After much deliberation, I decided to purchase an Apple MacBook Core 2 Duo (C2D), black version. It is not my first Mac, but I have been away from the Mac world for over 5 years. Herein are my impressions of the MacBook Core 2 Duo. In this section, I'll talk about the unusual keyboard, the issues with CPU temperature and fan noise.
The MacBook is Apple's smaller notebook computer- I say smaller because it is smaller than their MacBook Pro line, though I would actually classify it as a mid-sized laptop. The Macbook has a 13.3" glossy screen, with a 1280x800 screen resolution. It comes in white or black, with black being the best-configured of the two, having a 120GB hard drive, 2.0Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, an Intel GMA 950 graphics controller, a 6x DL DVD burner, 1GB of RAM, 2 USB ports, 1 FireWire 400 port, a DVI output port, and a built-in iSight camera. I am reviewing the black Macbook, but most of my comments apply to both models.
In terms of size, the MacBook is 12.78x8.92x1.08 inches, and weighs 5.2 pounds. It feels compact and solid. Its weight is slightly less than the 5.6 pound 15" MacBook Pro, although I wish it were even lighter, as every ounce counts when you have to carry a laptop around a lot. Nevertheless, it's a good size that is great for those that care more about portability than features. Speaking of features, the MacBook has a few less features than the MacBook Pro, such as lack of an ExpressCard/34 slot, and lack of FireWire 800. I should also point out that the AC power adapter is very small, light weight, and compact- an ideal travel size.
My initial impression of OS X (v10.4.8) is very positive! The interface is very nice, the ability to get a bash shell is excellent (for me that is, since I use Linux all the time). There are a lot of nice little extras, which I'll write more about in a future post, such as the speech commands, iPhoto, iDVD, Photo Booth, and more. The ability of OS X to seamlessly recognice and work with my Kensington bluetooth mouse and my Canon Rebel XT digital camera were really nice.
The MacBook's exterior is pretty much all plastic, but it is very beautifully designed. The case is fairly minimalist in style, and has curved edges and rounded corners, and it's very elegant looking. There are nice little touches like the glowing Apple logo on the cover, the battery with little LEDs indicating its charge level, when charging, and the extra-large touch pad (more on this later). Apple has got industrial design down pat!
Unfortunately, Apple pays more attention to elegant design than ergonomics and usability. One of the flaws of the MacBook design is Apple forgot to round the corners that really matter when you're actually USING the machine, namely the edge near where your wrists rest. It is Sharp and unrounded, and can hurt your wrists if you rest your wrists there many times over the course of a day (Yes, I know you should not type with your wrists resting on the wrist rest area!). There are solutions though, such as buying foam wrist pads, but still, Apple should have fixed this by now. Another small usability flaw is that the screen only tilts back about 135 degrees, which, though good enough for most situations, would be more optimal if it tilted even back further if you like sitting on the floor (like I do). This is mainly due to the moderate viewing angle of the LCD, but, please understand, this is a very minor issue, because usually with some adjustment of the laptop position, you can get a decent view of the screen but it just might not be the optimal position you'd choose if the screen could go back further.
The extra large touchpad is really nice. It is especially nice because OS X interprets movements when you have two fingers on the touchpad as scrolling controls. It works quite well, and is intuitive. However, Apple is still sticking with a single button- despite the fact that so many applications (even Apple's own) can make use of a 2nd button. I have resorted to using an external bluetooth mouse because the single button was driving me crazy. Apple supports a simulated 2nd button by interpreting a button click where you also have 2 fingers on the TrackPad as a right button click, but, that just doesn't work as well as having an actual second button- another case where Apple's insistence on elegant design trumps usability.
The Keyboard:
Apple's keyboard on the MacBook is unusual in that it is very flat. Some people may love it, others may hate it. I'm somewhere inbetween. After just a few tens of minutes using it, I felt pretty comfortable typing on it. It is not bad, as the keyboard does feel solid, but it definitely is inferior in feel in my opinion, to the MacBook Pro keyboard and to the Thinkpad keyboards I'm used to. The problem with it is that it doesn't have enough travel in the keys, and, just seems more tiring to type on than a MacBook Pro keyboard. But keyboards are very subjective, so try it for yourself, you might love it. Another difference between the MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboard is the MacBook keyboard does not light up in the dark. Not a major issue to me, but, some people like a lit up keyboard. Another puzzling omission by apple is a dedicated page up and page down key, as well as home and end. Instead, those keys are shared with the up, down, left, right navigation arrow keys, and require holding down the fn or alt keys to perform those functions. Also, the backspace and delete keys are combined in one as well. Anyways, in summary, the keyboard is "ok" not perfect, but reasonably usable.
The other issue I want to cover is CPU temperature and fan noise. Previous Core Duo versions of the MacBook have had major issues with heat and fan noise. So, how well does the Core 2 Duo do here? Well, disappointingly, my version seems to go from a little bit noisy to very noisy. I have a 60 degree celsius (140 fahrenheit) idle temperature and an 80 degree celsius (176 fahrenheit) heavy usage temperature. The fan noise at idle when nothing is stressing the system is a low but noticeable hum in a quiet room. When the temperature starts rising as the CPU gets more work, the fan is very noticeable- in fact, loud enough that it would attract some amount of attention in a quiet library. When doing fairly lightweight tasks, such as web browsing, word processing, using the OS X UI, the fan is kept at a fairly low level. If you get one of the CPU cores going at more than about 33% the fan noise starts moving up. I've noticed the fan kick in loudly in several situations so far- importing pictures into iPhoto, installing XCode, playing a video podcast, running super_pi, running CineBench. (REVIEW UPDATE: Be Sure to See Part III where I returned my MacBook due to the fan noise)
See the Database of Intel Mac Temperatures, and theor HowTo on measuring Mac CPU temperatures.
Also, read another independent opinion of the original MacBook's heating and fan noise issues from ArsTechnica.
A note on battery life. So far, I've had two days to use the system from a full charge. The first day, I was playing a dvd while doing web browsing, occasional software downloads, and I got 2 hrs 20 minutes of battery life. The second day, doing mostly word processing and web browsing, some application downloading and installations, a small amount of photo importing, and I got 2 hrs 20 minutes. What else can I say other than, I wish it were better! Both times, the LCD level was 3 notches below maximum and WiFi and Bluetooth were turned on.
Conclusion: Overall, I can say that the MacBook is beautifully designed. OS X is also a wonderful operating system to use so far. The MacBook hardware seems to need work with heat issues and fan noise.
See also- Part II benchmarks of my Macbook Core 2 Duo! Let's see how this Core 2 Duo performs!
See also- Part III MacBook Core 2 Duo (C2D) Review Part 3, 2nd week update (major review update)
See also- MacBook Core 2 Duo (C2D) Battery Life
Finally, Apple has fixed the problems with its iPod nano and produced a worthy upgrade to the iPod mini. With up to 8GB of flash memory, and an estimated 24 hour battery life, and redesigned case, it makes a great portable music companion.
