Tech Break

Want a Mac? Want something that won’t break the bak? Got a deal for you…

http://www.apple.com/macbook/white

Basically you’re looking at an aluminum MacBook…without the aluminum…with FireWire.

Yes, FireWire. Apple seems to have listened to the plaintive cries of Mac tech-heads everywhere. For the people who don’t need the aluminum housing, the new white MacBook has pretty much all the features of the aluminum model, albeit at a price point $300 lower than the metal model.

So what don’t you get?

• DDR3 memory (667MHz DDR2 is still plenty fast, and it’s cheap if you want to upgrade)
• Gesture support\buttonless touchpad (just scrolling…smaller touchpad too, but it works okay)
• Mini DisplayPort (no 30-inch displays), just Mini-DVI
• Aluminum housing (the white MacBook is five pounds, the aluminum model is four and a half)
• 40GB of hard disk space (120GB vs. 160GB)
• A half-hour of battery life (4.5 vs. 5)

However you do get the new Intel platform (1066 MHz bus, GeForce 9400), 2GB of memory, and all the amenities of having a Mac portable. The price? $999, $949 if you’re buying educational.

The bottom line? It’s fast, it’s relatively cheap, it’s a Mac and it’s available wherever Apple computers are sold (including your local Mines bookstore).

I, for one, am buying.

UPDATE: A member of NotebookReview has posted their impressions of the new MacBook. A few things of note: build quality on the white MacBook is lower than that of the aluminum model, and graphics take a 15% hit due to the use of slower memory in the plastic model. Then again, the white MacBook still outperforms Intel’s best integrated chip, the GMA X4500MHD, by about 80%.