Apple today updated its popular MacBook with a new, durable polycarbonate unibody design featuring a brilliant LED-backlit display, a glass Multi-Touch trackpad and Apple’s innovative built-in battery for up to seven hours of battery life. Inheriting technology and design features from the MacBook Pro line, the new MacBook is an ideal consumer notebook for students and new Mac users, and is available for US$999.
“The new MacBook includes many of the great features found on the innovative MacBook Pro, such as an LED-backlit display, glass Multi-Touch trackpad and built-in long-life battery,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, in the press release. “With the only lineup of notebooks all featuring unibody enclosures, LED-backlit displays and long-life battery technology, there’s never been a better time to switch to a Mac.”
The new MacBook features a unibody, polycarbonate enclosure that makes it lighter and more durable. The new design includes a unique non-skid bottom surface and at just 4.7 pounds, the sleek MacBook slides easily into a backpack or briefcase. MacBook comes standard with a bright, LED-backlit display with the same wide-angle viewing technology used in the MacBook Pro line. The new MacBook has a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and powerful NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics.
The new MacBook includes Apple’s innovative built-in notebook battery for up to seven hours of wireless productivity on a single charge, and up to 1,000 recharges. At nearly three times the lifespan of conventional notebook batteries, Apple’s built-in battery results in fewer depleted batteries and less waste. Depleted batteries can be replaced for $129, which includes installation and environmentally responsible disposal of your old battery.
The energy-efficient MacBook joins the industry’s greenest lineup of notebooks, with every Mac notebook achieving EPEAT Gold status and meeting Energy Star 5.0 requirements. The entire Mac notebook line now comes standard with energy efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. Mac notebooks contain no brominated flame retardants, use internal cables and components that are PVC-free and are constructed of recyclable materials.
Every Mac comes with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the world’s most advanced operating system, and iLife, Apple’s innovative suite of applications for managing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. iLife features iPhoto, to easily organize and manage photos; iMovie with powerful easy-to-use new features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand which introduces a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar.
The new MacBook is available immediately through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.
The new MacBook, for a suggested retail price of US$999, includes:
• 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display
• 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache
• 1066 MHz front-side bus
• 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics
• 250 GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor
• a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+ / -R DL/DVD+ / -RW/CD-RW)
• Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately)
• built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
• Gigabit Ethernet port
• built-in iSight video camera
• two USB 2.0 ports
• one audio line in/out port, supporting optical digital out and analog in/out
• glass Multi-Touch trackpad
• built-in, 60WHr lithium polymer battery
• 60 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter
Build-to-order options for the MacBook include the ability to upgrade to 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, or 320GB 5400 rpm, 500GB 5400 rpm hard drive, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.
More info here.
Epic. Fail.
These things didn’t sell before at $999, why would the new ones sell?
* Oh, wait. Hotcakes. Right. Happy holidays, Apple!
This is pretty hilarious. All these cheapass ‘professionals’ complaining. The decision had its reasons. The MacBook Pro is the one aimed at professionals. The MacBook is aimed at a userbase that doesn’t even know or give a damn what FireWire is. Suck it up and save up that $200 for an overall superior machine, or stick with your old FireWired Notebook.
That is my friendly opinion. If you feel that Apple owes you anything, and are going to feel insulted at every marketing decision you don’t like, then suit yourself, and give yourself the illusion of power by boycotting them.
Everyone is worried about the lack of firewire and seem to have missed that it appears to not have a sensor for the new (or old) apple remote which is a feature i would imagine every one used
Now if apple can come up with a iMac commercial and actually show how the new magic mouse works with it, as well as some snow leopard features, then they will have a REAL mac revival. And to do it right around the Windows 7 launch. This way people can actually see the difference between the Mac and Windows. Enough of the “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” ads. They are great, but if that’s all the advertising Apple can come up with about the Mac, then they are missing a golden opportunity to ACTUALLY DISPLAY WHAT THE MAC CAN DO! This is what they did with the iPhone ads…i.e nothing campy or comical but actual demonstration ads which is why the iPhone took off like it did. What think ye’ Mac community?
Migration Assistant works, as it has since Leopard, via Ethernet. The speed of the Ethernet link is 1GB (somewhat faster than the nominal 400Mbps standard FireWire, or 800Mbps 2nd gen FW).
Billy, I’m sure you think FireWire is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and the most widely used feature of the entire Apple lineup. What you think isn’t actually always how it is.
With consumers of the world rapidly moving away from tape-based camcorders, their need for FireWire is rapidly declining. You may have noticed that Apple also removed modem port from all of their Macs, as well as SCSI from their desktop devices. I have no doubt there are still people with high-speed SCSI scanners, as well as those who still use dial-up. These people must have bitterly complained when the new models dropped this feature. Those among this group who replaced their old Macs with newer ones bought PCI card interfaces (or USB modem dongles, for portables) and continued to work with their old devices.
Same will happen here. There will be negligible number of people who will buy a Windows computer to replace an old Mac with a FireWire. I can’t possibly imagine anyone having used a Mac and then switching to Windows because of the lack of FireWire on the cheapest Mac. But hey, I am not judging…
Makes sense now why Apple added FireWire 800 to the aluminum unibody 13-inch MacBook and called it “Pro.” And now there are two Mac models that do not have FireWire again, the MacBook and MacBook Air. And that’s probably OK. This new MacBook is aimed at the switcher, who won’t know what to do with a FireWire port.
Also, every Mac model is now using LED backlighting. The only current Apple product that does not use LED backlighting is the 30-inch Cinema Display.
Do $500 HP laptops really come with FireWire?
No, they don’t. Cheapest, crappiest HP that you could possibly get with a FireWire costs $600. Its performance approximately matches 2008 MacBook that cost $900 at the time, and could be now had for not much more than $600 on eBay.
You get EXACTLY what you pay for (except with Apple, you usually get way more).
Have fun with that $500 HP laptop.
Used to be a time when Apple hardware meant quality. Firewire knocks the snot out of USB. Apple no longer stands for high quality hardware.
To all you musicians out there, remember:
You are p r o f e s s i o n a l s, which is why you need FireWire in the first place.
You should be buying a MacBook PROfessional.
I find your lack of Firewire disturbing.
“Billy! Billy don’t you lose my number cos you’re not anywhere that I can find you…..
Don’t give up
Oh Billy, you better, you better, you better run for your life”
Apple drops firewire and internet people cry like babies. Where’s Darth to choke these Bastards.
What? no floppy disk drive?! EPIC FAIL!!
I’m sure that’s what the people like Billy where saying when Apple came out with a laptop that didn’t have a floppy disk, and yet now its clear that we don’t need one, do we?
I’m guessing Billy and those sound engineers that need firewire and that were waiting for the next macbook to come out to buy a computer will end up buying a PC, or they’ll bite the bullet and spend the 300 more for the MacBookPro.
Once again, this is Apple looking to reduce cost by removing the least used parts (or what their marketing research tells them will BE the least used parts) and improving the parts that they believe matter (like battery life) to most of their market. I’m quite sure that my 16 year old sister in-law will not need firewire nor will any of her friends, nor will my mother, all of who make up a perfect example of the target market for this laptop.
Their strategies have obviously worked and I find that even when I myself gripe about a missing something in the hardware I bought, I usually find that either they add it eventually (SD card slots) or it stops being used (floppy disk drives).
@islandgirl migration assistant works via Ethernet as well probably faster than FireWire actually 1Gb/s rather than 400Mb/s
damn shared system / graphics memory again. i wish they’d forget that tech entirely.
the performance suck it provides out-weighs the benefits.
Even the lower end HP laptops have an eSATA port, Blu-Ray and HDMI out. OK so in place of Blu-Ray there is the iTunes store but give us at least one faster external data port and HDMI. There should be no need to use video adapter and extra audio cables for this purpose!
Apple also needs to add a Firewire 800 port! Why do they keep trying to kill Firewire on the low end laptops??? Does it cost that much to keep it on there? A lot of customers do compare specs to PCees even on the entry models!
Next year at this time, this model will be $699 or $799 for the black version. and at that price, Apple won’t be able to make enough of them.
Take it a step further, I say remove the DVD drive and add the SD slot in its stead, and drop the price down to $599 and you at the high end of netbook territory should save about half pound. as well as a laptop most schools can afford.
Why would anyone even want or need a firewire drive in this model? That’s what the pro models are for,
STFU about Firewire. If you REALLY need it, you’ll save an extra $200 and get the MBP 13 @ $1199.
For me, I LIKE Firewire. Firewire is extremely useful in ways that USB cannot compete.
Speed is steady rather than in bursts (making FW faster than USB).
Firewire allows for daisy chaining (I’ve never used that, but still cool).
Firewire allows for Target Disk Mode. USB cannot replicate this.
Firewire can be used IN PLACE OF ethernet for networking 2 Macs together. USB does nothing.
No, I’m not criticizing Apple for taking away FW from the MB. I’m saying that I’ll be paying a minimum of $1199 for my next laptop (and probably going with a 15 anyway).
The great thing about Apple Store is the refurb section. As early as two months after an introduction of a model, refurbs begin appearing there, and they are always discounted by at least 15%. These are identical to the “new” ones, and the ONLY difference is a brown box in which they arrive. Everything else is the same.
My last six Macs (iMacs, MBs and MBPs) were all refurbs. Needless to say, they were never defective, which can’t be said for some previous Macs I bought “new”.
@Predrag – My wife’s MB is a refurb and, knock on wood, has been running well.
Apple is about to do to Firewire what it did to the floppy… knife the baby and replace with something superior. Transitionary periods are always scary to people with no vision.
So, when was it that Apple began to allow booting a Mac from a USB disk? I have an external drive I use for backups (yeah, I know, it’s old school, but it still works great), and can also boot my Mac from the backup on the Firewire drive for whatever reason I want. You can do this now from a USB disk on the new Macbook?
Yes. It boots from any USB storage (including flash drives).
Yeah, I gotta say, if you have the need for firewire support, you probably ought to get a pro. That said, they do need to update the low end macbook pro now to justify it costing more than this unit. I love my macbook pro.
@Rhino
“Apple drops firewire and internet people cry like babies. Where’s Darth to choke these Bastards.”
you rock.