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Should the macbook be made out of aluminum instead of plastic?
- Thread starter Mr. Jobs
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
well then what would make it different then the low line mbp? keep it plastic, drop the price i say.
The 13" mbp is an aluminum macbook. The "pro" on the end just signifies the aluminum body and backlit keys.
Eric S.
macrumors 68040
Agreed, that's the main deficiency. Since mine has the backlit keyboard, FW is the only thing I really wish it had.
The current plastic one is not great either because it lacks Firewire. And an SD card slot. And it could use another USB port, seriously students would plug in multiple USB drives and perhaps a wired mosue and then realise their friend's netbook has more connectivity than even the MBP!
i agree with adding Firewire and another usb port. I think that since apple is at such a high price point, they ought to add those features, as well as aluminum to better compete with the envy 13 at a price 400 dollars lower, like what pc makers to do apple all the time
miles01110
macrumors Core
I don't understand all this harping on about Firewire (or the lack of it). What do people use it for anyway? Surely everything it does will be replicated (or replaced) by a new technlogy, potentially something in the update to MacBook Pro line this year? Won't USB 3.0 make it redundant anyway....
emotion
macrumors 68040
People use it for low latency audio and for better sustained data transfer speeds to external storage etc. (As well as video camera connectivity).
There's a reason Apple added it back in after the initial unibody Macbook gaff.
js81
macrumors 65816
Yeah, but how many AVERAGE consumers have these uses for it? Next to nil would be my guess... I'm not an average computer user by any means, and the only thing I've ever used my FW ports for is my DV camcorder - I don't even have a FW hard drive (I came from PCs, 🙂), so I'd imagine most non-geeks will never use the FW port.
But I still think it should be there... just playin' devil's advocate...
miles01110
macrumors Core
...no they didn't. The aluminum unibody Macbook didn't have firewire and the current plastic unibody macbook doesn't have firewire.
emotion
macrumors 68040
It didn't happen in that order. The unibody MB became the unibody MBP 13" (the machines are very similar).
The, then white plastic, Macbook (still with firewire) was later dropped for the white UB MB.
I think the Firewire connectivity in the MBP line is another part of what makes them "Pro". Professional videographers ought to have at least one important part of their workflow (may it be tape deck, camera, HDD, etc.) that uses Firewire (although I believe this is changing). The average consumer doesn't require any of this since USB has taken its place.
The aluminum casing is pretty expensive and a lot of people like the white design.
My GF insisted on getting the white Macbook even though the aluminum unibody was a much better deal at the time she bought.
What they should do is bring back a black plastic macbook. It's beautiful.
My GF insisted on getting the white Macbook even though the aluminum unibody was a much better deal at the time she bought.
What they should do is bring back a black plastic macbook. It's beautiful.
Skippy440
macrumors member
I like the look of the white Macbook.😀 It's one of the things (amongst many other great Mac features) that attracted me to switch from my old Dell PC.
As far as being scratch proof, no computer is scratch proof and for $50 you can get a Speck or Incase cover to protect it as I did.
The point about lack of FW, if you need it, then you can always get the MBP.
As far as being scratch proof, no computer is scratch proof and for $50 you can get a Speck or Incase cover to protect it as I did.
The point about lack of FW, if you need it, then you can always get the MBP.