7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Basic notebook for $1299
Date of Review: Jul 6, 2009
The Bottom Line: Great laptop, but get a cooling pad. I reccomend Applecare ext warranty and support although expensive, $249, so out the door was $1549.
I purchased my Macbook in August of 2008, so it is nearly a year old now. This was my first laptop, and I did not really like windows vista, so I decided to give the macbook a try. I had read a magazine article that pointed out the fact that the macbook boots up and shuts down substantially faster than vista and that the battery life is much better. This is a link to that magazine article:http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/4258725.html?page=3 I haven't used vista much but I do appreciate how quick this laptop shuts down; I would say that if there are no applications running, that is shuts down in about six seconds. For general use, it performs well for most tasks;(checking email, web browsing, etc.). Those that are going to use it for school will need to purchase I Work, which is Apple's rendition of Microsoft Office. Pages is a program that works like microsoft word, but it took me a long time to figure out how to make a hanging indent on a work's cited page. Removing hyperlinks can be a pain as well. Also switching back and forth from Pages to Word is not always seamless, although it usually works. I have not tried Microsoft word for Mac, as it might be better for those that want to type something and bring it up on a PC. Some applications don't work well in Safari-Apple's Internet Explorer. An online class that I was taking kept shutting down the browser whenever I attempted to do any work. A call to Apple support solved the problem-using Firefox instead of Safari to access the class.
What I hate most about this laptop is that it overheats easily. But general web browsing won't cause this problem. It is media intensive applications, such as watching Youtube or playing video games. The bottom of the unit becomes really hot and the fan comes on loudly, struggling to keep the laptop within operating temperature. If it is run like this for an extended period of time, the screen might freeze. (This screen froze only one or twice with the online version of Halo, not with videos). Even with a cooling pad, this laptop struggles to remain cool during demanding applications. I don't know if this is true for the latest generation of Macbooks that have Nvida graphics cards, as mine only has integrated graphics.
When it's time to purchase another laptop, I probably will go with Apple again though. It's the little things that I appreciate that make the Macbook worthwhile in my opinion. Decent battery life, the magnetic charger that will disconnect if somebody trips over it, and being less susceptible to viruses currently outweigh the cons in my opinion.
