the mini Blog

After some serious rumour going around that Apple will anounce the MacBook on Tuesday of last week, some people were pretty annoyed that they haven’t yet released it. But now they finally have! You can see I’m pretty excited about it, and one of the main reasons is because it is available in black (and it looks sexy!)
There are three models. The white one comes in a 1.83GHz and 2GHz priced at $1099 (£749) and $1299 (£899) respectively, both Core Duo. But, here is where it gets annoying, the black one only comes in 2GHz and you have to pay an extra $200 (£130) over the higher end white one. This will certainly piss a lot of people off, as the black one looks very cool (It looks a bit weird in the picture, but in AppleInsider’s close up shots of the real thing it looks awsome) and why would you have to pay a premium for it? Well Apple says that the 80GB HDD (over the whitebook’s 60GB) is justifiable. However most people don’t think so, neither do I. You don’t see the black iPod costing more than the white one (granted it doesn’t have more HDD), but in a laptop, that isn’t worth much (as in cost for Apple). The specs are as follows:

• 1.83GHz or 2GHz Intel Core Duo - 2MB L2 cache and 667Mhz FSB
• 512MB of DDR 2 SDRAM (PC5300) on SO-DIMM slots, upto 2GB
• 60GB/80GB 5400RPM S-ATA HDD
• Combo Drive (for 1.83GHz) / Superdrive (for 2GHz)
• Built-in Intel GMA 950 Graphics, 64MB shared with system memory (ouch, no WoW then!)
• Built-in iSight
• 13.3″ glossy only (no matte finish available) widescreen display - 1280 by 800 resolution
• 1 x FireWire 400 port, 2 x USB2 ports, MiniDVI port
• Built-in stereo speakers, built-in omnidirectional microphone
• Optical digital audio input/audio line in (combined), optical digital audio output/headphone out (combined)
• Gigabit Ethernet - 10/100/1000Base-T
• Airport Extreme (802.11b/g) and Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)

Pretty good spec, as in line with the MacBook Pro, but a couple of things set it apart. The screen is only available in glossy versions (which some people hate), and the graphics are well, poor. But for a MacBook, it has optical in/out, which is quite promising, Gigabit Ethernet and Superdrive as standard (well for the 2GHz models). It is worthwhile to note that the memory can be expaneded to a heft 2GB’s unlike previous iBooks. This will please a lot, but not some. I think it is a very good update, that people have been waiting for, and I think the wait is justifiable. The keyboard has also be jazzed up, and looks quite different now, which hopefully can make it better (image).

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