Quick Review of Apple Macbook

I will be updating this with photos and benchmarks soon, but here are my overall impressions after 2 days of usage:
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Apple Macbook Aluminum Edition
First Impressions
Specifications:
13.3-inch LED backlit glossy widescreen; 1280 x 800 pixel resolution
2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7350
2GB 1066MHz PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM
Integrated nVidia GeForce 9400M with 256MB shared with main memory
160GB 5400-rpm
AirPort Extreme Integrated 802.11a/b/g/draft-n
Internal Slot-Loading SuperDrive
Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.5
4.5 pounds / 2.04 kg

1) Buying experience
After my first laptop (a 15.4 Toshiba M40) died about 2 months ago, after 3.5 years of use, I was put in the laptop buying market. I wanted a lightweight laptop with decent battery life, good performance, and good build quality. Also the laptop had to be a reasonable price ($1000-1300). I looked at many laptops: The Inspiron 13, the XPS M1330, Lenovo X330, THinkpad T400, LG P300, and the old Apple Macbook. Initially, I decided to wait out a bit, and about a month ago, I started to revive my search. After much though, I pretty much decided on the XPS M1330. But after hearing the Macbook would be changed I waited it out.

After hearing the numerous changes to AMB on Oct.14th, I decided that this would be the one. So on Saturday, Oct 18th, I made my way to the Apple Store to bring it home. Great experience, everyone is friendly, but they aren’t really that knowledgeable. So I walked out with the Macbook and an Incase neoprene sleeve, although the total cost was a bit higher than my initial budget.

2) Packaging
Fairly minimal, but elegant. Just a power adapter, the Macbook, and some documentation.

3) Design
Fantastic design here. Much kudos to apple for its aluminum choice. The build quality is exceptional (no creaks like my Toshiba). Feels nice to touch. The laptop itself is very thin, but not quite Macbook air. That is because this overall is a lot more productive. 2 USB Ports (not a lot) but it is fairly sufficient for me. The slot loading DVD drive is nice. The battery life indicator is also a nice touch.

The display is by far the best I have ever used. It is very bright that at most I keep it on half brightness, and mostly on low brightness. Blacks are pretty clear, and the resolution is good too. It also feels larger than it is – It feels the same as my Toshiba.

4) Keyboard and Trackpad
Superb, very easy to type on, and very minimal noise. Feels like the keyboard on my Toshiba, even though it is in a smaller form factor. Ample space between the keys. Very high quality.

Although many websites raved about the trackpad, I must say it is good, but not great, and I still prefer my mouse. It is very large, and being used to a small pad on my Toshiba, sometimes my hand accidentally moves the mouse when I don’t want to. Also, only the bottom half of it is clickable. Although it is made of glass, it feels a lot like the aluminum material, and actually has a plastic coating.

5) Performance
I am not a Mac user, and this is my first Mac. But I must say, OS X is by far the best OS I have used. It is so simple, yet incorporates all the functions you would expect, and more. I have only had the laptop for a few days, and I have already gotten fairly used to it. The laptop itself is fast, loading all applications with ease, and having minimal boot times. I will include benchmarks as soon as I learn more about them on Apple. Haven’t had a chance to test out the 9400M, but I expect it is about the same as the 9300 used in the Sony and the HP. It should be about 1.5X the performance of the 8400 in the Dells.

6) Heat and Battery
I am used to a lot of heat coming out of my laptops. My old Toshiba used to always have the fan on, and it was too hot to touch at the bottom. The Macbook though…absolutely no heat felt at all at regular use. When you play a DVD it does get a little warm at the sides, but never on the palmrests. There are no heat vents either.

Battery life was one of the most important factors behind my choice of a laptop, and thus, at least initially the Macbook wasn’t my choice. But after using it now, I am happy to say that I am very satisfied with the battery life.
To test, I left WiFi on, Bluetooth off, the brightness at either Level 3/16 or…at max, 8/16. I mostly used Microsoft Word, Web Browsing, Music on Itunes, and some hibernating in between. In total, I got 4:25 minutes of battery life, surpassing my expectations. If you just count the time I actually used it, the battery life would probably be a little higher than 4 hours. If you need more battery life, I am sure a secondary battery would take you into 7:30 mins easily.

7) Conclusion
I am very happy with my purchase of this laptop. It has easily surpassed my expectations, and I would easily recommend it. OS X has also left a good impression on me, and I am very happy with this system.

Pros:
-Design
-Keyboard
-Heat
-Display
-Performance
-OS X
-Battery Life

Cons:
- Trackpad
- Weight (coming from a 6.5 lb laptop to a 4.5 lb laptop, I would expect it to be lighter)
- Cost

Updates:
wPrime 32M:
43.343 seconds - 1592.1 MHZ Penryn ... not sure why it is running at that speed

Gaming Performance:
- So far I have tested COD4 at about medium settings and at max resolution, and in the training level, I got about 30 FPS average. Overall, I will say that the game will get about 25-30 FPS with the settings I have. More than adequate for what is not at all a gaming laptop.
- Oblivion:
- Bioshock:
- NFS Carbon:

Photos:
Unboxing:



Design:




In Action:





Gaming:
COD4:

 

Thanks for the review. I think the touchpad will grow on you. It did on me with the MBA. After a while I did not like using my mouse anymore.

 

Thanks for the review. It's good to see the battery life is reasonable with wireless productivity.

 

Looks like Apple's quoted 5 hour of wireless productivity is a bit exaggerated as always

 

finally got windows running on boot camp. snappy, but it takes a bit longer to boot than I expected. the process to install xp is very simple too.

 

question: how do you change battery life settings, besides brightness?

 

Either clicking on the battery icon at the top to adjust for Better Battery life, Normal or Better Performance or System Preferences. I forgot if its under Display (I'm on my netbook right now, left my MBP at home).

 

Updates:
- When running a game (Star Wars: Knights), the fan turned on and was quite loud. Heat was managed nicely though.
- Slot-loading drive is nice, but it is quite loud when it is spinning fast.
- GPU runs my older games (like KOTOR), nicely.

 

nice mini review-1 question:are you satisfied?

 

Overall, I am very happy with the purchase. Besides the few niggles here and there, this would probably be one of my best electronic purchases ever.

I have XP and Parallels, but surprisingly, I like using OS X more.

 

is it a bit laggy when you run parallels? Is that program prett intensive?

 

Mmmm, the glossy goodness.

 

Parallels doesn't lag as far as I tested, but then again, I haven't tested it much as I have just installed it today. Will plan on doing some benchmarks on it.
I will only use Parallels for like Office and some other less-intensive programs for University. For gaming (which I don't really plan on doing anyways, I will use Boot Camp, which works perfectly).
The display is fantastic, but I always had glossy screens, so I am a bit partial to them.

 

Parallels may get laggy if you only dedicate 512MB of RAM to it and leave it running for hours. I dedicated 1GB and its smooth.

 

How do you dedicate more
Also, not all my keyboard keys are working on xp, for example if I want to put a question mark, it will display this É

Secondly: I did run wprime on xp, but it said my cpu was running at 1.6ghz. Is there anyway to modify the clock speeds...or does it change automatically

 

Great review. Just a question, do you have any problems in regards to the super glossy screen?

 

i won't say its super glossy - my tru-brite toshiba screen was glossier. I have always had glossy screens, so I am fairly used/prefer them, at least compared to my matte LCD monitor.

 

When you are in Parallels, Go to Parallels Desktop at the top -> Preferences -> Memory tab and adjust memory limit manually.

 

Does your battery/hdd cover move at all, or is it solid? I've been reading some people are having problems with loose fitting covers.

 

yeah i heard about that. fortunately my one is solid.

can't wait to put some more ram, 7200 rpm, and extra batt.

 

Top Gear for the win (in regards to the screenshots). Nice laptop, as well, I'm really liking the new MB.

 

Top Gear is too awesome...can't wait for the new Season (every week without Top Gear feels...empty ).

On a separate note, any measure the average temps of the new Macs? Just want to get a feel of how hot/cool they are, and if my one is normal or not. Also, is it just me or do these batteries lose charge very quickly?...according to istat pro, I already only have 97% charge left.

 

+1 rep for the review. After reading this I'm leaning more and more to the MB rather than the MBP. You mentioned KOTOR for games, any comments about running any other games?

It may just be the angle for some of the photos, but

yeah - ggglllllooooosssssssssyyyy!

As an aside, do you prefer running Windows via Boot Camp or Parallels?

 

I will install COD4, Oblivion, and Bioshock, but overall I am guessing it can run those at about medium settings, which is good enough for me.

Overall, I will say Parallels, because it is a lot more convenient to still be on OS X while running Windows too. If I was to game or do any intensive apps though, Boot Camp is preferred

 

Although the macbooks are very nice and have the same features as the macbook pro, the missing firewire 400 + the inferior screen seems like a deal breaker for me to stay away from the new macbooks.

 

Counterpoint:
1. Only matters if you have a peripheral whose exclusive connection is fw400 without a USB2.0 link, of which there are precious few out there on the market.

2. All 13" screens have narrow viewing angles; the new mb is no exception (esp in the vertical realm) but this was true with the white MB's as well. The LED's brightness and contrast have also been measured as better than the previous Penryn generation's CCFL, however, so classifying it as inferior is debatable.

 

Firewire is not intended for the lower Macbooks. People who really want firewire for video editing, should not be doing so on a small screen. I guess Apple just wanted to seperate the intended audiences for the MB vs. the MBP.
No idea about previous screen, but this is the best LCD I have used.

On another note, updated thread with some COD 4 benchmarks. Sorry, I did not really want to go further, because I have already beaten the game numerous times on my PC and X360. Plus, I have an exam in couple of hours . Will add some more gaming benchmarks soon

Also, I know I asked this before, but why is my wprime time so high, when compared to other laptops with like T7300s or what not. Why is it running at 1600MHZ?

 

Just wanted to add that the brightness of the screen can easily offset the reflectiveness of the glossy screen, and that the battery cover lid is solid even though a very thin piece of metal.

 

Only install those if you plan on playing them. I was just curious about your impressions of how any games you were playing performed. I'm by no means a hardcore gamer, so that's not my main concern with the machine. I'd just like it to perform adequately when I feel like procrastinating.