The Black MacBook: The Best Laptop Ever?

T3 UK thinks the black MacBook may be the best laptop yet. Yes, there are more powerful and better spec’d models in the Mac laptop line (and perhaps other brands), but the blackbook trumps the others in terms of size, functionality and even price. Consider the price jump from the black MacBook to the lowest-spec’d MacBook Pro (a $500 difference), and that the Pro is significantly larger in terms of width and height, then the MacBook might just hit the sweet spot.

OK, that this costs £130 more than the next model down – a white ’Book with an identical spec apart from a 20GB smaller hard drive – is ridiculous. But when has buying an Apple ever been about logic?

Most non-high-end users will find this does everything the MacBook Pro range does for far less. Adobe’s software (Photoshop et al) may run a bit clunkily (until Adobe optimises it for Intel’s processors), and Macs are never much cop for TV-viewing (no built-in tuner) or gaming (er, no games), but who cares? There’s nothing better than a Mac for organising your digital life, and there’s never been a better time to buy a Mac.

One major area where the MacBook is lacking is in graphics, since it uses an integrated Intel 945-based chipset, while the MacBook Pro uses a discrete ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card. This means you cannot expect to get good performance on 3D and high-end games. Still, if you’d rather spend your time on your mac on productivity applications and work, then the MacBook’s lack of discrete graphics won’t be much of an issue.

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