100 off with the student discount, and a discounted ipod and free printer. After playing with this notebook, I got a GREAT deal! It was well worth the price. I think I got a pretty good deal, and spent my money wisely.

Build and Design: The Apple Macbook is not a normal notebook, it is an Apple, and Apple is known for their gorgeous gadgets. The screen is a 13.3” glossy screen, and man this was built to last, the hinges are wonderful and very sturdy, and I feel that it will last me throughout anything. The Macbook is only 1.08 inches thick, and the magnetic locking system lets the Macbook sit flush when the lid is closed. The frame doesn’t twist at all even if you try your hardest. This thing was built “Road Ready”.

Screen: The screen is gorgeous, I mean it lights the whole room when set to full brightness. The screen is 13.3” widescreen display, with a 1280 x 800 native resolution. My screen came with 0 dead pixels, well I can’t see any, which is a good sign ?. The light is spread throughout the screen evenly, and everything looks perfect. It may seem small at 13.3” but it is perfect for movie viewing!

Integrated WebCam: The Macbook comes with a built in web cam located at the top center of the lid. You can take pictures with it, and use it with iChat to perform live video conferences. You are able to take picturess through PhotoBooth, I was really surprised by the picture quality. In the day time, the pictures looked as acurate as a Digital Camera. I don't think that you can use the web cam in boot camp yet, maybe it will be upgraded in the future to be windows compatible.

Speakers: The speakers, you know I thought the speakers would be very silent, but if you’re listening to soft music they are perfect, and if you’re watching a movie in a quiet room, you can hear everything fine. If you are into music and have loud noises around you, I would highly recommend some headphones, with the normal ipod headphone, the sound gets so loud, and I mean it gets very loud. The speakers are great for a notebook, but don’t expect much if you are a heavy music listener.

Processor and Performance: The Macbook is run by Intel’s new Core Duo Processors, Mine has a T2500 (2.0 GHz). I have 1 GB of 667 MHz ram that I bought at NewEgg.com I paid 86 including shipping and tax, and it arrived the next day with the free shipping that came with the ram. I got the Stock 60 GB 5400 rpm HD and it came with about 35 GB of ram left, after I installed the important upgrades. Which is plenty for me, but if you were planning on running Windows via bootcamp, I would highly recommend getting a bigger HD. The Core Duo processors soar through everything I do, they are so fast. The stock 512 MB of ram that comes with the Macbook isn’t enough to run a lot of stuff, and if you try to use Front Row, it lags for like 2-3 seconds, but with my ram upgrade it works in a second. The boot time is about ¼ of the time my Windows XP Desktop takes. It takes about 24 seconds to startup for me, and let me run programs, and that includes the 5 seconds I take to type in my password. It is blazing fast.

Easy To Upgrade: I upgraded the ram on my Macbook, by myself, and that says a lot because I am not very computer orientated. It was a breeze; the hardest part was finding the right screwdriver that would fit the small screws. You need a size “0” to open them. The Ram and HD are very easy to reach and upgrade. I hope if you buy a Macbook, only get it with the 512 MB of ram, then go to newegg.com and you can get 1 GB for under 80 bucks, and 2 GB for about 150-160 easily. If you do upgrade, keep your old memory because if you want to send your Macbook in for service, you will need to change your ram back to the 512 MB of stock ram that came with it.

Heat and Noise: These two things have been talked about non-stop until Apple recently released a new firmware upgrade that supposedly fixed the “Moo” noises and the heat problem. My Macbook gets hot at the top left, but it is never unbearable to have on my lap, unless the top left touches bear skin, your fine. My HD hasn’t made lots of noise, it has been very silent. I can hear the clicks of the keys and can’t hear the HD; I mean it is so silent. You only hear the HD when you are loading a big program or a game. The Firmware upgrade has reduced the heat, and I never experienced this “moo” noise that people have reported.

Keyboard and Touchpad: The Keyboard is very unique, and it feels amazing. I never try to click a key and then click the key next to it due to the keys being badly positioned. The keyboard has volume and brightness control, as well as the eject button for the optical drive. I advise you to visit an apple store or a Mac mall and use the keyboards for a few minutes and see if suits you. As for the touchpad, the touchpad is very responsive, and the two finger scrolling blows me away, it lets you just scroll side to side or top to bottom with ease, it is amazing.

Input and Output Ports: The Macbook ports are located on the left side of the notebook. The ports include a Firewire 400 port, Ethernet, two USB 2.0 ports, Audio in and out, the port for the magsafe power adapter, and a port for a phone line. The ports are great, I am really glad that they are all easy to access and that their is a phone line just in case I need to use dial up lol!

Wireless: The Apple Macbook comes with an 802.11g/b Airport Express Wireless Card. The Macbook also comes with Bluetooth built in. The wireless card detects my signal 30 feet away from my house. It connects so fast, and is twice as fast as my desktop regarding Internet speeds. I really love the wireless card in the Macbook; I haven’t lost the connection once. It is stunning! If you don't use bluetooth you should turn it off because it drains the battery. The wireless card is really good and I am happy that it came with Bluetooth standard.

Battery: The batter last about 4 hours and 30 minutes when I have Bluetooth off, and the screen set to medium, while surfing the web. I am sure if you just want to type and set the screen setting to low you can hit 5 hours. The battery last a lot longer then expected and I was really surprised about how long it lasted. I calibrated the battery the second day I got my Macbook, and I would recommend doing it as well. The instructions are in the User Manual that comes with the Apple Macbook.

Operating System and Software: I am in love with OS X. The Apple Macbook comes with two-installation disc that include iLife06, boot camp, and OS X. I love the iLifo06 software; it makes setting up slideshows a breeze. The Macbook comes with the best Free Software you could ask for. If you don’t want the free software you could delete it and your set. No need to “reformat” or anything, this is Mac; it’s just that Easy.

Customer Support: I never have had to use the customer support at Apple. The Macbook come with a 1 Year warranty, and you can upgrade to 3 years for like 180$ with the student discount. I have only heard good things about Apple’s Customer Support so I think I am in good hands.

Accessories: Apple has lots of accessories that are available for the Macbook. I bought a Messenger bag, wired mighty mouse, and a wired keyboard for my Macbook. The wired Mighty Mouse is amazing, and I really love the scrolling function it uses. I love my case that I got for my Macbook, I paid 50 well worth dollars for it, and I can sleep assured that my notebook is safe. You should consider getting some sort of wipe for your screen and keyboard/touchpad area because if your hands are dirty, you will know once you look at your keyboard/touchpad. The Macbook also comes owith a Remote, that controls Front Row, The remote is small and is also the same remote that you use with your ipod if you have a dock, so thats a plus.

Power Adapters: The Macbook comes with the magsafe power adapter that everyone has heard of, instead of your Macbook flying to the ground, it takes the hit for the Macbook. The power adapters also came with an extension cable that lets you extend it about 6 feet longer. It was really fascinating to figure out how to attach it; after I looked in the manual I felt stupid how easy it was.

Conclusion: I would highly recommend this notebook to the occasional traveler, who wants a super fast system, with the best OS in the world! The Macbook surpassed my expectations as well as thousands of people around the World. I recieved in the Macbook exactly what I wanted, and it blew me away. This notebook is perfect for someone who wants to surf the web, watch movies, listen to music, and do homework, all with the best operating system out their, for a low price.

Pros:
• Great Processor
• Excellent Operating System
• Good Battery Life
• Lots of great software Included
• Built In Web Cam With Microphone
• Sleek Design
• Very Quiet
• Stunning Display
Cons:
• Video Card
• Gets Pretty Warm
• No Backlit Keyboard

I hope you enjoyed my review. Thank you!
~Arman

 

Great review.

It was especially nice to see someone mention the extention for the power cord, however besides the extention thing, my favorite thing is how you can pull out two little arms on the transformer part and have something to wrap your power cord around, to me thats A+ stuff right there. I can't tell you how annoying it is to have nothing to wrap your cord around, and Apple solves the issue with an ingenius design.

 

yeah it is like wrapping a hose it is a nice touch. I was really exicted about the optical drive, it doesn't come out to get a cd, you stick the cd 75% way in and it sucks it in. It is sooo cool. Glad you liked it!
~Arman

 

I agree very good review

 

Great review. You could mail it to Brian or abaxter for it to go on the front page, so that it is more easily accesible. It would be useful to punch in the resolution of the web cam and maybe a small sample video taken with the web cam.

You might also want to use some benchmarking programs such as SuperPi, PC Mark 05, and 3D Mark 05.

Other than that, the review is very detailed and accurate. Thanks for spending your time on it.

 

Yes it is a good review, however before thinking of having it posted somewhere on the front page, it might be a good idea to go back and give certain hardware features you mentioned their correct name (eg. Webcam) as well as editing, as somethings are repeated more than once such as the 'gorgeous screen'

Yes Apple does have gorgeous screens, some of the best I've ever seen.

 

Thanks for all the feedback! I tried to download those benchmark programs but I couldn't find any Mac Compatible. I emailed and talked to Abaxter and he said that they already have 3 reviews for the Macbook so they wouldn't need any more. Sorry for the spelling mistakes lol! I took 21 pics and tried to upload em but I can't get it to work. I should also add about Photo Booth because you can take awesome pictures with the Camera.
~Arman

 

Great Review!! I got my MacBook yesterday and I'm totally with you on all your points. I was puzzled looking at the second AC cable kept looking at the MacBook for a slot for it to go in! Can't wait to get home from work so i can finally conquer the extension cable!

I'm not sure what you mean by calibrating the battery, what would be the benefit of this ? I'll head home and take a look at the manual (not a manual type guy ) and read up on it a bit.

Again great review, A++++

 

Yeah, I was really confused about that power adapter Lol! But I just read everywhere and they all said its better for your batter if you calibrate it by the first week you have it. It is a over night process so its good to do it at like 5 PM, then start it cause one step requires 5+ hours of it being off. Thanks for the comments.
~Arman

 

Great review Arman! Glad to see you are so happy with your purchase, I am dying waiting for my mbp to arrive.

 

Calibrating the battery every month or so helps it live a longer, healther life. Sort of like exercise for us flesh-beings. Or so those who know more about batteries than me tell me anyway.

As for reading the manual, that's usually a good idea.

 

Yeah if your new to the OS I would read the manual, it isn't that long and should go by pretty quick. The manual also has steps on chaning the ram, and you can also find videos on it as well.

 

does anyone know whether apple is going to release an updated version of the macbook in the near future? e.g better videocard or core 2 duo cpu's...?

 

The thing with Apple is that you never know!

You have to wait for keynotes on updates of the companies roadmap for the upcoming year. If there is gonna be any simple hardware update such as more ram for a price level or new type of cpu, they don't announce it really at all, they only announce large steps forward such as G3 > G4 processors.

Especially in the x86 processor market they are definitely not gonna really announce every little change because x86 market changes litterally almost every day.

 

If they put a dedicated card in the Macbook, would we be able to buy the card of a 3rd party website then install it ourselves?

 

No, you would end up needing an entirely new logic board, plus video cards isn't under upgrade yourself without voiding warranty.

Far as I know from looking around, notebooks with this form factor pretty much all have GMA 950,I have yet to see one with something more.

 

there are plenty of notebooks with better, dedicated video cards in the same or similar) form-factor of the Macbook, like the Dell M1210, w3j/w7j from asus and so on.

 

agreed with above post. macbooks or mbps aren't designed for gaming, hence the less dedicated gfx.

 

What do you mean less dedicated graphics card?

The MBP has an ATI Radeon x1600, no such thing as less dedicated, either it is or its not.

 

Well I mean, I would have gladly paid atleast a hundread bucks if I could get an x1400 in the Macbook. But I am wondering if Apple added a Dedicated CArd in the future to the Macbook, would we be able to buy that card and replace it?

 

Unfortunately not. There is both no space in the casing and no slot to plug in another video card. I too would be more than happy to have a real graphic card in my Macbook - nothing too fancy, but I do like Sony SZ's solution of having both the Intel950 and a GForce7400 and be able to switch between the two on the spot, for better battery life or better performance.

 

Yeah that is an awesome feature, cept If I had the money for an SZ I would have bought a MBP .

 

I don't think that will ever happen with Apple for a very very long time.

It took a couple years before Apple finally started letting users do harddrive upgrades.

 

Darn, Well I am in love with my Macbook!!!