Apple MacBook review

In a field of overwhelming laptop sameness, Apple’s MacBook has long been destined to become an enduring style icon. But, with the birth of the aluminium framed MacBook Pro range, the creaky, old plastic MacBook was shown up somewhat – what it needed was reconstructive surgery of its own. Right on cue, meet the new MacBook, now with modern styling.

Imagine the MacBook Pro 13 finished in classic, Apple white, and that’s pretty much what this new model looks like. Apple has taken its unibody design concept from the original, and simply hewn this machine from a slab of polycarbonate rather than the rather pricier aircraft-grade aluminium.

It’s a transformation that isn’t just about looks. Build quality took a massive leap forward with the Pro range, leaving the old MacBook feeling creaky and insubstantial by comparison. Manhandling the new MacBook sees the lid flex slightly, but the chassis feels taut, sturdy and resilient, if not quite up to the aluminium standard. The rubber base is a nice touch, too, and stops it getting too toasty on a lap or sliding around on a desk.

In fact, the only issue is that the finish could be a bit better. The polycarbonate scratches easily, and both the off-white rubber base and glossy white shell quickly began to look grubby after a couple of days' use. And, if you’re a real stickler for details, flip the MacBook upside down and take a close look at where the rubber base meets the chassis – the erratic seam along the edge looks decidedly less professional.

Surprisingly, given that polycarbonate shell, it’s a touch heavier than its siblings, too – 2.11kg on its own, or 2.52kg with the power supply. Unsurprisingly, the lithium polymer battery is still non-removable, but you can probably leave that power brick at home: it lasted an impressive 5hrs 58mins of light use in Windows 7.

Curiously, just as we found with the MacBook Pro 13, battery life improves significantly under OS X Leopard, with the MacBook lasting just short of nine hours. The likely culprit is Apple’s Boot Camp driver set, which doesn’t allow Windows 7 to take advantage of nifty power saving features such as screen dimming. It also gave us some bizarre sound issues, such as disappearing drivers and strangely muffled audio. In its defence, Windows 7 isn’t officially supported by Boot Camp yet, so we can't be too critical of driver performance – and Windows Update couldn't find any better drivers to solve the issue. Apple promises full support at some point before the end of this year.