Apple's Unibody MacBook: The Review | Hacker News Reader

Apple's Unibody MacBook: The Review

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23 pointstwampss15 comments

I really think the new macbooks / ~ pro are a bit of a letdown price/performance wise. There are recent other notebooks, such as the Samsung R560 that cost about half of what a macbook pro costs, and offer roughly equal specs.

E.g. Samsung R560: 2ghz core 2 duo, 4ghz ram, geforce 9600M GS (see here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=303188) for 1052 USD

versus macbook pro: 2.4ghz core 2 duo, 2ghz ram (http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo...) for 1999 USD.

The samsung is even cheaper than the new macbook. Unless you really need OS X, getting a samsung with linux seems a better deal.

Am I alone thinking this? I've used macs for the past 6 years, and OS X is pretty neat, but every single piece of apple hardware I've owned has given me trouble. I'm seriously considering switching away from macs for my next upgrade.

Yeah, but that samsung laptop is hideous:

http://www.samsung.com/hk_en/consumer/detail/features.do?gro...

I got one last week and I love it. I was upgrading from a 1Ghz powerbook G4 however, so it was a well deserved upgrade. I'm looking forward to installing winxp on it and playing through Half-Life 2 over xmas break.

It also runs my numerics for HW and things sooo much faster than my old computer its a relief.

The only thing that annoys me is that the mini display port doesn't have an s-video adapter, which I used a lot. I'm still crossing my fingers that they release one, but i doubt it. Probably have to buy some sort of converter.

seems like a lot of people held on to their g4 pb until this release. I just didn't like their hardware offerings in the intervening four years (too expensive or too cheap-looking), but I love my new al-macbook. my only annoyances: doesn't seem to work well with a bluetooth keyboard and usb mouse in closed-lid mode. also, seems to always forget the brightness settings for my display and keyboard (adjust brightness based on ambient light is a cool trick to show friends, but when I'm working, I don't want things changing based on whether my head is blocking the light or not).

I have this all the time lately when i'm battery'ed up. I imagine I can turn that option off, but it seems useful enough to keep on for now. I'm glad they at least have the ambient light sensor on the iSight camera as opposed to somewhere down by the keyboard or something. The Macbook pro used to dim all the time when I blocked the light to the keyboard with my head and I can't imagine it would have happened if they used the camera.

System Prefs -> Displays -> Uncheck "Automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes", and I believe that will do it for you.

yes. there is one for the keyboard as well. the problem is that it doesn't remember this for very long (seems to be reset for me after suspending some of the time).

hmm. from a sibling comment, maybe it has different settings based on if you have it plugged in or not, and I mistook this for resetting. will have to investigate when I get home.

I'm upgrading from a PB G4, too.

nice looking mac, but my late 2006 black MacBook is still working nicely and as the new MacBook no longer has Firewire I won't be upgrading any time soon.

Ditto on the putting off and for the same reasons. I am sort of eying the next generation MBPs (18 months from now or whenever) as my next laptop though.

Same here, holding off till the next generation. I especially hate the fact that Apple decided that everyone wants a glossy display.

Same again - I've got a two year old MBP... Only problem with it is it's working just fine :|

Think waiting 12 months or so is a good idea. There should be a big bump in specs by then. (hopefully Apple supported 8Gb RAM).

waiting for 8GB max RAM

I'd be curious to know what % of mac users require Firewire. And what % prefer them over USB 2 but could use either.

I see this complaint often, but I wonder if it's just a very vocal small minority, or a genuine problem.

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