Apple MacBook Late 2009 review

Posted by Ian Osborne on Wed 4 Nov 2009

It's a MacBook that thinks it's a Pro

Let’s get one thing straight from the off. When will Apple make up its mind about FireWire? Originally supported across the entire Mac range, when it was dropped from the 13-inch aluminium unibody MacBook in late 2008, it seemed the writing was on the wall for Apple’s proprietary connectivity system. Mac users were up in arms. The next revision of Apple’s laptop range saw the aluminium MacBook join the Pro range, and much to the relief of the Apple faithful, FireWire was restored. Yet now, with the release of this new entry-level white polycarbonate 13-inch MacBook, the FireWire port has disappeared again.

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Thankfully, most of the new MacBook’s revisions are far more welcome than its dropping FireWire support. Several popular features introduced for the MacBook Pro range are now finding their way onto Apple’s entry-level laptop. Perhaps the most important is the new internal battery. By making it non-removable, freeing up the space previously taken up by connectors and hatches, Apple is able to fit a bigger, stronger battery without adding to the size or weight of the laptop. Expect seven hours’ use on a single charge, enough to keep you going for almost an entire day. As it’s not user-removable, you have to get it professionally replaced when it wears out, but Apple claims it lasts for around five years or 1000 charges. That’s three times as long as the removable battery used in older MacBooks.

Another trickle-down from the Pro line is the LED-backlit display. Boasting a widescreen aspect ratio and a 1280x800 pixel resolution, the display is instant-on, energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly, using no arsenic or mercury in construction. With this update, all of Apple’s laptops use a glossy LED-backlit screen, though unfortunately, the 13-inch models such as this one don’t offer a matt, antiglare version as a custom option.

The glass multi-touch trackpad pioneered in the Pro range has also made it to the entry-level units. Eschewing the usual buttons, here the entire trackpad functions as a button, offering left and right-click functionality. Apple’s famous ‘gestures’ are also catered for, allowing you to scroll horizontally or vertically, zoom into our out of a window, rotate an image and more. It’s amazing just how quickly you get used to these gestures, and how loath you are to do without them afterwards.

Apple insists the new MacBook is, like the Pro range, a unibody device. But can you realistically call a polycarbonate moulding ‘unibody’? The body of the MacBook Pro range is milled from a single piece of aluminium to make it stronger and lighter, and moulding the MacBook’s chassis as a single polycarbonate piece certainly achieves the same end, but is this truly unibody? In a word, no. The base of the unit uses a rubberised aluminium sheet, further adding to the MacBook’s rigidity. Of course, all this makes it more difficult for you to get inside it to replace the hard drive, but it’s not beyond the reasonably-talented upgrader.

The hard drive is now 250GB, up from 160GB in the previous version, and its 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor is an improvement on the 2.13GHz chip in the mid-2009 model. Memory is still 2GB, expandable to 4GB, and the graphics chip is still an nVidia GeForce 9400M using 256 MB RAM. The Bluetooth antenna is routed into the display housing instead of being positioned above the optical drive, which will likely improve its range, depending on conditions.

Aside from its lack of FireWire support, we’ve a few complaints about the late 2009 release of the MacBook. There’s no infrared port, which means it’s incompatible with the Apple Remote used to control Keynote presentations, iTunes and especially Front Row. But, with the shuffling of the Bluetooth antenna, we could see a compatible remote soon, and Apple may be moving towards USB 3.0, possibly? They refused to comment.

Overall, the new release of the MacBook is a win for Apple. It may cost an extra £50 but, it features a better screen, faster processor, bigger hard drive and a more rigid, robust design. If only it hadn’t lost the infrared and FireWire ports, but these minor gripes may dissapear soon if we keep our fingers crossed.

Link: Apple

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4|11|2009 19:35

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