Loading ... 
Apple is keen to describe its sleek new MacBook as its entry level laptop. And on a purely objective level, it is. The sole white, plastic notebook coming straight outta Cupertino isn’t nearly as powerful as the aluminium MacBook Pro line up, or the slimline style of the MacBook Air. Yet the new Apple MacBook is no dummy, packing in the kind of features you’d have expected from a Pro machine just a year ago. So is it good value? Read our full Apple MacBook review now to find out.
The new Apple MacBook still rocks the same polycarbonate style as its predecessor, but it’s there that the similarities end. The unibody frame takes its cue from the metal MacBook Pro and is a vast improvement over the somewhat flimsy design of the old version. No longer will the corners come away from the main body, simply because it’s all one piece of plastic.
It all means the new Apple MacBook is a far sturdier affair than the older model. It also looks much sharper too, with the greyish plastic around the keys on the ageing edition picking up dirt quicker than a tabloid hack in a celled-infested nightclub.
Read our MacBook Pro 13-inch review now
However, it does mean that the battery is built in, with a replacement costing an extra £99 when your rock up at an Apple store. Apple says it gives things a boost, although we struggled to find much of a difference between this and our old model. The new Apple MacBook lasted around four hours handling Wi–Fi, Mail, Photoshop Elements and Spotify. We compared that to our year-old MacBook, which died after three hours while running the same applications. It’s certainly well short of the epic seven hours advertised. That is, however, using battery saving measures, something which day-to-day you’re not likely to do. We used our machine as we would during the working week.
Be under no illusion though, the new Apple MacBook is a very powerful machine. It crams in NVIDIA graphics, notably better than the older plastic models. Coupled with the LED backlit screen, which is absolutely gorgeous, you’re looking at a cracking platform for watching, and editing, movies. We gave our ageing copy of Predator a whirl, and it looked sharp, crisp and showed Arnie’s guns in glorious detail.
The multitouch glass trackpad will be familiar to MacBook Pro, iPod touch and iPhone owners. The new Apple MacBook benefits from its inclusion and it’s so much better having it on board than the older effort.
There is one major gripe however: price. £799 is hardly “entry level”, but it does need to be placed in context. Just before the first metal MacBook was unleashed in September 2008, a white MacBook cost £699. It had 1GB of RAM and 120GB HDD. The new Apple MacBook packs the aforementioned NVIDIA graphics, 2GB of RAM and 250GB HDD. That’s a marked improvement and something which helps recommend it to Mac newbies. Yes, it’s expensive, but Apple was ever thus. If you’ve been holding out on making the move to Apple, it’s time to break out your credit card. The new MacBook is simply superb.
[...] Mini DisplayPort connector on your Apple Macbook (or Macbook Pro for that matter) needn’t frustrate you so much now with VESA adopting it as [...]