im thinking of selling my air for one, so im curious to hear first impressions. reviews seem really mixed from what ive seen. do you like it? anything you don't like? would you recommend it for a simple computer for simple/basic tasks?
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White unibody macbook--your first impressions?
- Thread starter puma1552
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Don't know how much this matters to you but I think that they look cheap. The plastic is really shiny and it looks like it will scratch easily. The black plastic MacBook that I used to own looked better not because of the colour but because the finish on it wasn't shiny. Also the screen on the one I was looking at wasn't anywhere near as bright as the MBP's/airs
I've looked at them a few times, and the only thing that really bothers me aside from losing my backlit keyboard is that god-awful rubber bottom; that is so inherently un-apple i can't see any reason they did that--except so they wouldn't have to have feet making the laptop 1.13 inches tall instead of 1.08 inches tall :|
I like mine. So far no scratches and it has a fantastic screen. Not cheap in my opinion. I also have a MacBook Pro so I can't say as to using it as an only machine but I can do on the MacBook everything do on my Pro. Good luck.
I should also say I have a 15" uMBP as my main machine, so it will be a secondary work machine.
I think I may get it. Sure, it doesn't have FireWire, but my eMac does, so I suppose if I needed to edit MiniDV video I could capture it on the eMac onto an external hard drive, then plug the hard drive into the new MacBook. As clumsy as it may be, it could work.
And it has a larger hard drive than the low-end 13-inch MacBook Pro does, too. Plus, this way I can actually own a Mac that uses Snow Leopard (my eMac has a G4 processor, and thus uses 10.5.8 Leopard as a result).
And it has a larger hard drive than the low-end 13-inch MacBook Pro does, too. Plus, this way I can actually own a Mac that uses Snow Leopard (my eMac has a G4 processor, and thus uses 10.5.8 Leopard as a result).
I bought the unibody macbook as my first mac.
I do not need firewire and all my cameras are compact flash so the sd slot was a non issue. The 2.26 processor is great for what I do. The 250g HD is more than enough for me. The 2g memory is okay, but will probably upgrade soon.
The build quality is very good. I moved from a 17" Hp to the Macbook and once I installed Microsoft Office on the Macbook all is well.
The display is very bright. I cannot run it at full brightness, it hurts my eyes.
No scratches or blemishes so far.
The only issue is with Microsoft Office and not the Macbook.
I do not need firewire and all my cameras are compact flash so the sd slot was a non issue. The 2.26 processor is great for what I do. The 250g HD is more than enough for me. The 2g memory is okay, but will probably upgrade soon.
The build quality is very good. I moved from a 17" Hp to the Macbook and once I installed Microsoft Office on the Macbook all is well.
The display is very bright. I cannot run it at full brightness, it hurts my eyes.
No scratches or blemishes so far.
The only issue is with Microsoft Office and not the Macbook.
From using them at the store, they seem great. The design is one of the most aesthetically pleasing Apple has come up with in quite some time, IMO. Go for it!
actually, it is quite apple-like if you go back far enough - it is very much like the old clamshell ibooks (my personal favorite apple laptop design), in-fact, the curved edges are also quite like the G3 clamshells, perhaps that is why I quite like the new design!
I have just ordered one and tbh am a little nervous as I had 5 dud macbooks in a row over the summer. ended up going back to my aging mbp, although that went bust yesterday so I thought I'd try my luck on the new design macbooks.
Jeez, I was just at 2 Best Buys and the Apple Store where I live & the looks of the new Macbook were cool except when I flipped each Macbook over ALL of the rubber bottoms were filthy. Maybe I'm just being too harsh as I will be looking for some deals on one of them on Black Friday.
yeah they become very unsightly very quick from what ive noticed as well
i cant make up my mind arghhhh
at work we dont have wireless, so my air is hooked up via usb adapter which is fine, except for when i need to use my usb drive which is daily. i could bring a hub, but im a pretty lazy guy. freed up usb ports would be nice
I put an invisible skin on the bottom panel of mine although it really didn't get dirty on me. That has worked very well.
I think that is true but the glossy bottom macbooks sat on feet that were black I believe so the dirt did not show. This white macbook umb sits on the white panel itself so it would show more dirt. Mine did not have much of a problem with that but I put an Invisible Shield on the bottom so no problem now.
I think the white Apple products are just like anything else in this world that's white...it's going to get dirty. That's just the way it is. The general rule of thumb when choosing colors (for anything) is that medium colors show dirt the least. That would probably make Apple's aluminum products the perfect color for not showing dirt. Just saying...
Have had my white Macbook for 10 days now, and I had a 12" Powerbook before. All in all, I'm quite pleased with it.
The glossy plastic is extremely shiny and no, it doesn't look cheap. On the contrary, it makes the aluminum 13" Macbook Pro look like a PC in comparison (just my opinion). Yes it scratches very easily but I'm not really interested in that. The rubber bottom is great because you can put it down everywhere without worrying. The display is amazing and I use it at 50% brightness. Most of all, I love the trackpad, it's just sensual and the Chinese Handwriting feature works great (I'm a translator).
As for performance, it is no slower than my 2.8GHz iMac. I installed 4GB of RAM just to use Fusion more smoothly. I'm really impressed by the speed of this little thing.
What I don't like: the keyboard is pretty noisy, much more than the flat aluminum keyboard. The speakers don't sound very good, the sound is quite metallic. Even if it is as heavy as the Powerbook, it feels heavier, I don't know why. The 12" was a great size - but of course this display is 100 times better.
I still don't know what to say about battery life; I didn't expect the 7 hours that Apple mentioned, but I haven't been able to squeeze more than 4.5 hours from my Macbook yet. I'll calibrate the battery and do more tests.
I'm VAT registered so I paid it just 750 euros and it was definitely a bargain. Really good quality for such a price. Would buy it again anytime.
The glossy plastic is extremely shiny and no, it doesn't look cheap. On the contrary, it makes the aluminum 13" Macbook Pro look like a PC in comparison (just my opinion). Yes it scratches very easily but I'm not really interested in that. The rubber bottom is great because you can put it down everywhere without worrying. The display is amazing and I use it at 50% brightness. Most of all, I love the trackpad, it's just sensual and the Chinese Handwriting feature works great (I'm a translator).
As for performance, it is no slower than my 2.8GHz iMac. I installed 4GB of RAM just to use Fusion more smoothly. I'm really impressed by the speed of this little thing.
What I don't like: the keyboard is pretty noisy, much more than the flat aluminum keyboard. The speakers don't sound very good, the sound is quite metallic. Even if it is as heavy as the Powerbook, it feels heavier, I don't know why. The 12" was a great size - but of course this display is 100 times better.
I still don't know what to say about battery life; I didn't expect the 7 hours that Apple mentioned, but I haven't been able to squeeze more than 4.5 hours from my Macbook yet. I'll calibrate the battery and do more tests.
I'm VAT registered so I paid it just 750 euros and it was definitely a bargain. Really good quality for such a price. Would buy it again anytime.
Ok so I just got my new macbook unibody and it is fabulous:screen colours seem ok (slight yellow hue but perfectly manageable), great design, really lovely.
Except one thing. I have only been using it for around 20 minutes and I am getting some eye-strain that I don't get when using my 23" ACD or older mbp. I remember reading a while ago that LED backlights have been blamed for this and wonder whether this might be a problem.
When I navigate to a particular website I am getting very obvious flicker on my screen that is not present on my ACD.
http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~lucas/background.html
Please could anyone with a current unibody macbook or another mac with an LED backlit screen please just navigate to this site and report back to say if they have any flickering
let me know:
a) your computer model
b) whether you can see flickering on the screen
c) have you noticed any eye-strain while using the computer?
Please get back to me, this laptop is otherwise perfect and it would be a shame to see it go
Except one thing. I have only been using it for around 20 minutes and I am getting some eye-strain that I don't get when using my 23" ACD or older mbp. I remember reading a while ago that LED backlights have been blamed for this and wonder whether this might be a problem.
When I navigate to a particular website I am getting very obvious flicker on my screen that is not present on my ACD.
http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~lucas/background.html
Please could anyone with a current unibody macbook or another mac with an LED backlit screen please just navigate to this site and report back to say if they have any flickering
let me know:
a) your computer model
b) whether you can see flickering on the screen
c) have you noticed any eye-strain while using the computer?
Please get back to me, this laptop is otherwise perfect and it would be a shame to see it go
I don't see any flicker on my MacBook pro. Will check my new MacBook when I get back home and post
thanks for getting back to me so fast. If it helps, my display model number is 9CD1
I believe mine is too. Will check it as soon as I arrive home. You get flickering on just this one web site? Any others?
I didn't notice any specific flickering anywhere else, but after a little while using the computer I started having some mild eye strain. I then watched some tv on my ACD and it went away, but after going back to the new macbook it came back. I then started to look a little closer at the screen and realised that (and this is very difficult to explain) it didn't look as 'solid' as my 23"ACD.
Now at this point I thought that this should probably be expected as the ACD cost nearly as much as the macbook, and so I did a couple of searches on the web.
It was then that I found some apple support sites that were talking about this problem a year ago re 1st gen unibody alu macbooks, and in amongst the links was the one to the website above.
on this site it is very obvious to both my gf and I that the screen is flickering a LOT, but weirdly does not seem to be uniform across the screen, so that two vertical defined bars of strong-flicker are present from above the F2-F3 keys, and above the F11-F12 keys, while a much weaker flicker is visible over the remainder of the screen.
As mentioned, I have not mentioned this elsewhere while using the computer, but have had eye-strain and can feel as if the screen is less static.