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Jan 21, 09 - 10:05 am Comment from: Wandering joe

And it has firewire!!

This is the recession/firewire insurance policy. Glad Apple kept it around.
Go Apple!

Yay, firewire is back

This is now a better deal than the aluminum versions as it still has firewire! Apple really needs to bring firewire back in there aluminum versions and then I think the sales would do even better.

This model runs my whole law office: two monitors, and through the 7 port USB hub: high speed scanner, laser printer, dot matrix printer, three outboard drives, the 7th slot charges my cell phone. Plus its the web server for Filemaker for the secretary. This is the best $1,000 (plus a memory upgrade) I ever spent. The other people in the building are always amazed at seeing this little computer chew through piles of work.

Hot damn! This is great news. This computer will KILL MacMini sales unless they upgrade that one too.

Jan 21, 09 - 10:38 am Comment from: Yours Smugly

Excellent. What John said.

Jan 21, 09 - 10:47 am Comment from: goobi

The only reason they didn't kill firewire was it would then have an empty port. They're obviously not going to change the case design just so they can remove it from there.

Bring on same upgrade for the Mini. Been holding off buying one of these for ages

And no mini display port. Makes me think this is a holdover for something else that isn't ready yet.

Great news!! I wonder if sales of MacBooks to existing Apple users have disappointed?

My guess is that it was cheaper and easier to deal with one chip for the two lines of MacBooks rather than two. This is Apple's way.

The only odd thing in this is "• Mini-DVI output" I would have thought if they were changing the GPU they would have gone with Display Port.

Jan 21, 09 - 11:10 am Comment from: Predrag

This computer hasn't been redesigned. The only minimal change was the display adapter. They squeezed the thing into the same design. Therefore, same mini DVI, same FireWire, same USB ports, same EVERYTHING. It is an ancient design which has been redesigned in October (remember unibody models, anyone?). Since they decided to continue to sell the years-old design, in order to make it a bit more appealing (or up-to-date), they just swapped the video card. Nothing else.

And make no mistake, Goobi is absolutely right; the only reason FireWire is still there is because they didn't want to have to re-design the case in order to cover the hole where the port used to be. Unlike Lenovo, Dell, Gateway (etc, etc, etc), who just glue a plastic cover directly onto the disabled port, Apple wouldn't get caught dead doing this. And a complete redesign of the case (and the production line) just to elliminate a port / hole was obviously out of the question. So, there's the FireWire. For all those who need it, it's there.

And, by the way, did nobody notice that until yesterday, the $999 white MB only had a Combo CDRW drive!!?? In other words, it wasn't just the video adapter; it was the optical drive too that was updated! This is also a major thing for those who so desperately wanted FW. You can now burn DVDs on the little thing!

No FIREWIRE, apple just corrected the mistake.........



Kidding....

Great. It now matches my almost 2-year-old MacBook (except with better graphics, FSB).

"Ancient" design? Methinks your historical perspective runs a wee bit short. Stuff it full of RAM, lots of outboard storage and there's very little this computer won't do as well as any other laptop, or desktop for that matter, see my note above.

At the time of writing, only available on USA and not UK store.

Jan 21, 09 - 11:30 am Comment from: TowerTone

"I didn't see that coming"
-Queeny Love

Jan 21, 09 - 11:50 am Comment from: Predrag

AA Attendee:

"Ancient" design was referring to the case, which made its debut with the Intel chips, over 3 years ago.

So, pay $300 extra and you get a backlit keyboard, 40GB, faster RAM, nice aluminum inclosure, better battery? no FW, and the display port trade off.

I don't know..worth it?

Jan 21, 09 - 12:18 pm Comment from: Wandering joe

@Predrag, are you still deciding to be a cross dresser or what's up with the name?
Just for fun..

Joe

Jan 21, 09 - 12:19 pm Comment from: Wandering joe

Not on the Danish store either. This is a good little upgrade!

Time to get Firewire back into the aluminum!!!!!

Jan 21, 09 - 12:57 pm Comment from: Crabs

Predrag-

Not the exact same design, but the iBooks were pretty similar to the original MacBooks too. My sister has an iBook, my mom has a MacBook, put them next to each other, the only way to tell the difference is if you open them up and read the words under the screen. They might have different ports, as well, I don't know, I don't use their computers so I've never bothered myself with what ports their computers had.

Woah. I wish I was in the market for a new MacBook. There's no way I'd pay a dime more for that overpriced aluminum one when this baby has FireWire. But at least I know it's there if I need it.

Jan 21, 09 - 01:22 pm Comment from: Chas

Actually, the processor is slower - the late 2008 MacBook had a 2.1GHz Penryn. Nice upgrade, though

=:~)

Jan 21, 09 - 01:24 pm Comment from: Crabs

So basically, (actually, exactly) Apple is now charging $300 for the aluminum enclosure and a 40GB bigger hard drive.

And...yeah, I haven't ever admitted it before, but...I think the new MacBooks are kind of ugly. And especially the Pros. I FAR prefer my all silver Pro to that black keyboard and trim. They look way too much like crappy PC notebooks, and don't have that special individuality that the old ones do.

Am I gonna get flamed now? Well, oh well. Flame me, I said it, I meant it. UGLY MACBOOKS!

Jan 21, 09 - 01:24 pm Comment from: MacintoshSoftwareList.com

This is really strange. I guess they realized they had to have a cheaper laptop in the line.

Jan 21, 09 - 01:25 pm Comment from: Crabs

Chas-

No it doesn't. Go look up the specs. I did the side by side comparison because I was curious if Apple ACTUALLY is charging you $300 for metal and 40 gigs. They are.

YOU CAN STILL USE DDR3 RAM IF YOU WANT: Since the arcitecture is still the 9400M, it supports 1066mhz ddr 3 ram. So you would have to buy the ram on your own even if apple doesn't put it on their website. Now, the only question i have is that the ram speed might be 800 mhz, not 667 mhz, because i don't think the 9400m can support 667 ddr2. but i could be wrong. But for sure, you can put 1066mhz ddr3 ram into the new white macbook.

Jan 21, 09 - 01:42 pm Comment from: Crabs

Oh, and the LED backlit screen.

Jan 21, 09 - 02:14 pm Comment from: HowieB

This just makes my point that Apples products are a little pricy and
they need to do something to keep the momentum going. . One thing that is troubling is that Apple has Microsoft backed into a corner. But their market share has barely increased to double digits. This is most likely due to thehuge cost of getting into Apple products.
Manypeople see a $1000 entry level Apple laptop and find it hard to buy when HP is selling machines for $600-$700 for very respectable
machines. Their portable Desktop replacements are even MORE out of line.
$3800 for a 17" vs $1500. How about $2200?

I and many people DONT like MIcrosoft. But what this is doing is giving the opportunity for other operating systems to move right in (Linux? Ubantu?)
Even Microsoft itself is having a chance to redeem itself.
After all $1300 extra IS a lot to let go of.

Apple COULD be sitting pretty with 15-20% market share. How many
more things could have gone right for them? Pricing is holding them
back. They DON'T have to meet competitor's price, BUT they are WAYout of line, and falling further and further behind. Should they
wait for another operating system to gain popularity for Apple to lose it's momentum.?
It doesn't
have to be better than Apple's - just better than Vista.

Screw firewire. I'd rather see a matte screen option for all apple laptops.

Jan 21, 09 - 02:45 pm Comment from: TowerTone

"Screw firewire"
Sorry, but I need something a little bigger, like an ethernet port....

Firewire has a headache. And she's out of lube...

Sorry, Predrag, I got a new white MacBook last month and it has a SuperDrive in it. Nice upgrade - if only I could have waited a month. Oh, well. I maxed out the RAM and put a 500GB Seagate drive in it and it makes a nice little mobile DJ machine.

Jan 21, 09 - 03:16 pm Comment from: ken1w

That's awesome. Steve Jobs did say they were going to keep the "old-school" design around for a quite a while longer. Now that's a pretty fine laptop for $999.

What's with the RAM? Apple upgraded the FSB to 1066 MHz, but kept the RAM at 667 MHz! I guess it really doesn't matter with a 5400 RPM hard drive...