Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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84 of 90 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Impressive Laptop - Better than IBook, November 20, 2006
I bought it almost two weeks ago to replace my 12-inch Ibook and I was glad that I made a right decision.
There are several significant differences between an Ibook and a Macbook:
1. a Macbook is Intel-Based. When I download 800 pictures into IPhoto, my new laptop complete it in less than 1 and half minutes while Ibook may take 5 minutes! That is a big difference.
2. The screen is glossy and I like it a lot. It looks smooth when I watch a movie.
3. My laptop that uses Parallel Desktop to allow me to use PC is faster than those with PowerPC uses Virtual PC.
4. Superdrive is FAST, too.
5. Battery Life is surprisingly the same as Ibook even if its CPU is upgraded!
On the other hand,
1. 1 GB RAM, in my case, is not enough. Parallel Desktop takes a lot of MB but for those who use basic applicaitons, 1 GB is perfect.
2. Heat is still the issue.
Overall, I was happy to own it and worth $1,300!
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46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best notebooks for the price, period, December 30, 2006
I originally purchased my MacBook to replace a Fujitsu Windows-based notebook that was no longer working. The strongest aspect of it to me pre-purchase was that I could install and run Windows XP on it, natively, via the included Boot Camp utility. Just looking at the specifications, you would be hard-pressed to find a similarly equipped Windows-based notebook for the price. Most of them will skimp somewhere -- usually the RAM, and often the battery life.
The first thing I would say is that Boot Camp does indeed run Windows XP perfectly. Running Boot Camp couldn't be much easier. When you run the program, it asks you how much of your drive you want to allocate to the Windows operating system. Then you burn a CD with the drivers necessary for Windows to properly recognize all the integrated peripherals of your MacBook, such as the video card, the Bluetooth port, the iSight camera, etc. Install Windows and insert the driver CD and you've got a Windows laptop, just as if you had purchased a Dell or other PC. So, I have to say that it met and perhaps even exceeded my expectations for how smoothly it would handle Windows.
The Core 2 Duo at 2GHz is screaming fast. The included 1GB of RAM is more than enough for both OS X and Windows XP. The hard drive capacity is more than adequate, and easilly upgraded.
The next thing I would say is that this little beauty is utterly making me lose interest in running Windows! It began with upacking it from the case. One of the most elegant and tidy packaging designs I've seen. Then there's the physical feel of it... the perfect chicklet contours when it's closed; the clean lines when it's open; the gorgeous screen. I love the little touches like the magnetic latch which keeps the lid closed and the MagSafe power connector. Would you believe that MagSafe thing already has prevented disaster a couple times? Attention to detail really shows in this product. For example, the teal (not green) colored LEDs to indicate caps lock, num lock, and iSight activity. The way the integrated microphone is sized and spaced to match the iSight indicator light. The elegant slot-loading style of DVD drive. Tucking the speakers into the back and sharing the vents with ventilation. The push-button charge indicator on the battery itself. The classy power indicator on the front. The way the system knows when you've plugged headphones in and maintains a separate volume level for them, so your ears don't get blown out. And many other niceties.
What does this have to do with Windows? Well, no other notebook I know of is built like this... but more importantly, the attention to detail and craftmanship applies to the operating system as well. I had not owned a Mac in over 10 years... and a lot of things have changed for the better. I'm really impressed with how smoothly the OS X operating system works. The iLife and iWork suites of applications really blow me away in terms of their ease of use and the quality of the results. I'm astonished how nicely integrated everything is. Not really used to that on Windows.
I've used Vista for some time now, and believe me there will be pain, time, and money spent for most current Windows users to upgrade. Most anything that is a "utility" will have to be tossed. XP stuff in that category just doesn't work well on Vista if at all. Some major productivity programs don't work on Vista, either. The user interface is different. And so on. The point is... if you're going to change from Windows XP to a new operating system, you should probably give Mac OS X fair consideration. And this notebook is a great, afforable way to do it. If you don't like Mac? Well, you can just give 95% of your disk over to Windows and use it as the world's best Windows laptop. (But you won't!)
Ok, what flaws does this product have? I do have a few nits:
- The angle of the screen is limited to a maximum of about 135 degrees. (I don't have a protractor handy). I'm a tall guy so if it sits in my lap, it can't quite open as wide as I would like it to be.
- The screen has great left-to-ride visibility but not-so-good vertical visibility. The contrast and colors change a lot depending on the angle you're viewing it at. This makes the angle issue above more important.
- The iSight camera is fixed in the lid. I find that at the optimum viewing angle for me, it's pointing at the top of my head, instead of centered on my face. A little adjustment screw or an electronic method of adjusting the angle would have been super.
- The hard disk is so quiet, it's hard to know when it's running, and there is no hard disk activity light. There's no pragmatic issue I can think of for this, I guess I'm just used to an HD activity light. I wish they had made the power light pulse quickly or something.
- Only a one-button mouse integrated on the machine. I bought a Mighty Mouse to compensate fo this. There is a way to right-click with the trackpad, but it's a little tricky.
- No way to hibernate in Mac OS X. (However, Windows Hibernates very well.) Sleep mode still consumes some power and I prefer to hibernate.
- You get a "line in" port, not a microphone jack. So, you can't use regular headsets; you'll need to have some kind of amplified signal going in to that connector. But the built-in microphone is very high quality.
That's pretty much it. All these negatives together maybe deduct .4 from the total. But I can't award 4.6 stars, so the MacBook Core 2 Duo gets 5 stars.
Buy this notebook!
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth switching from Windows!!, December 9, 2006
I made the switch from Windows to Apple in 2000 and have been glad I did ever since. I upgraded to OS X a year ago and was impressed with it from the start.
This new MacBook is a terrific computer and is impressing me all over again. The software is all very easy to use (especially iTunes and all the iLife apps), the computer itself is very fast, and OS X itself is very well though out and stable. The screen is also very crisp and clear. All MacBooks come with wireless capabilities built in, and the camera is really pretty good and fun to use with iChat.
One thing I recommend is downloading Firefox as your internet browser. I like it better than Apple's Safari and WAAAY better than Internet Explorer. (Firefox is available for Windows, too.) CNET gives Firefox a great review, too.
I LOVE how if you have a hundred windows up and can't see them, just move the pointer to a corner of the screen and they ALL shrink and you can just pick the one you want, and they zoom back to full size with the right one on top! It's also pretty cool that you can now run any media (videos, dvds, music, etc) full screen and it comes with a cool little remote control!
The only thing I could take a point off for is that the new machines will no longer run OS 9 applications like the previous models do. If you've never had the older programs, though, you wouldn't miss anything. Even two of my die-hard "Windows" friends have also either switched to Apple or are considering it. This is definitely a great computer and is worth switching from PC to Mac. If you need help with that, go to Apple's website, click the "OS X" tab at the top, then "Switch" under that tab and it will tell you how to transfer files, etc.
I got the mid-level MacBook with the 2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo processor (it's very fast!), 1 GB RAM, and 80 GB storage. If you have an ENORMOUSLY huge music collection or do a LOT of video editing or downloading, you might consider getting more storage. For BIG gamers, you might consider a MacBook Pro for the graphics card, but my games (like Age of Empires III) run just fine on my regular MacBook. For my purposes, I could literally not ask for a better computer. Highly recommended!
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