Apple MacBook Review (Late 2008 Model)

Teraforce: You can change the battery and HDD on the Macbook (late 08) easy - no unscrewing needed. To change the RAM you need to do some unscrewing tho.

About the notebook itself and its "higher than avarage" price; I've found myself with previous (pc) notebooks not to be complaining about the actual performance of the notebook but rather heat, noise, headphone static, cranky chassis, anoying edges, bad feedback on the keyboard etc. Stuff that aren't fixable.

It's not that expensive to upgrade to a 320GB hdd and 4 GB either and then you have a real solid notebook at your hands.

 

You can change the battery, it's just one extra latch to get to it. And ram and hdd are user replaceable too. The ram slot is simple to get to, but requires removal of like eight screws.

That being said, I love my new MacBook. The only thing keeping from owning a Mac was graphics cards and wireless cards, and both of those problems have been fixed with this model.

 

One comment that always arises on a new MacBook review, either from the reviewer, or from a poster in response to the review - let's see how it runs Windows. As one who has built, and used, computers since the IMSAI 8080 days in the early '70s, I just can't figure out why someone buys a Mac to run Windows. Yes, I could argue that if Mac owners are able to run Windows, then why shouldn't PC owners be able to run OS-X legally. But, again, why spend a ton of money on a Mac which can't be easily upgraded, or repaired for that matter, than much less on a PC notebook? And, don't give me that nonsense that Macs don't fail, as I know better owning both. It must come down to status, or er . . . perceived status. If you need to run Windows programs, spend less money and buy a PC notebook.

 

colloquor: Perhaps because Mac design is great and that some people might need to do some Windows only-stuff from time to time, like playing some game.

 

I'd like to know Jerry, do you have the problem with the loose fitting battery cover, and bent/slanted function keys? I'm reading at another forum it's a common problem.
Those are the two things that are keeping me from getting the new macbook.

<s>And umm, why is "it's a Mac" listed as a con? Just a little biased, no? That just doesn't make sense to me.</s>

 

If you've read the review a little more rigorously you should've seen it's also listed as a pro, and on top of that it has also been mentioned in the discussion here in the forum.

 

Yes I did the second time around.

 

Great review. I am in the process of deciding what 13" laptop to purchase and a macbook is at the top of my list right now. Supposedly this is a very cool (low temp) running laptop and with the 9400m it has decent gpu power. I'm really only looking for this for some light gaming and some school work and want something pretty portable. I do have some reservations about 1) the price, 2) the display quality, and 3) the OS (currently a windows user).

Anyway, I noticed that you recommended an HP EliteBook 2530p at the end of your review. This laptop actually looks to be more expensive but with less features and speed, the only advantage being the smaller size and less weight. May I ask why this specific laptop was recommended?

Thanks in advance.

 

LOL @ "It's a Mac" under pros and cons.

I've often heard the Mac screen touted as one of it's strong points, so it's kind of strange to see such a obviously poor design.

 

That's because Vaio did came up with the idea of the design first (the keyboard).

And the screen design looks suspiciously like the Lenovo IdeaPad...

The only different is on the technical side, which most of us will probably overlooked...

I guess people in Apple is so desperate that they are focusing on gimmick rather than functionality or innovation...

 

I see three main problems with this new Macbook.

1. Unless you are narcissistic, I think a mirror does not belong on a laptop.
2. Unless they were retarded, I think people were just fine with using a touchpad and two buttons. How is it easier to use a touchpad with no buttons? Somehow easier than a touchpad with one button? Please, someone tell me.
3. Unless you really wanted all these newfangled "goodies" that come with the new Macbook, there is no justification performance-wise to buy the new one over the far cheaper old one. If other manufacturers released a product and then released a revision of the original product for several hundred dollars more, consumers would be outraged. Thankfully for Apple, consumers are easily appeased by shiny objects.

 

Nice review. I like how "It's a mac" fits under both pros and cons...hah

My only problem with it is the super glossy screen. why no matte option? It's also kind of expensive. This thing at $999 would have destroyed the competition.

 

Well, macbooks always only had 1 button anyways...and I usually use the double tap on touchpad to click on stuff anyways. Oh and the bottom part of the touchpad is still a button.

 

Beautiful photographs! They look great.

 

Yeah, I just think that click and drag will be more difficult now even though I know you can still depress (in a clicky kind of way) on the new touchpad). I just don't see much rationale in the new design other than "new for the sake of being new".

 

The review is misleading about the touchpad... it says the bottom part of the touchpad is a button... but actually, the whole touchpad is a button... you can press any part of it. But if you want to use it like before and press the bottom part of the pad with your thumb, that works too. Or just press down wherever your pointing finger happens to be. You have a choice.

But I agree with the reviewer about the screen. I played with the Macbook at the Apple store, and the new-style screen was the only part that I really disliked (black border, super-glossy effect, etc.). The quality of the actual display panel was fine though.

 

No video this time?

 

I don't think "Infinity panel" type of LCD lid is a good idea, as it turns LCD into a mirror. Now, I know "style over substance" when it comes to Mac, but being forced to use that type of lid is bit too much - especially since it adds no practical advantage.

It is good to hear that they finally got rid of inference, though. But then, they should have done that earlier, considering prices of these Macs.

 

Having owned this new Macbook, I can assure you the new touchpad is very pleasant and easy to use. The whole thing can be depressed like a button and you can set the bottom right corner as a right click ala Windows. It's very flexible and well thought out (even the texture is perfect), unlike many touchpads you see like the glossy sticky ones on Pavillions or the ultra tiny ones you commonly get on laptops. Try it out if you don't believe me.

 

I bought a HP dv3500t instead of a new Macbook...and I was waiting for the new Macbook thinking I will switch over to OSX, I was prepared to sacrifice some connectivity options but 2 USB only was really too ridiculous for me and I have an LCD tv with hdmi/vga input and older plasmas in my family home. I don't wish to carry another 2 of the mini display adaptors around adding $60 to the cost of an already expensive laptop, and I do spend on expensive laptops(my last was a Sony Vaio S upgraded to the max for $4k) if Jobs said he choose to serve only a certain group of people whom would pay a 'premium'.

still i like the body of the macbooks and macbook pros, and will be looking to purchase a macbook pro when it is updated next with the last gen of montevia chips.

you could consider this as well, the dv3510nr

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=308314&page=6

 

Well, I guess there's the proof this site is moving from a review site to an op-ed site.

Rave about those who you like best and of course, send you the most free stuff, hmm?

 

"MacBook's power management set to maximize battery life".....I went to my energy saver and there's no two drop down tabs to optimize my battery life....there are just only check boxes option to have the screen dim down or when to shutdown the display...nothing to maximize the battery life....anyone with this problem?

 

First, I'd love to find a single in-depth review written about consumer electronics (either in print or online) that contains ZERO opinion.

Second, there has never been ( nor shall there EVER be) a single notebook manufacturer that supplies us with "free stuff" (unless you're talking about a $1 mouse pad or a $5 T-shirt with a company logo on it from a PR company). We get "evaluation" units on loan from manufacturers as members of the press and we are financially responsible for those loan units during the course of our review process. After a review has been published the review units are promptly returned to manufacturers or their PR representatives.

We pay for this website via advertising revenue, not "freebies" from companies. And before you accuse us of being biased in favor of advertisers, you should know that we have continually jeopardized ad revenue because we don't hesitate to criticize a product if we believe it deserves criticism. Our ad space might be for sale, but our reviews are NOT for sale.

The team here at NBR pride ourselves on being as impartial as "humanly possible" but we acknowledge that we are all human beings with opinions and personal preferences. That said, we believe that blind loyalty to one brand or manufacturer only hurts consumers. We try to paint a complete picture in every review offering insight from as many different angles as possible.

That's why on this site you will rarely ever find a review that is completely positive or completely negative. Every notebook has good things (pros) and bad things (cons). More importantly, what one person considers to be a "pro" could in fact be considered a "con" by someone else. The perfect notebook for my mother is not the same as the perfect notebook for a corporate IT manager.

All we can do is try to cover a notebook in a way that's accessible to the most people while still being in-depth enough to be useful ... and then trust that our readers can make their own decisions based on the information we've provided and the wonderful resource of our discussion forums.

 

You are correct that under Mac OS X your power management control options are rather limited. That statement was based on the fact that we completed battery life tests under both Mas OS X and Windows Vista (which allows for more direct control over power management settings).

The MacBook's battery performance under both Windows and Mac OS X were so close that they were within the margin of error for our "average joe" testing procedure and we didn't bother to publish the two separate battery life times (since the difference between 4 hours and 10 minutes and 3 hours and 45 could be as simple as your screen brightness setting and your use of the optical drive regardless of the operating system you're using).

 

JerryJ,

Some folks at the MacRumors forum seem to be very unhappy with the black/gray portrayal by the new MB screen.

Can you please let us know how the new MB displays blacks? Basically, while playing movies do you experience any discomfort trying to discern objects in a low-lit/dark scene?

Thanks

 

I didn't notice any problems with the blacks, but to satisfy curiosity tomorrow while I'm in the office I'll pull out the office copy of "300" and jump to one of the darker scenes and see how it looks. That's the movie I usually use to check if viewing angles or screen contrast/blacks appear to be an issue.

I'll let you know how it looks tomorrow.

It might also be a screen reflection issue. I hate to beat a man (or a MacBook) while he's down, but these glossy displays with the separate glossy layer make it difficult to see anything dark on the screen if there's a reflection in the way.

In other words, if you're watching a movie with a dark scene the backlight from the screen is obviously less bright and can't overcome the reflective surface of the screen ... making it hard for you to see what's on the screen because your eyes are trying to see through a reflection in front of the display.

Anyway, I'll double check tomorrow and see if it's a problem with the blacks/contrast or if it might just be a nasty side effect of the stupid redundant glossy plastic layer in front of the actual display.

 

Hahahahahahah oh man if you didn't put that sarcasm tag I was gonna

Still funny...macbooks running Crysis LOL...

 

Thanks. Also if you could, can you please make a note of the LCD number?

There seem to be two - 9c8c and 9c79, with 9c8c being the better one.

 

no one cares about my question..

 

They also buy macs because they're told that macs don't get nearly as many viruses (if any at all; I'm not a OS X user so I wouldn't know). While this is true, it is also true that you also don't have to get as many viruses on a PC either, given that 1) You have good, smart computing habits in Windows that prevent viruses, or 2) You're using Linux.

What was your question again? Maybe I can answer it.

EDIT: I know what your question is; I just don't know the answer! Sorry!

 

it's alright thx tho

 

The old and new Macbooks use different CPUs and chipsets. The new ones use the newest Montevina platform and the late models of the previous Macbooks used the Penryn platform. Even if the old and new models have a 2.4ghz CPU, they will differ on other things like wattage, front side bus, amount of L2 cache, etc that make differences in performance and battery life.

Of course the new Macbooks will ship with the latest version of OSX, which has Bootcamp included. But you can also install it on older Macbooks of course. Bootcamp will work as long as you have a Mac with an Intel processor, not the old models with PowerPC processors. It can support XP, Vista and even Linux and other operating systems, though probably with a little extra work.

I have no knowledge of Macs, I'm not sure if the drivers are included but I hear that with Bootcamp, getting XP and Vista to work on the Macbooks is pretty easy and you can get most if not all the features working. The idea of Bootcamp is to make it easy and as painless as possible. I'm sure someone could help you find the drivers if they aren't included. Lots of people have Windows working just fine on a Macbook so it can't be too difficult.

 

Ok because you asked so nicely Edit: oops Rahul answered right before me.

No the old macbook doesn't have Pxxxx CPUs it has Txxxx CPUs. They have different FSBs.

Vista (and XP) drivers are included on the bootcamp disc with he new macbook.

I would assume they are included with the old macbook too, but better ask your quetion in the Apple forium, instead of here. This thread is about the new macbook.

 

I'm really impressed by the new macbook (even though I don't really like apple). I would seriously give this laptop some consideration if I were still in the market for a new laptop. However, the glossy screen and the keyboard would probably turn me away from getting it. I tried macbook keyboards before and it's horrible experience. I also hate glossy screen as they are nearly unusable when you dimm the brightness.

But aside from that, I think the macbook is a great piece of apple engineering

 

Sorry but your beloved Sony Vaio wasn't the first one with the chicklet style KB. In the early 1980's Sinclair Spectrum pc's had similar style KB's. Please leave the BS to the politicians!

 

They weren't, but many people who counter are annoyed that Sony is often accused of stealing design cues from Apple when it isn't actually true.

The colour scheme is similar to the Vaio N though.

 

Penryns are CPUs. Montevina's predecessor was Santa Rosa. (I don't know whether the MacBooks and MacBooks Pro that were just replaced used Santa Rosa or Montevina, but they did have Penryns, as do the new ones.)

Someone stated earlier in this thread that the 40% figure is of dollars spent, not of units sold.

 

As I suspected, when viewing dark scenes in a movie (scenes with lots of shadow detail and black) the only time I had to strain my eyes to see what was on the screen was when the reflections from the glossy screen interfered with the viewing experience. You basically have to turn the backlight up as high as possible and try to position the screen for the perfect viewing angle ... and hope you're not outside or the room you're in doesn't have extremely bright lights.

Our review unit contains a APP9C8C display ... so if online rumors are correct then we might have one of the "better" displays.

Still, I suspect the bigger problem is the glossy protective layer that sits in front of the actual display.

 

Ahh always love the replies that come with an Apple review. Great read as always guys

 

How did NBR get 4:47 with "power management set to minimize battery life"? The max I can get (with absolute min brightness, no sound, no bluetooth, and no heavy usage - just Internet and maybe typing documents) is 4:15.

 

Because, like the "average joe" I walked away from the MacBook a few times (3 times total) for several minutes at a time (letting the notebook go into sleep mode) but the notebook was running on battery the entire time.

I'm sure that if I was constantly browsing, with the screen at normal brightness levels the entire time, browsing the web and actively watching streaming videos the entire time I would have burned through the battery in much less time.

The truth is we don't use a completely standardized battery test with each and every notebooks because some notebooks we review use Windows Vista, some use XP, some use Linux, and some use Mac OS X. Additionally, some manufacturers send us review units with SSDs rather than the standard HDD that comes with most configurations because they know the SSDs get better battery life and it skews the numbers.

That's why we don't do a comparison table in the battery life section the way we do with processor performance benchmarks. There are just way too many variables with battery life in notebooks. In the battery life sections of our reviews we simply try to give you details about what we did with the notebook and how much battery life we got on average.

Like so much of the content in our reviews, it's a fine line we try to walk between providing detailed information and keeping the reviews simple and concise enough for the average consumer.

Our forums tend to be filled with members who want as much detail as possible (I'm sure some of our members would love to read 15-page reviews of every notebook on our site) but the average site visitor who comes to our site via Google usually wants something easier to digest. We've actually tracked this over time and found that the shorter the review is, the more time the average visitor spends on the page reading the review.

We want to give our audience all the detail they want/need to make an educated purchasing decision ... but we also don't want to scare people away with multiple paragraphs about battery life when most people just want to know "How many hours and how many minutes of battery life did it get?"

 

...can you click AND (gasp) drag with the touchpad on this thing?

 

Fair. Just was curious . The review was good, I agree with it after about a week and a half of usage.

arsenic004: yes you can

 

That maybe true, but that's not the point...The point is that Apple has fallen into the same degree as the rest of other "first-time" notebook manufacturer. Since there are now very little room for innovation, and all user needs has been defined, and Apple still desperately need to increase their marketshare, all they have left is 'Gimmick'. However I have to admit Apple was able to take gimmick to the next level, and became a niche instead of just copying.

FYI: I'm NOT a Sony lover....They have every bit of problems just as Apple has...I DO love notebooks that suits my graphic needs....And that's NOT BS...is just the TRUTH and I don't think you can handle it!!!

 

And that's NOT BS...is just the TRUTH and I don't think you can handle it!!!

again I need to remind you of the BS about the fact that you claimed Apple copied Sony's idea of chicklet style KB, which is NOT TRUE! The chicklet style KB was NEVER Sony's idea, so maybe YOU cannot handle the truth. Now you're blabbering about Apple having other problems while trying to hide the fact that you were totally wrong about the KB. If you didn't notice, I was only talking about the KB and your baseless claim.

I have seen other Sony fanboys claiming the same thing in the Sony section on the NBR but I think it's time to set the record straight as far as chicklet style KB is concerned! And I truly hope Apple never copies Sony's customer service! lol

 

I'm sorry Jerry but when you're talking about the screen you have your facts just plain wrong. It's not the glossy screen that causes the inverted colors at those angles, it the quality of the panel. And just to let you in on a little secret there is no such thing as extreme glossy, it's either glossy or it's matte. The reason for this decision just like a lot of other apple decisions is based on cost/profit margins, yes it would be nicer to include a nice panel and firewire, but then why would people go for the 15" Macbook Pro? It would eat into Pro sales and Steve is a very shrewd man, for himself and his shareholders.

 

That's odd, I can't find anywhere in my review or in my comments where I claimed "the glossy screen causes inverted colors."

I am well aware that color inversion is a result of the LCD panel itself and not the glossiness of the panel front (or the glossiness of the second protective layer in front of the display as is the case with the new MacBook and many new notebooks from other companies).

The issue I have with these new types of screens (the ones with the second glossy layer in front and separate from the actual display panel) is that is creates a completely separate layer of reflections that sit in front of the display and often make it difficult to see what's on the display if you're in a bright environment or if you have the screen's backlight turned down.

I don't want to keep pressing the issue because I feel like I'm starting to rant about it. Some people like these "frameless" or "inifinity" or "insert marketing term here" displays, but I'd rather have a traditional glossy screen (one that doesn't have a second plastic or glass layer in front of it) or a matte screen.

 

On any other day I would probably agree with you...But you know what, this time I am pretty sure...FYI Sony implement this KB design for their VAIO X505VP line-up back in 2004. The Macbook first appear in 2006. What does that tell you?

In all, the Design is too familiar, I have to assume Apple DID in one way or the other copy from other product (regardless of what that is and from whom), and hey....you can't blame the guy for trying. However from technical stand point of view Apple did came up with some interesting stuff...

So let's say I'm agreeing with you in a totally different way...

 

The screen is like a mirror. After having seen it in real life, I can't believe anyone would purchase this.