origin: http://www.macintouch.com/reviews/alumabook/
by Robert Mohns
(October 21, 2008)
Introduction
The radically redesigned aluminum MacBook is the first major retooling of Apple's consumer-oriented laptops since the Intel-based MacBook replaced the PowerPC-based iBook in May 2006. A new "unibody" chassis made from a single piece of machined aluminum brings the look of the MacBook Pro line, while improving serviceability, and a striking black, glass display now unifies Apple's MacBook, iMac and iPhone designs. A new, glass trackpad extends gestural control.
Brand new video hardware from Nvidia replaces the old Intel graphics, and the mini-DVI port has been replaced with mini-DisplayPort, so the MacBook now can drive the massive 30" Apple Cinema Display.
But Apple has removed FireWire, leaving many users — especially IT professionals, musicians and video enthusiasts — stranded with unusable investments in important FireWire peripherals.
The new MacBook costs more than the old one — it retails for $1299 — but the old, white MacBook model, upgraded with a SuperDrive and complete with FireWire, is available for just $999. A $1599 aluminum MacBook model adds a faster CPU and a larger hard drive. Like all Macs, the aluminum MacBook includes the latest iLife suite (iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iDVD, iWeb, and iTunes).
Design/Features
The first thing you notice about the new MacBook is its sleek aluminum shape. The tight corners of the old MacBook are gone, replaced with the softly rounded edges of the MacBook Air. Like the Air, the subtle curve makes picking up the MacBook easier, and it rests quite comfortably in the lap for typing.
Lifting the lid reveals the contrasting black glass screen and black keycaps. Instead of the traditional plastic or metal bezel surrounding an LCD panel, a single glass face covers both, extending all the way to the edges of the lid. The effect is even more striking here than in the iMac which introduced the style.
The MacBook has the same love-it-or-hate-it chiclet-style keyboard as its predecessor. (The more expensive model adds backlit keys to sweeten the deal.)
The aluminum MacBook's redesigned trackpad is huge, and the button is gone: instead, the trackpad itself is the button.
The new MacBook is visually striking, bringing the design of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air to Apple's consumer price point.
And the beauty of that sleek chassis is much more than skin deep. Traditionally, laptops have combined internal framework and external body panels in an intricate assembly with dozens of screws and hundreds of components. The MacBook's main chassis isn't assembled from parts this way — instead, a single block of aluminum is machined into what Apple calls the "unibody" chassis, carved like a sculpture. The computer's circuit boards are mounted to the underside of this chassis, and a thin, light bottom plate closes it up.
Similar techniques are used in the MacBook Air, and in Apple's flat aluminum desktop keyboards, but not so extensively. Like the original white iMacs, which required new ways of injecting plastics into molds without visible seaming, Apple is pushing the boundaries of mass production with its latest laptops.
The new MacBook has the fit and finish of a luxury product. We can't even get a fingernail into the seams between its two aluminum panels, and the four visible screws have circular grooves machined into their heads so they catch the light dramatically. The chassis is completely rigid, without even a hint of flex, and it feels tremendously solid. The one-piece screen, too, resists torsion, and the hinge is as smooth as the MacBook Air's.
Too Much Gloss
Unfortunately, the MacBook's glossy LED-backlit display is too much of a good thing. Glossy screens are known for their bright colors and high contrast (if not color fidelity), but at the cost of distinct, sharp reflections. These are even more prominent on the new MacBook's display than on its direct predecessor's, and we found window reflections to be far more distracting when using the new MacBook than when using the MacBook Air, which is also glossy.
While we quickly tuned out reflections in the active display, the black bezel around the screen acts like a mirror, adding reflections to the visual clutter. It's ironic that a simpler, sleeker-looking display would actually contribute visual distraction.
The horizontal viewing angle is moderately wide by current standards, dimming faster off-angle than the MacBook Air does, but not as sharply as the old MacBook. There is a sweet spot from the center in which brightness is mostly even across the display, horizontally, but if you move from that spot, colors shift rapidly.
The vertical viewing angle remains extremely limited; brightness and color vary drastically with tiny angular changes. Also, like the earlier MacBook, the new display shows subtle color stippling, apparently an inherent limitation of the 6-bit color channels used by laptop LCDs.
Laptop displays have never been suitable for precise color work, but between the distracting edge reflections and vertical angular changes, the new MacBook is a step backwards in usability. Color and brightness are more consistent today than in the PowerBook G4 era, but the aluminum MacBook falls short of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro in image quality, while the white MacBook is less brilliant but more usable! If your work requires accurate, consistent color reproduction, you'll definitely want a high-quality external display, connected via one of Apple's extra-cost mini-DisplayPort adapters.
Trackpad
Unlike the display, the all-new glass trackpad is a straight improvement. Incorporating more "multitouch" technology from the iPhone platform, this trackpad adds support for four-finger gestures. And, customers who have been asking for a secondary click (or "right-click") button on the trackpad have been answered: you can configure the trackpad to interpret clicks in the bottom right or bottom left as a secondary click.
The button is no longer a separate control; like Mighty Mouse, the entire surface is the button. The huge trackpad is hinged at the top and depresses at the bottom with a precise, satisfying click. (No "origami" hacks required, as some early MacBooks needed.) The feel is superb. The surface is smoother than a traditional trackpad's, with a matte finish that provides an excellent mix of slip and stick. Apple's pride in the feel of their their new trackpad is well justified.
Like the multitouch track pads of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro before it, the new trackpad supports pinch, stretch and rotate gestures; three-finger navigation in Safari and Finder; two-finger scrolling and secondary click; and optional tap-lock. You can swipe all four fingers up or down to activate Expose (up to push all windows off the screen, or down to view all windows). Left and right four-finger swipes trigger the application switcher (normally accessed via Command-Tab key combo). This was a little confusing to use; it turns out you activate it with four-finger swipe, but then use the mouse pointer normally to select an application and switch to it. We could scroll among the application icons with two fingers, but not switch to one! This could use some fine tuning.
Enabling new features via
Trackpad preferences
click for larger image
Apple seems to have changed the acceleration curve of the trackpad from the long-time Mac standard. At first we thought it was matched to Windows, but it's not as jumpy as the Microsoft standard; it's somewhere in between. After a day we had mostly adjusted, and found the new curve provides more precision in small movements while requiring less motion to jump across the screen. But it takes some getting used to.
DisplayPort
Apple has adopted the new DisplayPort industry standard introduced by VESA in 2006 and finalized in 2007. DisplayPort, created to replace the DVI standard, is an advanced bus for high definition video, supporting audio streams and even a data channel. Unlike DVI and HDMI, it's designed both to connect external displays and for internal signaling inside laptops, making it very attractive from an engineer's viewpoint. DisplayPort also supports long cables without boosters — retaining 1080p resolution at up to 15 meters (48 feet), and full 2560x1600 resolution at up to 3 meters (9.8 feet).
The immediate impact is that we now need yet another video connector in our bag to use DVI or VGA displays. And there's no composite or S-video adapter. DVI and VGA adapters are $29 each. A Dual-Link DVI adapter, required for the 30" Cinema Display, is $99. (We note the 30" Dell 3008WFP already has a DisplayPort!) Apple does not offer a TV adapter, but the DisplayPort specification supports it, in theory.
Apple says it's adopting DisplayPort across its entire product line. Today, this means the aluminum MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro; we assume the iMac and Mac Pro will get the update, too.
(Along with the MacBook, Apple introduced a new DisplayPort-only 24" LED Cinema Display specifically designed specifically for use with the new Apple laptops. It won't ship until November, though, so we haven't had a chance to evaluate it.)
Nvidia graphics
Apple replaced the previous MacBook's anemic, integrated Intel graphics with brand-new Nvidia 9400M hardware. We're still in process of benchmarking it, but the Nvidia 9400M is far faster than the old Intel graphics, and this is speed you can feel in the user interface. Like the Intel GMA graphics, Nvidia's 9400M uses the computer's main memory for its own work, taking away 256+ MB, or about 12% of the base 2GB memory complement.
Nvidia claims the 9400M is up to 6.2 times faster than the Intel GMA X3100. Apple describes it relative to the MacBook Pro: the aluminum MacBook is said to provide 55% of the 3D speed of the Nvidia 8600M GT in the previous MacBook Pro, while the old MacBooks' Intel GMA only delivered 11% of MacBook Pro 3D speeds!
This Nvidia chip does more than just video duty, though: it is a "System-On-a-Chip" (SOC) design that replaces the Intel "Santa Rosa" architecture of the previous MacBook model. This is part of an industry-wide trend to more highly integrated chips, reducing power consumption, circuit board size and component costs. The Nvidia-based system swaps the old 800MHz memory bus for a 1066MHz bus, which seems to make up for the slightly slower CPU clock speed vs the previous MacBook. The Nvidia SOC includes SATA, USB, Ethernet, PCI Express, and audio controllers — but no FireWire. (More on that omission below.)
Service and Accessibility
The new MacBook sets a wonderful new standard for service access. The battery and hard drive lie behind a thin cover on the bottom. To release it, just lift a magnetic latch, and the lid pops up. The battery lifts out on a clear plastic tab; the hard drive does too, once you remove a single screw. This is the fastest, easiest hard drive replacement on any Apple laptop, ever. We couldn't help playing with the latch mechanism, opening and shutting it just to watch and feel this precision component do its job! Easy swappability of hard drives is a huge benefit in our book, letting you easily deal with hardware failures or upgrade to higher capacity and performance without paying a technician to do the work.
Memory requires slightly more work: remove eight more screws, and the second bottom panel lifts free. Not only is the memory expansion slot exposed, so is everything else. The new unibody chassis makes removing and replacing nearly any component a quick job. Kudos to Apple's design team for making it so easy to service the new MacBook! (Of course, this will also lower Apple's own warranty service costs.)
Other Notes
The MacBook has a host of other features. A new light sensor adjusts display brightness based on ambient lighting, and the backlit keyboard comes on the pricier model, both taken from the MacBook Pro and Air models.
The battery indicator has been moved from the bottom of the case to the left side. The only visual cue is a slightly recessed circle — a button — and when you press it, a line of eight tiny LEDs lights up in a row to show you the power level. (When charging, the top LED blinks.) It's simple but visually delightful.
All aluminum MacBooks include 802.11n WiFi networking, Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet, two USB ports, and audio in and out jacks (supporting both analog and S/PDIF cables). A Kensington Microsaver security slot and MagSafe power connector round out the left side of the MacBook. A slot-loading SuperDrive is on the right, handling all the usual CD/DVD±R/RW/DL media options.
The aluminum MacBook is rated for up to 4 GB of RAM (it ships with 2 GB). However, iFixit (see Links section) noted during their disassembly, "the Montevina chipset appears to support up to 8GB." Further testing is warranted!
While the MacBook got warm during performance testing, it never got painfully hot, and the fan remained very quiet. Unlike earlier models, this MacBook seems to feature a large, low-speed fan, so there's none of the high pitched whine that plagued heavily-loaded PowerBook G4's and some MacBooks.
Environmental Impact
Apple proudly proclaims the new MacBook's environmental friendliness. High points include arsenic-free glass, no brominated flame retardants, no mercury, no PVC. This will reduce toxicity if some MacBooks are improperly disposed of (as, inevitably, some will be).
Although aluminum is highly recyclable, it also is very energy-intensive to produce. And while scraps from machining are recycled during manufacturing, they too require energy to re-melt into blocks of usable material.
Overall, Apple projects the entire lifecycle of a MacBook, from manufacturing to retirement, will release 460kg of CO2. (This includes both energy used in manufacturing and by end-users.) This compares to 340kg for the MacBook Air, 560kg for the 15" MacBook Pro, 1070kg for the 20" iMac, and a whopping 1500kg for the 24" iMac. (We haven't seen an estimate for the MacBook's polycarbonate predecessor.) As the choices go, you can do a lot worse than the new MacBook.
We measured the MacBook's power consumption with a Kill-a-Watt meter, and found it quite low. Sleeping, it consumes just 3 VA of power; idling with the screen at maximum brightness draws 31 VA (about 14 watts). This drops to just 24 VA (11 watts) with the screen at minimum brightness. The most we could get it to consume, by running hard drive and 3D graphics benchmarks simultaneously, was 56 VA (29 watts). That's less than the average reading lamp.
Issues
Firewire
FireWire — a technology Apple invented and popularized — disappeared from the aluminum MacBook. It's used for hard drives, video capture, audio hardware and high-end scanners — essential devices for Apple's huge base of "creative professional" users.
If you depend on hardware that requires FireWire, you must either upgrade to the $1999 MacBook Pro, or downgrade to the older, white Macbook (which is available now for $999).
Apple CEO Steve Jobs defended the decision, stating that most consumer camcorders now use USB instead of FireWire. That doesn't do much good for someone who already owns a FireWire-only camcorder; for most of us, that's a pretty big investment! And USB 2, despite its huge speed improvement over USB 1, still isn't suitable for professional audio work — it just isn't designed for time-sensitive data.
In hopes of getting a view into more typical consumer behavior, we talked to a salesperson at an Apple retail store. He said he was selling a lot of the new MacBooks even without FireWire. When asked how we could get video from our FireWire camcorder onto the new MacBook, the salesperson candidly answered, "You can't, and I know that's not a good answer."
We asked if the week's buyers knew or cared about the loss of FireWire. "A few people have been pretty upset," we were told, but many don't have any FireWire devices. A few buyers, he volunteered, did require FireWire, and in every instance, they went up to the MacBook Pro, not down to the white MacBook. But, he noted, "We're not all billionaires, a video camera is a big investment!"
The long-requested, but still-missing eSATA port would take the sting out of losing FireWire, and a fast I/O bus always can be exploited. USB is seriously deficient when it comes to multi-device data streaming; it may be good enough for Apple, but it's not adequate for a small, but influential, portion of Apple's traditional customer base.
We think it's a big mistake to take such a versatile, useful feature out of Apple's most popular laptop arbitrarily. But the marginal cost of upgrading to a MacBook Pro is less than the cost of a new video camera or audio hardware; maybe that's what Apple is counting on. If so, it's an artificial and cynical product segmentation tactic.
Vulnerable display?
The new display is a single sheet of glass, bonded directly to the aluminum lid. If it's damaged, the entire assembly must be replaced. On laptops with more traditional bezels, the bezel serves as a sacrificial "crumple zone", helping to mitigate damage to the expensive LCD panel. The MacBook has no such margin, and we just don't know how strong the glass is. We hope it's similar to the super-strong glass used in iPhone and iPod Touch screen. Only time and experience (accident reports) will tell if this is indeed a weak spot.
Other issues
We must repeat the need to purchase adapters to use any existing external display. None is included in the box, so if you already have a display, plan on a $29 adapter to use it. Our nearest Apple retail store didn't yet have them in stock when this was published, but the online store shows them shipping in a few days.
Lastly, we've developed a healthy caution for "1.0" hardware, and it's worth noting that this device is based on an all-new chipset from a company that's had some problems in the past. (One of Nvidia's early SOC efforts had a serious problem with SATA data corruption!) But Nvidia really wants into the SOC market, and Apple (a legendarily demanding business partner) is giving them a big chance — so they have a lot riding on a success with such a high profile client. Any failures will be heavily reported... and we hope Nvidia has worked hard to eliminate any potential problems.
Performance
We've done some preliminary benchmarking comparing the new MacBook's hard drive, graphics and processor performance to previous Macs.
Graphics and Gaming
First up, the Nvidia 9400M integrated graphics controller provides a definite boost in the Cinebench 9.5 3D graphics test. OpenGL hardware shading is more than twice as fast as the white, 2.16GHz MacBook (with integrated Intel graphics), and very nearly catches up wth last year's MacBook Pro (LED model), which featured the dedicated Nvidia GeForce 8600M mobile graphics processor.
Also worth noting is the software OpenGL shading test: This year's 2.0GHz MacBook virtually matches last year's 2.2GHz MacBook Pro! The new, 20%-faster memory bus appears to help here, making up for the MacBook Pro's faster CPU clock.
When it comes to gaming, the new MacBook is an improvement on its predecessor, but it certainly won't challenge PS3 or Xbox 360 consoles. The aluminum MacBook performs quite nicely on older games but is merely competent at current games.
We started with Halo. Released for the Mac five years ago, Halo is long in the tooth. Its main use is comparing performance to older systems. Running the standard timedemo test, we saw 53 frames per second at 800x600 with advanced shaders enabled, and 43 fps at 1024x768. We like to test at 1680x1050, but we still haven't found the DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter in local stores. So instead, we enabled 2x full screen antialiasing at 1024x768, and saw 37 fps. This is fair, but hardly great.
Next, we tried playing EA's 2142 Battlefield, an Intel-only game released last summer. Like a number of EA's other games, it uses TransGaming's Cider technology to run a Windows game as a Mac application. Using 2140 Battlefield's high quality video preset (1024x768, full special effects), the game was attractive, but unplayable — frame rates were visibly low, and any significant effects (such as explosions and smoke) caused gameplay to stutter. At the medium preset (800x600, effects at middle settings) the game occasionally lagged during heavy action. We found the low quality preset (800x600, minimum effects) provided acceptable visual quality while retaining full frame rates — in other words, for a competitive head-to-head game, this is the only acceptable option.
We also ran the Doom 3 timedemo. While Doom 3 itself is four years old, its graphics engine, id Tech 4, is still in use today by games such as Quake 4, Prey, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and thus it remains a useful test. At medium quality 640x480, Doom 3 averaged 73 frames per second — leaving plenty of overhead left for physics and artificial intelligence engines. At the high quality 800x600 setting, it still achieved a consistent 60 fps. Then, we ran what is normally a torture test: "Ultra" quality 1024x768, which uses over 500 MB of textures. That's twice the video memory allocated to the MacBook's GeForce 9400M, so it should cause substantial pauses while textures are transferred to and from video memory. But, to our great suprise, the game still managed to achieve 42 fps, and had almost none of the pauses we've seen when overloading video memory in the past. Perhaps this is an advantage of the GeForce's direct integration with the memory controller?
Hard Drive
Our test unit came with a Hitachi 160 GB SATA hard drive. Though not the most capacious, it's definitely quick. We ran the AJA System Test [AJA_System_Test_v601.zip] - File Size Sweep - and it was faster than the last MacBook, the 2007 MacBook Pro, and even the desktop hard drive in the original iMac Core Duo! This is desktop-class speed, low-end desktop, but far better than we expected.
GeekBench
Geekbench 2006 measures pure processor speed, nothing else. It provides a good read on how the CPU performs independent of other components. Much as we saw in the OpenGL software test above, the new 2.0GHz MacBook catches up to within 2% of last year's 2.2GHz MacBook Pro! And it's about 10% faster than the white, 2.16GHz MacBook it replaces — again demonstrating that clock speed alone doesn't tell the whole story.
(Newer versions of Cinebench and Geekbench are available; we used older versions so we could more accurately compare the MacBook to previous sytems.)
Comparing the new MacBook to both the white MacBook and last year's MacBook Pro, it's clearly a very fast machine for the price. It's almost a mini-Pro MacBook — if it weren't for that missing FireWire port!
Conclusions
MacInTouch readers have weighed in with some pretty strong opinions about this new laptop, both for and against. It has the high style of the sleek MacBook Air with a more reasonable price, while providing much better performance, accessibility and capacity. The new Nvidia video chip is a great improvement on the previous model's underwhelming graphics, delivering performance you can feel in ordinary use. It's competent, if unspectacular, for casual gaming; it is a sad statement on the previous MacBook that "competent" is such an improvement! The latest MacBook Pro still outperforms, but at least now the MacBook is in the race — and it nearly matches last year's MacBook Pro!
But despite the luxury feel and build quality, this is not professional-grade hardware. The loss of FireWire is a big deal for video, music and visual creative professionals with an important investment in FireWire hardware. The stylish display doesn't have the same color quality as the MacBook Pro, and it even lags behind the otherwise-similar MacBook Air; anyone doing photography or design work will require an external display, just as with previous MacBooks.
The new MacBook's graphics can drive a big 30" Apple Cinema Display, which the old model cannot. But the aluminum MacBook's own display is a bit of a misstep. It's bright and visually striking but more reflective than the MacBook Air and white MacBooks. It's not unusable; it just falls short of the excellence we usually expect from Apple products.
The aluminum MacBook should be a great laptop for many customers, including Windows switchers. MacInTouch readers have said that pro styling with a consumer price is very welcome. But potential upgraders from older MacBooks and PowerBooks with a heavy investment in FireWire hardware may wish instead to investigate the older white MacBooks (available for $999 from Apple, or much less at Amazon), or a close-out MacBook Pro — the previous models are selling for as little as the high-end new MacBook, with FireWire 800 and a great display.
In terms of pure design, the new MacBook is a big step forward. We love its new trackpad, definitely appreciate its speed, and upgrading the hard drive down the line will be far easier, thanks to its wonderfully accessible components. But the lack of FireWire and the too-glossy display give us pause, limiting the power-user appeal of an otherwise-outstanding, new, portable Mac.
Pros - exquisite design at a lower price
- wonderfully accessible for service and upgrades
- outstanding performance (including 3D graphics)
- powerful multitouch trackpad with good feel
| Cons - FireWire missing
- too-glossy display
- mini-DisplayPort requires new adapters
|
Updates
Before this machine we had no major issue with the glossy screens of the original MacBook, the MacBook Air and the 2007 MacBook Pro with LED backlight. But the mirror-like display is the new MacBook's Achilles' Heel, even more than the missing FireWire port. Not everyone uses FireWire, but everyone uses that screen.
MacInTouch readers suggested trying out Photodon's anti-glare film (www.photodon.com). Photodon supplied us with a test sheet of their film, custom-cut for the new MacBook. It extends all the way to the edge of the black glass bezel, minimizing that mirror effect, and includes a v-shaped notch for the Macbook's iSight camera. The corners match the different top and bottom radii of the display, and if we hadn't mis-aligned the top, it would have been a perfect fit!
The Photodon film uses a no-residue silicon resin adhesive, so it can be removed without leaving anything behind. It's quite stiff, and applied easily once we peeled back its backing. Photodon says the outer surface is hardened to resist scratching; it feels much thicker and tougher than iPod screen protectors we've used in the past. It's a functional upgrade in more ways that one.
But to the point — could the Photodon film subdue the MacBook's mighty mirror?
In a word, yes.
The Photodon film cuts the sharp reflection and mutes it to a diffuse glare, which many users find less distracting. Like other screen films we've used in the past, it adds some graininess to the image, making it a tradeoff. This is definitely a matter of taste, but if you can't abide the glossy reflections, the Photodon film redeems the new MacBook. For just $15.50, it's a very cheap way to vastly improve the MacBook's day-to-day usability.
We took before-and-after comparison photos of the new MacBook, and include reference photos of a MacBook Air, a 2006 MacBook, and a (dead) 12" PowerBook G4 we had on hand.
