Apple Polishes Popular MacBook for a Higher Price
October 22, 2008
by Walter S. Mossberg
Apple’s MacBook laptop, the company’s low-end portable computer aimed at average consumers, isn’t just any old product. It’s the best-selling Macintosh in history, at a time when Mac sales are growing much faster than sales of PCs in the U.S. overall. And, according to the sales-research organization NPD Group, the midrange model of the MacBook has been the single best-selling laptop of any brand in U.S. retail stores for the past five months.
So, when Apple completely revamped the design of the MacBook last week, it was a big deal, not only for Mac die-hards, but for anyone shopping for an everyday laptop.
I’ve been testing the base model of the new MacBook for the past five days, and I like it a lot, despite a few downsides. I found this new MacBook to be speedy, solid, innovative, and comfortable to use, with very good battery life.
The new model sports a sturdy aluminum case, instead of the old plastic one, and looks gorgeous. And it even seemed to run cooler than earlier Apple (AAPL) aluminum laptops. It’s 10% lighter, at 4.5 pounds, and 12% thinner, at 0.95 inch, than its predecessor, and continues to include a built-in DVD drive. Its processor is slower, yet it has good performance because of much faster graphics, and it also offers a far brighter screen in the same 13.3-inch size. But it still gets strong battery life — slightly better in fact than the older model, in my tests.
Plus, the new MacBook includes a huge, innovative glass track pad that functions as a combination of a traditional track pad and the multitouch screen of an iPhone. This track pad allows all sorts of fingertip gestures you can use to navigate Web pages, manipulate photos, and switch among programs.
In another radical step, Apple eliminated the button below the track pad. When you want to perform a mouse click, you just depress the entire track pad. The whole thing is a big button, which can act as either the left or right button on a traditional mouse, and which allows easy, smooth scrolling.
Like all current Macs, the new MacBooks come with Apple’s Leopard operating system, which I consider superior to Windows. But the new MacBooks can run Windows as well. In my tests, the new model ran Windows XP beautifully. I was able to run such Windows-only programs as Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer and Outlook right along with my Mac software, at snappy speeds. It can also run Windows Vista.
The cheaper of the two new versions comes with an adequate 160-gigabyte hard disk, though larger disks are available, and two gigabytes of memory, which is plenty for a consumer Mac.
On my tough battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features and play an endless loop of music, the new MacBook lasted three hours and 53 minutes — six minutes longer than the old one. That suggests that, in normal use, with power-saving on, you could achieve Apple’s claim of five hours of battery life, or come close.
There are some drawbacks, of course. The cheapest of the new models costs $1,299, $200 more than the cheapest of the old models. Though that’s the same price as the most popular of the older models, and you get more for your money, the swooning economy may make that price tag tougher for some families to swallow. As a hedge against this, Apple will continue to sell the base model of the old MacBook, at $999.
Another downside to the new MacBook is that the radical new glass track pad will take some time to get used to. At first, I found its surface so slippery that I had trouble accurately placing the cursor on the item I wanted to select. But three other people I asked to test this had no such trouble, and my own woes with this disappeared after a few days, either because I got more used to it, or because the surface picked up enough dirt to become less slick.
It also takes a while to adapt to the lack of a button. For left-clicking, you press the whole track pad with one finger. For right-clicking, you press down with two fingers, or you can set an option to perform right-clicking with one finger by pressing on one of the lower corners of the track pad. You can also optionally use light tapping instead of clicking, a common option on other laptops.
In addition, the model’s bright LED screen comes in only a glossy finish, which some folks hate because it displays more glare and fingerprints than the old matte screens.
Apple still stubbornly refuses to incorporate a slot for the flash memory cards commonly used in cameras and cellphones. And the new model omits the FireWire port, which some consumers used to connect older camcorders and certain external hard disks. The new model uses a common Ethernet networking cable instead of FireWire to transfer all your files and programs from an older Mac, a process I found worked perfectly.
All in all, though, Apple’s new MacBook is a terrific choice for consumers and students, if you can handle the $1,299 price.
Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.
Comments
They’re still selling MiniDV camcorders at Best Buy, which require firewire. There are so many of these cameras in the middle of their useful lifespan that it was clearly premature of Apple to remove the firewire port. Apple sends a mixed message about consumers and video editing when they include imovie yet take away the port to connect a camera tons of people already own.
Gutsy move taking away the trackpad button. Ever since Apple introduced two-finger right-clicks on notebooks they’ve had the superior solution. Your hand doesn’t have to find the right button, there’s only one button and it performs a right or left click. Making room for a larger trackpad? That’s what Apple does. They innovate. People who despise Apple call this “charging more for aesthetics.” People who have to use a computer all day call it progress.
Posted by Murphy Mac at October 23rd, 2008 at 5:14 amOver at the Apple Discussion Forums, there is a 44-page thread voicing loud complaints about the new MacBook’s missing firewire port. Eliminating the firewire port was a really bad move on Apple’s part that (at the very least) will negatively impact audio and video professionals, school districts across the country (BIG customers!) and tech support pros—not to mention that everyone who buys one of these flawed beauties must figure out how to migrate their data without firewire target disk mode.
Posted by Alan Sanders at October 23rd, 2008 at 9:21 amThere appears to be a buying frenzy of refurbished previous-generation MacBooks at the online Apple Store. One minute, there are plenty of choices and the next, gone! I’ve seen the status of the former top-o’-the-line 2.4GHz black Macbook change to “Out of stock” in the time it takes to click on the “Learn More” link.
Posted by Joe Ekaitis at October 24th, 2008 at 11:17 amThe lack of firewire could be a big issue with these new macbooks, Audio, Video and educational markets could easily turn away as firewire is commonly used in these three fields.
Posted by Michael Dunn at October 24th, 2008 at 12:13 pmIf you check any audio or video, and many mac related forums there is a mass of complaint, even the online petition is nearing 15 thousand.
And there really is no argument to the dropping of firewire, except the $700 firewire tax to those who need it.
And with glossy screens only on this, and the Pro model it puts any serious photo or film work out of the picture.
So with this refresh many people think that the creative blood that has run through Apples blood is all but vanquished, a market that has kept them in business for years, and an image that they have portrayed, and still to their shame do.
A lot of people are complaining about the new Apple MacBook laptop’s lack of a card reader. Let us not forget that this can be overcome with an external card reader. External card readers have been available for years. An external card reader is light, compact and easy to carry around in your laptop bag or pocket, and it connects to a USB port. The lack of a firewire port is probably a bit premature on Apple’s part. So those individuals concerned about this will have hold on to their old MacBook, or buy the more powerful and more expensive MacBook Pro.
Posted by Anthony Deshong at October 24th, 2008 at 6:43 pmI am a pro musician and DJ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I use my MacBook with a Lacie firewire Hd and an Apogee Duet firewire soundcard.
It was too bad to see the new MacBook without the firewire connection. I am feeling forced by Apple to go now to the MacBook Pro in order to get the firewire port again. This means much more money I will have to spend.
There are lots and lots of people not happy with what Apple did.
I love Apple ! I have two Macbooks, one MacMini and my wife has an iMac.
Posted by Elvert Brandao at October 25th, 2008 at 9:00 pmWell, I must say I’m very glad Apple have managed to cut their material costs – it was causing me sleepless nights.
More seriously though, I am doubly glad that the new machines are highly environmentally-aware, but the plain truth is there are so few performance enhancements that the differences are superficial at best. Gestures on a new trackpad are great as are the new graphics chipsets but, prima facie at least, there’s very little else of any ‘real’ significance i.e likely to make a real difference to the way you work with your Mac.
The processor speed is the same, the memory capacity is the same, the number of ports is the same, and aside from the graphics, compared with it’s earlier siblings, the new Macbook performs like it’s elder siblings. And when real change isn’t self-evident the best way to convince people of significant change is to keep repeating what’s changed. So, to watch Apple labouring these new superficial changes in the tediously repititive October Keynote event is disappointing.
The seams of Apple’s seduction techniques are also starting to show. Just as you discover the secret to a magic trick, the illusion is a little drab. The art of distraction is key to shrouding the truth.
Take the new price for these new features, for instance. According to Apple, the 3 most sought-after features from the Macbook Pro that are now available on the Macbook include the aluminium casing, the backlit display and better graphics, all of which are now part of the new Macbook. These new offerings are touted as a feature-set that is $700 cheaper than if you bought the current machine offering these options i.e. the Macbook Pro. But let’s call a spade a spade and undress that marketing ploy for what it is – a shabby deception. You can’t escape the irrefutable fact that the Macbook only offers these tangible differences, but costs a whopping £250 more than it’s predecessor.
So, surely the question facing customers at the moment is are these aesthetic and superficial changes worth £949 (£230 more than a machine that performs just as well)?
Surely the answer is a resounding “no”.
Have Apple learnt nothing from the lessons over the pricing of the iPhone? Groundbreaking it may have been, but Apple’s subsequent embarrassing price reduction (bowing to public demand) revealed that they’d originally over-priced it. You’d think Apple would know better this time.
Especially in these troubled financial times, Apple’s price setters need a good kicking.
Posted by Pete Lingo at October 26th, 2008 at 5:42 amJust a note to say that “heartily” and “hardly” sound much alike.
Posted by Mac Beach at October 29th, 2008 at 9:20 pm“Especially in these troubled financial times, Apple’s price setters need a good kicking.”
Agreed. But Apple has never been punished in the (recent) past by its customers. And we also have Microsoft to blame for not giving us a more compelling alternative.
If you don’t want to mess with Windows (and I certainly don’t) then you have to pay whatever it takes to get the Apple alternative… Or become expert enough with Linux to get it to do what you want it to do. I personally have better luck with Linux, but only after a few years of fiddling with it and I fully appreciate the desire to have something that “just works” when you take it out of the box.
Posted by Mac Beach at October 29th, 2008 at 9:26 pm