[Review] 13" Black MacBook - Santa Rosa chipset

[.Neo]

EA is using another company to port its games, and frankly, EA is one of the laziest game devs - year after, they either make lazy rehashes of the previous, or very buggy games at that. Macs don't do games, until Apple releases a desktop that can take the same video cards as a PC (or EFI becomes mainstream in PC's), you won't get hardcore or moderate gamers to switch.

I agree. If you're a hardcore gamer it's best to just stick with Windows or combine a Mac with a console. But overal for the casual gamer, like myself, my iMac is doing just fine.

[medafor]

lol, this isn't a Macbook review, it's a personal story about recieving a 13" Macbook then goes on to contrast Apple and Microsoft.

[Wannes]

If you don't like it, please remove yourself from the topic. Everyone seems to think it's a good review and now you're coming (after it's been review of the week) to troll around? Wooptiedoo...

[Xtreme $niper]

I agree. If you're a hardcore gamer it's best to just stick with Windows or combine a Mac with a console. But overal for the casual gamer, like myself, my iMac is doing just fine.

I took the Mac with the console option. The only thing my desktop ever gets turned on for is for network printing once in a while, and to play the Orange Box since I refused to buy the console version of that (it would feel wrong, since I played TFC religiously on a PC for years of my life).

[BabyDoc]

Nice review, it was a review like this that took my doubt about buying a macbook away 1.5 year ago.

[Cloud Constructors]

I am buying a macbook soon! although it is quite expensive for the hardware compared to the Dell XPS M1330

[Martyn]

I am buying a macbook soon! although it is quite expensive for the hardware compared to the Dell XPS M1330

...and you bought it and then got rid of it :laugh:!

Oh well.

[Unto Darkness]

I heard that there were some problems with the CPU Fan noise. What's up with that? And does it get hot ?

PS: I am going to rob you tonight! :shiftyninja:

The MacBook is godly! :drool:

[sMiK]

i have a white mid model since october now and i'm very happy about it, nice choice, nice review.

[Unto Darkness]

There were plenty of problems with the macbook. Have they been fixed? They include:

- Overheating [to 95 Degrees Celsius! Yikes!]

- Intermittent Shutdowns

- Grease Stains on the palm rests [irremovable]

- Cracking

- Poor Quality Displays

- Cheap material

- Laptop Cracking

- Noisy fan

- Noisy display

- Charger burning up

Have you faced any of these problems "so far"?

PS: Looking at the list, maybe the macbook is not so "godly" after all!

[Martyn]

I heard that there were some problems with the CPU Fan noise. What's up with that? And does it get hot ?

PS: I am going to rob you tonight! :shiftyninja:

The MacBook is godly! :drool:

I can only speak from my personal experience but my MacBook is echoes a deathly silence to me, at least compared to my old laptop. The only time I have actually heard the CPU fan is when I was testing out some programming code, and as I made a weird mistake it caused the computer to use 100% CPU...and then the fan came on blaring. Basically, if you are going to max the laptop out (and I am talking 100% CPU) then the fan is bound to come on!

Other than that though my MacBook is not exactly hot. Sure it is warm (but only in certain points), and that is handy in winter! I find the MacBook tends to get warm by the charger port when it is charging (but surely that should be expected), and also just below the screen.

*Locks door* :shiftyninja:

There were plenty of problems with the macbook. Have they been fixed? They include:

- Overheating [to 95 Degrees Celsius! Yikes!]

- Intermittent Shutdowns

- Grease Stains on the palm rests [irremovable]

- Cracking

- Poor Quality Displays

- Cheap material

- Laptop Cracking

- Noisy fan

- Noisy display

- Charger burning up

Have you faced any of these problems "so far"?

PS: Looking at the list, maybe the macbook is not so "godly" after all!

I mentioned just then about the overheating. It would be interesting for me to find out what the idle and stress temps of my MacBook are. But for some reason Core2DuoTemp does not work with Leopard, which is a shame.

Intermittent shutdowns have not happened to me.

As for grease stains I am not sure what you mean, but I sure as hell have not noticed any. I don't particularly like to rest my hands or my elbow or anything on my laptop for fear of breakage! The closest I have come to "grease stains" is that your finger marks do show up on the MacBook quite easily (I can only speak for the black version here), but they are not irremovable and if you give your MacBook a whipe every now and then it is fine.

As for your next point, I will answer "cracking", "laptop cracking" and "cheap material" in this paragraph. I think the MacBook is quite a sturdy piece of technology. However, I think certain points of the machine are a bit weak. If I press in at the side of the laptop (but towards the front) the plastic moves and it does make a nasty plasticy noise. In my eyes that is a build quality fault, so you have to be careful there. I think Apple should look into that though and it should be easy to fix. Other than that I have not noticed anything. Although, my friend has a year old white MacBook and his is practically falling apart (especially with the side like mine), but he has dropped his a few times.

As for a poor quality display. I can honestly say that I have no qualms with my MacBook display. It has a very good resolution considering the size of the laptop (13.3") and images look crystal clear to me and so warm and vibrant. Although I suppose the glossy display helps with that. My display is certainly not noisy anyway and I know that for sure, as I often sit in a silent room with my MacBook when studying so I can concentrate, so I would certainly pick up on any noises emmanating from it!

The charger burning up problem I have not heard of. Although in recent years there has been a big thing about exploding laptop batteries and whatnot, but it looks like Apple have avoided that problem so far (though, I do believe they issued a recall on certain battery models).

Most of the problems you posted have not occured to me. The MacBook is a popular machine, so people are bound to have some problems...but on Neowin (which is steretyped to be a Windows fanboy community) you do not hear about many Mac problems. The closest I have come to a problem with my Mac is that I thought Leopard had messed up on me (graphically), but all I did was turn is turn on one of the accessibilty options which made everything look funny (and I still don't know what key combination I pressed that made that happen). Anyway, I really hope all the problems you listed are not a combination of mini disasters waiting to happen to me!

Hope that helps!

[Unto Darkness]

Great!

I was considering the Macbook as one of my options. The others are the Dell Vostro and HP dv 6500t .

As for the stains, I am sure the black Macbook won't face any problems. The white ones do suffer from them.

I think they might have improved the displays. I have read that Apple originally shipped them with 256k colour screens but claimed them to be 16 milion!

As for the others, they occur after long term usage [>6 months], so keep your fingers crossed! :laugh:

All in all, the Macbook is still one helluva laptop [correction: Notebook].

Thanks for the feedback!

PS: Just a question I wanted to ask: Which University do you attend? Just out of curiosity.

Edited January 12, 2008 by UNTO DARKNESS

[Martyn]

Great!

I was considering the Macbook as one of my options. The others are the Dell Vostro and HP dv 6500t .

As for the stains, I am sure the black Macbook won't face any problems. The white ones do suffer from them.

I think they might have improved the displays. I have read that Apple originally shipped them with 256k colour screens but claimed them to be 16 milion!

As for the others, they occur after long term usage [>6 months], so keep your fingers crossed! :laugh:

All in all, the Macbook is still one helluva laptop [correction: Notebook].

Thanks for the feedback!

PS: Just a question I wanted to ask: Which University do you attend? Just out of curiosity.

Well I really hope my MacBook keeps going like it is for another three or four years! Anyway, because I qualified for an education discount I got a three year warranty bundled in free by Apple (although it is not the Apple care warranty).

Oh, and I go to Lancaster University and I am studying Computer Science :)

[Cloud Constructors]

I got the Black MacBook, wanted the MacBook Pro but I am saving money for the PS3 :)

The Blackbook is wonderful

[instant.human]

...but overpriced? ;)

nah just kidding.

great review. =)

[Guest]

Martyn: How was delivery from the Apple UK store?

[Martyn]

Martyn: How was delivery from the Apple UK store?

It was pretty prompt, and they do not charge for delivery which is always nice. I ordered it on the Friday (along with the case), and I expected it on the Monday. The case came on the Monday, but the UPS person did not realise that there was a consignment of two parcels, so he left my MacBook on the truck by mistake. Myself and the porter at my Uni chased it up, and the MacBook was delivered on the Tuesday.

But yeah, I think the Apple delivery is quite good.

[Guest]

Well, I bought my BlackBook on Friday and I've fallen in love already.

Superb notebook, OS X is really easy to get along with.

[RedFlow]

I'm thinking of buying a macbook soon... We'll see ;)

[Iian K]

Nice Review you got there..

Although there were some points in the review where I just wanted to say "Get to the point".

[Cormier6083]

I got the Black MacBook, wanted the MacBook Pro but I am saving money for the PS3 :)

The Blackbook is wonderful

Once you go Mac....

[Quillz]

Once you go Mac....

...You join a cult of elitist computer users?

[andrew_f]

Nope... you just leave the cult who believes there is a cult ;)

[Cormier6083]

...You join a cult of elitist computer users?

... You find out that someone ruined you joke.

Once you go Mac, you never go back.

[Quillz]

... You find out that someone ruined you joke.

Once you go Mac, you never go back.

Once you go PC, you never go back, either.