Thoughts on the New Macbooks

On Tuesday Apple debuted several updates across their laptop line. In my opinion, they delivered big time.

I have personally been awaiting this update for a while. My iBook G4 is nearly four years old, and it is beginning to show signs of its age when doing processor-heavy tasks. The new Macbook is a behemoth of an upgrade. Let me discuss exactly why.

Unibody Construction

The new construction process for Macbooks and Macbook Pros involves cutting the body of the laptop out of a solid block of aluminum. There is a very interesting video about the process on Apple’s website.

But what does this new process mean for consumers? The reduction of the number of parts means a much more solid piece of hardware. Laptop computers are typically known for being fragile, but with this new aluminum body the Macbooks have a strong body. You can read more about the Macbook’s design here.

The other notable benefit of aluminum is weight. The new Macbook shaved a half of a pound off from its previous iteration. This might not seem like much, but when you are dealing with portable computing a little weight decrease can make a big impact. The only downside of the aluminum body is that the metal limits the reach of the Wi-Fi antenna.

New Trackpad

The trackpad of the Macbook and Macbook Pros is now made completely of glass. Although that seems strange at first thought, reports indicate that the texture has not changed much. The benefit will come from the increased longevity of the device. It will be far less prone to wearing down over time.

The other big change is the removal of a mouse button, because now the entire trackpad is a button. It is not the ‘tap to click’ that is currently available on most notebook computers. Instead, think of the whole trackpad as being clickable. Apple also incorporated multi-touch gestures into the trackpad. This allows people who have become familiar with iPhone gestures to seamlessly transition those actions to their computer.

And Much More

The style has been updated to be along the same lines of the aluminum iMacs (ala my own). This is especially noticeable with the black bezel on both machines. I am a big fan of the style personally.

There are many more features that put the Macbook at the top of the portable computing world in my opinion. The new LED monitors (increased brightness and no warm-up time), the new Nvidia graphics chipset (better gaming and GPU capabilites), and the improved RAM and CPU speeds all add up to a highly improved product. The backlit keyboard is pretty sweet, but only available in the higher end Macbook and the Macbook Pro/Air. The only glaring omission is the lack of Firewire, but that is for another post.

Apple also debuted a new cinema display which is just beautiful. It has the ability to hook up to your laptop with a charger so that you can leave the cord in your bag for portable use. It also interfaces with the laptop to provide a USB hub, and uses the new DisplayPort hook up to actually display your Macbook screen. It is definitely pricey at $899, but for those unique features it could be an option…once I have a full-time income.

I focused this post on the Macbook because that is my most probable purchase, but all the same upgrades were provided to the Macbook Pro. It of course features a larger screen, and a more powerful graphics card and CPU. The Macbook Air was given a modest speed bump as well.

Of course now the question becomes how I obtain the necessary funds for this premier device. I hope to overcome this rather large (monetarily speaking) issue and own a new Macbook in the near future.

What do you think of the new Macbooks/Pros?

Edit: You can see some more real-world photos of the Macbook on Engadget.

Image courtesy Apple’s Website