Apple Macbook

Recession or no recession, Apple’s on a roll at the moment, with several new product announcements already this year.

The cheapest Apple Macbook laptop, for instance, was redesigned at the end of 2008 and cost £719, then changed in the summer of 2009 with a new price of £749.

The new Macbook is constructed out of the same tough, white plastic that Apple has been using for its cheapest laptops for several years now, but the new design is curved around the edges, which makes it look a bit more elegant than the rectangular slab-like design of its predecessors.

The new features go deeper than its the curvaceous chassis though. The 13in screen has a new type of backlight, replacing the ‘cold cathode’ technology used by older screens with LED lighting that produces bright and vivid colours – handy when playing video or displaying digital photographs.

The trackpad below the keyboard has been enlarged and is now capable of ‘multitouch’ which means that in addition to controlling the pointer with one finger the user can use multi-finger gestures, such as a pinching motion with two fingers, to zoom in on a photo.

The speed of the main processor has been boosted from 2.13GHz to 2.26GHz. That’s not a massive increase, but this model also uses a faster type of memory than its predecessor did, which also gives a small but noticeable performance boost. The memory stays at 2GB but the size of the hard disk has been increased from 160GB to 250GB.

However, the biggest improvement comes from the new battery. Like the more expensive Macbook Pro models, the basic Macbook now includes one of Apple’s long-lasting batteries.

The battery is sealed inside the Macbook, which means you cannot take it out and insert a replacement battery on a long journey, say, but it does last a lot longer than the battery in previous models.

We got a good four and a half hours of battery life when watching films that we rented using the iTunes service, and you can add about another hour on top of that if you stick to more routine tasks such as surfing the web and sending emails.

In addition to the redesigned hardware, the Macbook comes with the the latest version of Apple’s OS X operating system, Snow Leopard, installed. It’s the Mac’s equivalent Windows and like the recently-released Windows 7, Snow Leopard focuses on fine-tuning the Mac’s performance rather than adding eye-catching features.

The Macbook felt smooth and responsive when we were using features such as Coverflow, which displays the contents of files as they are viewed in the file viewer. Apple also includes its iLife software suite, containing programs such as the iMovie video editor and the Garageband music software.

The Macbook is more than adequate for handling video editing and recording music, as well as more routine tasks such as word processing or surfing the internet.

Our main complaint is that Apple has again slipped in a sneaky price increase, raising the price from £749 to £799. There are certainly cheaper laptops available, but the sleek redesign and improved battery life, along with the excellent supplied software, make the new Macbook an excellent choice for beginners and advanced users alike.