good college laptop | Apple MacBook MB403LL/A 13.3-inch Laptop (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB...

Our first Mac computer | Apple MacBook MB403LL/A 13.3-inch Laptop (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive) ...

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	• Apple MacBook MB403LL/A 13.3-inch Laptop (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive) ... Apple Computer Apple Computer average customer review:based on 142 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Careful: EndNote - Windows 08 not compatible

The computer works well, (besides the cute looks), it was a bit of a headache to work out the problem. Pages (iWorks) does not work well with reference manager software and Office 08' for Mac was not compatible with EndNote either. There is currently an upgrade from Office available to make the latest version of EnNote compatible, but you have to have both. The rest, no problem at all.

good college laptop

This is a good choice for a college student who likes the Mac OS X desktop. It is reasonably easy to set up and use. I downloaded and installed the Mac port of OpenOffice, Sun's open source alternative to Microsoft Office, with word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and database tools. It installs on top of X11 which came pre-installed on the Mac. Overall responsiveness is good. Wireless sensitivity is not superb, but ok. The built-in camera and mic are a nice feature. One complaint is that the microphone does not have built-in echo cancellation. When will this obvious feature nearly everyone would find useful start to be standard equipment on laptops?

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Our first Mac computer

This will be my daughter's college computer. Aftre orientation, she said that it was the most popular Mac model. Setting it up was easy and it connected to out home network without a hitch and recognized shared drives and printers. She loves it! Buying it on Amazon was easier than going to the store.

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Best synergy of size, power, battery life, and durability

The MacBook is a little more expensive than similarly-configured Windows laptops. However, the tangible and intangible benefits that come with the MacBook make it worth the extra money.

The MacBook is perfectly sized for an all-purpose machine. The old 12.1" iBooks were great, but their screens were just a little too small. The MacBook's 13.1" has adequately high resolution and screen real estate for most tasks outside of publishing and heavy-duty Photoshopping or web design, and the compromise size keeps the MacBook's size below most of the 15.4" systems common in the Windows world. It's just small and light enough to be easily toted around, and just big enough for useful work.

One of the MacBook's big selling points (and one worth the Apple premium) is the fact that you're not forced to use Vista. Mac OS X "Leopard" is a far more polished and user-friendly operating system, and it's the seamless integration of OS and hardware that makes the MacBook such a joy to use. Everything just works as advertised.

The MacBook is not the first or only laptop to use Intel's Penryn CPU, but it's the only one running a highly optimized OS with excellent power management. With the stock Li-Ion battery, I never get less than four hours of runtime, with the backlight turned up three quarters of the way, and Wi-Fi enabled. When I am in writing mode, working in my word processing application, with the backlight turned down to one notch above the "off" setting (which is still plenty bright to see your stuff just fine in most lighting conditions), and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off, battry life is over six hours, touching seven hours on occasion. There's simply no Vista laptop, even with a similar C2D Penryn CPU and comparable hardware, that can match this kind of field endurance. A laptop's purpose is mobility, and battery life is one of its most important attributes. With the MacBook, you can realistically be away from a power source all day, putting the system to sleep when you're not actively working, and you'll be able to get by on a single battery charge. With most Vista laptops, you have to haul that power brick around with you, and stay plugged in most of the time.

Speaking of sleep mode: the MacBook goes to sleep instantly when the lid is closed, and it wakes up before you have time to completely open the lid and put your fingers on the keyboard. ACPI power management on Windows is such a kludgy mess that most Vista laptops don't even wake up properly from sleep 25% of the time, and when they do, it takes them almost as much time to get back into action as a reboot would have taken. You can't even put a dollar value on the ability to just close-and-go, and being able to open your laptop again to pick up where you left off, without waiting or worrying.

Lastly, there are the many subtle design touches that make the MacBook so much fun to use. The MagSafe adapter is a genius idea--no more worn-out power plugs, or tripping over cords. The iSight camera works seamlessly with Leopard, iChat, and other A/V applications, and the PhotoBooth application really makes you want to use that camera. The keyboard improves on one of the main complaints I had with the iBook, which was flex and "mushiness". The MacBook's keyboard has individually attached keycaps mounted directly into the chassis, and the keyboard feels extremely solid as a result. There's also no room for stuff to get under the keys, and the keyboard deck is very easy to clean. The slot-loading optical drive means no more broken trays or non-closing tray latches. The overall design is pleasing in its minimalism: just a white slab with a keyboard and a power button, and no superfluous switches, latches, or protrusions. The power brick is a bricklet, the smallest power supply you'll find short of an integrated PSU, and it comes with pop-out hooks to wind up your power cord. The latch is magnetic, so the MacBook opens like a cell phone, with no mechanical latches that can break or stick.

Apple sells a blue zillion of these for a reason: they are extremely well designed laptops, mature technology that improves on the already great and proven iBook that preceded them. They're also durable, tough, easy on the eyes, and easy to upgrade, including hard drive replacement. (The iBook needed to be pulled apart almost to the last screw to replace the HD, while the MacBook HD sits under a hatch below the battery compartment, user-swappable in five minutes.)

Overall, I think the MacBook will be regarded as one of the best Apple portables of all time. There's simply nothing else on the market that offers the same synergy of size, power, battery life, durability, build quality, and ease of use.

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