These babies are more than a quarter inch thinner than the old iBook. That's Powerbook thin! And they sport bright and glossy 1280 x 800 pixel screen real estate. If you can deal with glossy, which has pros and cons, you are good to go. You'll save a lot of bucks and a pound [correction: couple ounces] by choosing a MacBook over the 15” MacBook Pro.
The technology on the new MacBooks is state of the art. Better in some ways than the MacBook Pro which was not completely redesigned like the MacBook has been.
This is the two-edged sword some of us know well. You buys your shiny new technology and you gets state of the art tech plus your arrows in the back. The alternatives would be to (1) wait a few months for any unforeseen problems to be worked out and then buy the MacBook or (2) buy the old technology -- an iBook or Powerbook 12 at reduced prices.
There are three new models. The top-end model comes in black for an extra $150. Ouch. I want black but, come on, that's price gouging!
The bottom line model is $1099, a $100 more than before. Too bad to lose the sub-$1000 price point, but intel dual core CPUs cost a lot more than the old G4 CPUs. They are a lot faster when running natively which makes them about the same as the old PowerBooks overall (unless you only need universal applications like iLife). Eventually, when all is universal, you'll be really happy, but you might not be euphoric on day one, depending on your application mix. The Core Duo makes for a fast PC in the same box if you ever need to run a PC program or game.
So, where are we now? $100 more in debt. Here's what I would do. Buy the White mid-level MacBook as it comes standard and pay an extra $50 to get the 80 gig hard drive instead of the 60 gig just because that's a good deal for an extra 20 gigs of drive space. If you know you need more than 80 gigs, then don't pay the extra $50. Just buy a compatible bigger, faster drive (7200 rpm instead of 5400 rpm) and install it yourself or with the help of a friend comfortable with light-duty hardware tinkering. Hard drive installation is now much easier I hear. All those complaints of old-time Powerbook users finally gets a response.
My plan gets you out the door with a 80 gig, 2.0 ghz intel core duo MacBook for $1349. Of course, you'll need to add some more memory. I see OWC selling it for under $150 per gig. Dump the 256 mb sticks of RAM that come standard and start over with 1 gig sticks. Apple will tell you that other folks' RAM is sub par, but mostly it is guaranteed to work, so it pays to take the riskier third party memory route to save yourself more than $200. You'll be happy you have 2 gigs of RAM when you need to run any non-Universal applications like most of us will. Beginners, non-demanding or patient types can skate by buying the extra 512+512 stick combo direct form Apple for an extra $100. That is a good buy if it is all you need.
I like the future and if I had money burning a whole in my pocket, I would perhaps impulsively buy a MacBook. I'm a little scared to drop by the Apple store tonight because I know the kind of envy I'm gonna have afterwards. The price is good and, other than losing a card slot and an aluminum wrapper, you have a compact and lighter Intel-based MacBook Pro. Don't hold me to this, there could be a couple more little goodies you lose but this looks pretty darned nice to me.
Even with all the fuss over switching to Intel and Rosetta emulations, these MacBooks should fly off the shelves. The duress of the transition forces Apple to do their best and price accordingly. And, I still really want a black one. I bet a lot of fashion-conscious Powerbook users will bite since they are used to higher than iBook prices. Especially if they are looking to find a mate for their black iPods.