7473 Apple snuck one of its perplexing "stealth" hardware update out the door yesterday, bumping the entry-level white polycarbonate MacBook's Core 2 Duo clock speed from 2.0 GHz to 2.13 GHz, adding 40 GB of standard hard disk capacity, and also upgrading its RAM specification to 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM as opposed to 667MHz RAM in the preceding version. The standard RAM capacity remains at 2 GB — upgradable (unofficially) to 6 GB.

Consequently, the base MacBook is now more powerful than the $300 more expensive low-end unibody aluminum MacBook, and has had two refreshes so far this year wuile the unobody model has had none thus far in its production life, which would incline one to infer that a unibody speed bump is also in the offing. It's also been nearly eight months since the unibodies were introduced, which is a long interval by historical precedent, and it won't surprise me a bit if a unibody MacBook speed bump is announced at or around the time of the worldwide developers conference, although I don't anticipate anything radical, but the $1,299 model should be bumped to at least match the $999 model's clock speed, and more likely to 2.4 GHz, and the higher-end one to 2.53 GHz or even 2.8 GHz. They'll probably also get hard drive upgrades to 250 GB and 320 GB respectively.

We shouldn't expect anything dramatic in processor or video chipset updates either until Intel and Nvidia roll out some new product, and even then there's usually a lag before Apple brings it on stream.

I would love it if Apple repented of its unfortunate decision to drop FireWire support from the unibody MacBook and found a way to shoehorn in a FireWire port, but I'm not expecting that to happen.

Photo Courtesy Apple

Getting back to the WhiteBook, aside from the changes noted above, the specification remains the same. The $999 machine already got the Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics with 256MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared memory and a a faster 1066 MHz frontside bus in its January 21 update. The form factor's not as sleek and sexy (or solid) as the unibody machines carved as they are in one piece from a single block of aluminum. The unibodies are gorgeous — I love mine. Another shortcoming by comparison is the conventional CCFL display backlight as opposed to the newer design's super-bright, instant-on LCD backlighting. The white MacBook also still has a Mini-DVI video port instead of the new Mini DisplayPort interface of the unibodies, but some might regard that as an advantage thanks to cheaper adapters. The white MacBook also has an old-school trackpad and button instead of the newer machine's jumbo-sized glass buttonless trackpad, which I rather like, and its SATA bus is 1.5Gbps ratehr than the unibody MacBook's 3Gbps.

On the other hand, for some the fact that the White machine still has a FireWire port and the unibody MacBook doesn't will be a dealmaker/breaker factor.

I do wish that Apple had chosen to carry over the black old-school MacBook along with the white one, which is attractive enough but dates in general form-factor and appearance back to the original dual USB iBook of May, 2001, and has been looking past its best-before date for some time now.

Value Purchasers Will Find It Even Harder To Resist

Anyone on a tight budget and in the market for a new Mac notebook should find this least-expensive MacBook even harder to resist. I have to say that I agree with Apple's philosophy of value-added rather than ditching features in order to hit a lower price point. This machine is a whole lot more satisfactory than a PC netbook, provided you can swing the $999 ( or $949 if you qualify for the Education discount).

There is precedent for Apple's pile-on-the-features strategy. Back in August, 2005, with sales sagging after the June announcement that Apple would be switching to Intel processors, they helped goose sales of lame-duck (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) G4 iBook by throwing in a raft of theretofore PowerBook-only features while holding the price points. The summer 2005 iBooks got the PowerBooks' scrolling TrackPad and the Sudden Motion Sensor, Bluetooth 2.0 (Enhanced Data Rate) and AirPort Extreme 54 Mbps 802.11g WiFi, and with its system memory expandable to up to 1.5GB maximum, the last revision iBook actually exceeded the 12" PowerBook in that category by 256MB thanks to having 512MD rather than 256 MB soldered to its motherboard.

Apple as usual kept its cards close to its chest as regards sales figures, but G4 iBooks seemed to sell reasonably well through the remainder of '05 and into 'o6 before finally being replaced by the first 13" MacBooks in May of that year.

(Photo Courtesy Apple)

Sales Spike Predicted

I predict that the white MacBook value enhancement announced this week will also provide Apple with a nice little sales spike at a time when that should be most welcome, but that said, the $300 more expensive base unibody still merits serious consideration as well. Choosing between these two excellent-value machines is a nice sort of dilemma to have. As someone observed last week: "The white one is a better buy, but the aluminum is gorgeous." Both are great values. It boils down to your budget and which will make you smile the most.

White 13-inch MacBook (May, 2009) Base Specs.:

• 2.13GHz


• Intel Core 2 Duo


• 2GB DDR2 Memory


• 160GB hard drive


• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics


• Standard keyboard


• White polycarbonate shell


• $999.00

For the complete and updated technical specifications visit:
http://www.apple.com/macbook/white/specs.html

For more information, visit:
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook?mco=MTE2NjA


Charles W. Moore

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