Bringing a discount price for comparison...really? If I buy a used, but still NIB MBP for 500 it beats the pants off that one. But lets stay relevant, I can get the higher end refurb 13" MBP for 1299 which means for the 400 I would get a better screen, faster processor, keyboard, slots and ports, more ram, and same size drive. Which makes the unibody MacBook not as good a deal. Personally I think the refurbs are as good as new considering the discount you get.
But after that deal goes away, and it will go away, lets discuss stock machines. I think what the MBP offers is def worth 200 over the MB.
But if you're going to discuss stock, it should be stock vs stock, obviously they're going to have refurbs of the 13 inch macbook too.
400$ means a heck of alot of upgrades as well. You can easily buy 4 gb of ram and put in an intel SSD. Plus 400$ on the scale on things is 50% another macbook. I own a lower end mbp, and I used to own the 2.4 ghz unibody macbook. The amount of money increase to me is not worth it because for the price difference I can sell my old macbook pro and buy a new one when the revisions come out like the old 2.4 I had.
I also don't deny the refurbs are great. I recommend them all the time. There are some people who prefer for various reasons to have a new machine. Which is mostly just personal taste. As an owner of an actual 13 inch mbp, I can say that for 300$ (the difference between the MBP I have with an educational discount) and the on sale unibody macbook, I would have thought long and hard. I don't use firewire at all, and I still haven't actually used the SD card slot. I do enjoy the LCD quality (even if it doesn't seem as bright to me) but the 300$ might sway me away since I almost always use my mac in a work environment (we have lights)
To each their own. Plus what is the difference in cache? You've mentioned it a few times. Every 13 inch macbook pro 2.26 or 2.53 comes with 3mb... same as the macbook. Hardware wise they are essentially the same except for keyboard, SD card, and firewire. Performance wise I expect them to be identical. Actually I take that back, I think the macbook will be faster as it's a later hardware revision. My 2.26mbp was faster in most benchmarks than the 2.4 aluminum unibody macbook.
If you want to talk 15 inch with discrete graphics, and faster cpus, I'll have to agree with you there. It's a significant improvement. Whereas the 13 inch is an incremental improvement at best.
Not to worry though, apple will update sooner or later and make more of a distinction between the 13 pro and regular macbook.
I don't understand why people want to bash the unibody macbook so much, It's a dang good laptop. It's not meant to be as high end as the pro line, but they updated it far more recently than the pro so the specs are almost the same. I guess this makes people feel not secure in their superiority in buying a pro. sigh. Honestly the unibody macbook seems like a good buy for the vast majority of consumers. The discounted price of 799 until nov 15 makes it an amazing deal for people looking to get into macs. I see no reason to bash it if it leads people to macs... unless you want to keep it a microcosm of people who wish to feel superior to others.
Apple doesn't build computers for you, if they don't fit your needs, than there are other options available to you.
