Apple MacBook White 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo/2GB/160/SD/AP/BT
See it at Amazon.co.uk for £915.89Average Customer Rating
(4.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First
(5 out of 5)Five Stars but...
Ok so had windows 98. had windows xp..had to reinstall windows on another drive after about 4 years after we lost all the sound for some reason and microsoft won't let me re use the licence so used a pirate copy worked ok for a while. even booted up in less than 5 minutes.got 3 printers 1 panasonic laser 2 epson colour inkjets (quite old) . setting up routers re installing software printers scanners usb midi keyboards web cams done my head in more than once I can tell you so I bought one of these and how have i got on in the first 3 months?
I Bought mine from the apple shop online But here's my tip NO1: PC world sell macs for the same price so if you don't live close to an apple store why not just pop to pc world? you can at least shout at the poor young salesperson and demand to see a manager as I may have done when I discovered that my brand new mac book had a faulty backspace (delete) key. I know I should have sent it back but I was so pleased with the parcel that had been wedged between my dustbins getting wet for the best part of a day I thought I'd leave it and see if It got any better. (not yet) I shall take it to an apple store when I am close by ,especially after reading the excellent review below regarding the casing issue (mine is scratched and I've been careful and hardly been out of the house! )
So got it out of the beautifully designed box, charged it up for a bit then fired it up. Its good.its sexy. fast. "it just works" to a point...
Boots up quickly (less than a minute) thanks to not needing anti virus at the present time but this may change as the mac and linux become more popular. yes goes to sleep when you shut the lid though drains battery power if not plugged in for long periods.just open and close it? very simple. very cool.
This is apples philosophy I suppose; ease of use.What do you want to do with your computer? Apple think they know and provide basic programs for doing all the standard stuff. iphoto is fine for your family snaps. imovie is good enough to make those home dvds and provides some nice captions etc. mail is just email (i prefer thunderbird) safari is faster than firefox but without adblock or ebay companion. text editing is a bit basic (like on windows), but I find open office does everything that I need it to. Idvd plays dvds. front row is adequate. itunes works well on this platform but still requires a bit of tweaking from the user. expose and spaces are just a joy to have when using multiple applications. the dock can be magnified moved shrunk or turned off. the dashboard is good too. everything just looks good, which can maybe cloud judgement, but why shouldn't it look good as long as it functions?
So is it better than windows xp? I think so definitely. better than vista ? I wouldn't swop mine from what ive seen of my dads vista laptop. is it perfect? alas no..
out of the three printers mentioned (a panasonic kxp 7100, epson stylus photo 810 and epson photo 1200) not one provides any drivers for mac os at all! not even an old version. there is apparently a way of using postscript re routing or something but honestly I haven't a clue so i cant just print using the network in my home though i can access 1tb of networked files no problem.I copy the files to the other computer then go upstairs and load the doc on the windows and print, a bit tedious and unnecessary. There seems to be apple drivers out there for every other epson or panasonic printer though so this is perhaps just my continuing bad luck.
The screen is fine, a cleaning cloth is provided, though I mostly sit in dark corners I haven't experienced any excessive glare and its nice and clear. I usually turn the brightness down a notch or three. sound from built in speakers is laptop standard. headphone socket is plenty loud enough .
you can take it as perhaps a measure of how much i like my mac or how much i dislike windows but I really wouldn't go back and honestly wouldn't swop my mid range £800 macbook for a £2k windows machine at this point if one were offered and this is in spite of lack of third party support for my printers and a delete key that sometimes has to be jabbed several times before it registers. I have also had several apps hang on me and had to force close and froze the whole thing a couple of times, though I'm hoping the latest 500mb update to leopard will have fixed some of those bugs. There have been quite a few updates to download just like anything these days and if you want all the garageband loops they are a separate download of over 1gb. (why not on a disc!)
so after 3 months then my gripes are minor and I suppose this gets five stars just for being so sexy and pretty well thought out. it does everything it says on the box, bit overpriced on the hardware perhaps but I love my mac and i'm glad i've nearly sacked windows. I just need to get a new printer now....
(4 out of 5)Not perfect, but I'm converted
I recently swithced to Mac, here is my review:
Hardware Pros:
nice and shiney
well designed
Big touch pad
Very sharp display
Mains cable can connected/disconnected magneticly
Cons:
Scratches easily
Not that light
White is difficult to maintain (keep hands clean)
Black shows fingerprints
Only 2 USB ports
mains connection can come lose as easily as it was attached if not careful
you get a hot left leg
It get noisy
The CD/DVD drive makes noise when inserting/ejecting and when held to pick laptop up.
Not that comfortable on the wrists (if lazy typer).
4 Hardware Pros
10 Hardware Cons
Software Pros:
Well thought out
Very good pre-installed software
Ready to use as soon as installed (Vista takes ages)
Less worries about viruses etc
Consistent layout
Fairly easy to get used to
Looks professional
No more pop-up from task panel
Cons
Can't customise display much compared to windows, where you can change almost everything.
It only knows 2 mouse buttons, left and right. Use a PC mouse with 3/4+ buttons and it does not compute.
When you click close on a window it does not completly close and I have not worked out how to open up a second window of the same aplication.
Can't use internet explorer for testing webpages unless using windows on parallels.
Can use 4oD anymore unless using windows on parallels.
Mac games are few and can be expensive.
8 Software Pros
6 software cons
12 pros overall
17 Cons overall
I would only recommend it if you are a creative or doing a creative course or career and want it for work not play. Like me.
If you are not really a creative and just use a computer for the net and Gaming get a PC and save your money.
Overall it is very good for the right user.
(5 out of 5)Don't hesitate to upgrade!
It took some courage to upgrade my G3 Powerbook to the latest with Intel chips and all. I had visions of hours of tedium and frustration transferring files and folders, bullying applications into working and that's not to mention the internet and e-mail settings.
How wrong I was!
Just connect your new and old machine with a Firewire cable, and the first time you turn on your new machine it asks if you want to 'migrate'. You do, you follow the simple online instructions and your new machine imports everything it needs, puts it in the right place and you are completely in business. The experience is really, really, fabulous.
In my case, Microsoft Office was there, and so was all my e-mail: just everything (except a couple of icons in the dock became question marks).
Friends who are more familiar with PCs seem impressed so maybe this is another area where Apple beats the Microsoft competition.
I have heard that it is also possible to migrate wirelessly, but have no experience of that. Oh, and of course it is a fabulous machine--buy the highest spec you can afford.
(5 out of 5)Its a Mac
In September 2008 my wife's iBook G3 developed a hardware fault. Being over 5 years since we bought it, it was well out of even extended warranty. However, the particular fault is a design issue where the video chip makes bad contact and we had seen it before. Once was in the initial warranty time, so it was fixed at no cost, but more impressive was the the second time when it was more than a year beyond the extended warranty time and still Apple fixed it for free (under the 'Quality Programme'). This third time we were not so lucky. The Apple fix is to change the main logic board, but by this time Apple (and looking on the internet - hardly any other Mac repairer) had no spare boards. Moreover, it was out of warranty so the cost of a fix would be high.
Even Macs go wrong sometimes, but the we have found they are more reliable than other laptops we have had (a Compaq - now HP - and a GateWay) but maybe that was Windows.
Anyway it was a good excuse to upgrade to a MacBook, selling the iBook on eBay (as faulty) and also selling extras such as the Airport card, an external camera, and a USB audio input device. These extra items are all built-in on a MacBook and of course by 2008 you get a lot more computer for less money (even ignoring inflation) than you did in 2003. And of course you get the latest OS, which otherwise costs about £75 and the latest iLife (£50?). So the sales and software upgrades are like a discount of about £200 off of the price paid. This 'discount' would have been a lot more if we could have sold the iBook as working - as had been at the beginning of September.
Fortunately, although the iBook would not boot into the OS and the video was faulty, it worked in hard disk mode. This means that we could attach the MacBook to the iBook with a firewire cable and using Migration Assistant, transfer everything from the iBook to the MacBook that did not come as updated versions on the new machine. So the OS and iLife are the latest versions, while old software such as Office 2004 and all files including things such as current mailboxes and preference settings appeared on the new machine. There were a couple of programs that worked under OS 9 on the old machine that would not work on the Intel MacBook, but we had stopped using them a long time ago - so just trashed them. Transferring 40GB of data takes some time, and we also did some spring cleaning (deleting old junk, and updating such things a Skype and Adobe reader) before doing the initial run of the Time Machine backup, which took several hours. But after just over a day, we were up and running on the new machine almost as if nothing happened, except the machine is faster and better. I do not have a lot of experience of Windows machines, but I do not imagine the transfer would have been so easy. BUT ITS A MAC -and I expect things to be a smooth as that.
I was sufficiently impressed by this MacBook, that I decided I would get one too - to replace my Ibook G4 which is just out of extended warranty, having been purchased just before the Intel Macs came out.
Would I have done better to have waited until October 14th 2008 when the New aluminium MacBook cam out? Probably not. The only real functional difference in the new machines seems to be faster RAM and a faster graphics processor. The new White MacBook, seems to be about the same value for money as the old models, but has less RAM and a slower processor than this 2.4GHz model. So while you can still buy them, in my opinion the 2.4Ghz old white Macbooks are a good buy.
Would have have done better to have switched to Windows? I probably could have saved £200 on the price of the machine, but it would not have been a Mac.
(4 out of 5)Perfect in every way, apart from the magsafe charger
ok, this product is truly awesome, leopard is innovative, user friendly, most people wont have TOO much trouble getting used to it, after a good few months at the most you'll know exactly what your doing, and you'll love your macbook!
Pros - MAC OSX, more fun, more appealing to the eye. Drag and drop feature greatly enhanced in retrospect to windows OS's!
Cons. MSN! msn versions are not the best at all, Mercury Messenger is the only one which supports webcams!
The magsafe charger is awesome BUT! beware
i've read ALOT on the internet about this issue and it actually happened to me too, i didnt think it would but it did.
The cable at the end that connects to the macbook started to come away (after 1 year of general use) and before you know it, i could smell burning plastic! Had to order a brand new magsafe charger and to add insult to injury i found out from apple BRAND NEW they are £60. yes £60 for a charger. Its great if you have spare £60's lying around at your disposal but, like me, most people dont. Apple need to sort this issue out!
Verdict - BUY IT! but only if your willing to eventually buy a new charger, when the old one DIES on you.