What About the new MacBook?

Last month Apple introduced the new MacBook. With a 13-inch 1280 x 800 display (not sure about panel quality), the new MacBook looks a lot like the 13-inch MacBook Pro but at a $200 cheaper price tag. In fact the only differences boil down to 2GB vs. 4GB of memory, plastic vs. aluminum chassis, a backlit keyboard, SD card reader and Firewire port.

The battery life and performance should be identical between the two given they're using the same hardware.

Based on specs alone, the 13-inch MacBook Pro appears to be worth it. The standard MacBook ships with 2 x 1GB DDR3 SO-DIMMs. In order to upgrade to 4GB you need 2 x 2GB modules, which will set you back around $130. You could sell the leftover modules for about $40 on eBay which makes the MacBook $110 cheaper than the 13-inch MBP. But you do get a thinner, lighter and better looking chassis, not to mention the backlit keyboard which is very nice for late night writing or on an airplane.

I haven't reviewed one yet but the price difference seems small enough where the 13-inch MacBook Pro is worth it.

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  • adamjohari - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    this is slightly off topic, but i wish some of you guys know the answer to this. right now i'm using a mac mini with a logitech mouse, and the movement of the mouse is just terrible. i did some research online and it says it's because of the mouse acceleration is different in macs. my question is, if i were to buy the magic mouse... would the acceleration be any different than me using my logitech mouse right now?

    thanks in advance. again, sorry for diverting.

    adam
  • Jamor - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    I've never noticed a difference between mac or other mouses and I've used mainly logitech mouses on my macs. There are logitech mouse drivers which I've never bothered to install, might help you though. Also try fiddling with system preferences/mouse settings.
  • tipoo - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    The acceleraiton would be no different, that is an OS related thing. However you may find the Logitech has faster tracking than the Magic Mouse.

    You can get little programs that "fix" OSX's different acceleration curve, one is called MouseFix or something like that.

    Good luck
  • stormmonkey - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    I'm very happy with my 2010 13" MBP and just Tuesday upgraded to Seagate's new Momentus XT. Aside from a 20mb/sec average read speed increase over the stock drive, it's caching to flash storage gives a great overall boost to everyday use.
  • Oxford Guy - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    "For the past 1.5 years every single Mac has shipped with some form of NVIDIA graphics, standard, regardless of price."

    I was just on Apple's website and found iMacs that have Radeon GPUs in them.
  • hallubalooza - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    I know this wont mean anything to anyone who already has their mind made up. But I have a ridiculous desktop for running games and any intense windows apps. However I also have a 13" macbook pro that is awesome. It stays charged for a very long time even running a virtual machine (vmware fusion is great) for when i need to do something in windows xp or 7. I have it partitioned with windows 7 which I can either boot into if I really need the extra performance for something or I can load it in vmware to get any files I may need. It has some useful terminal commands built in and the trackpad is hands down the best I have ever used. Using any other laptop feels gimmicky compared to the multitouch and all the stupid hand swipe gestures that surprisingly increase productivity! It does cost more, but it isnt plastic and I really feel that people complain about the glossy screen just to find something to complain about. I would never buy an apple desktop but I feel that the 13" mbp is a great computer.
  • howmoney - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link

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  • Hrel - Saturday, June 12, 2010 - link

    If someone could do a review on the laptop that I
    currently suspect is the best "bang for your buck" out
    there. It's made by compal, and available on Cyberpower.com who's
    machines you've reviewed before.
    If you'd like it configured like I did, which I think is the best bang
    for buck, do this:
    Go to the website.
    mouse over 15.6" Laptops and click on the $999 Xplorer X6-8500. It has a 1080p screen.

    (I'm not sure why the people who run this site do this, but even though the other
    configurations use the same chassis when personalized they
    come out to cost more than this one; annoying since it makes me configure all 3
    or 4 machines built on the same base chassis to figure out which one is
    cheapest/best for me.)

    Then I configured
    it with the Core i7-620M CPU. (to get it over 1K so I can take advantage of the 5%
    off.) 4GB 0DDR3-1333, hopefully 7-7-7-21, probably not, but
    hopefully.
    ATI MR HD5650 1GB GDDR3
    320GB 7200rpm HDD (I did this cause I'm gonna take that HDD out
    and use the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB, thanks for that
    review!!)
    Everything else on that page I left untouched.
    The only thing I did on page 2 was switch to Intel wifi with bluetooth;
    Though I'm curious if the MSI option is
    equal/better; 17 bucks isn't nothing.

    It has HDMI out and a fingerprint reader. This page says 3 USB ports,
    the specs sheet says 4USB ports; not sure which is true. (I do wish
    they were USB 3.0 ports, but I was hoping you guys would test some stuff and
    tell me if that even matters for use with an external hard drive, mechanical
    disk 7200rpm. Transferring large files like movies and games mostly.)

    On page 3 I select "none, format only" for
    the OS. And select "LCD perfect assurance" cause even 1 dead pixel is
    unacceptable to me.
    This brings the total to $1008.90 after 5% off, or $992.75 if
    you get the MSI network card.

    So yeah, I really hope you guys can get a hold of one of these
    for review; as a loner or given as a review unit or maybe
    someone will just buy one and review it cause it's really tempting me right now...
    like a lot!
    If you're review is good I'm gonna start
    saving up and hopefully be able to buy it around Christmas. Thanks
    guys! A loyal reader. - Brian
  • CompSciSTL - Saturday, June 12, 2010 - link

    Have you installed Windows 7 on the new 13" MBP? I'd be curious to know what kind of battery life you get using Win 7.
  • paihuaizhe - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link

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