New MacBook
On Thursday, April 3, I received my new MacBook. I
sold my old one to a good friend and I bought myself
a refurbished MacBook. The Specs are as follows:
It's not the newest MacBook but it was sure quite an upgrade from my old 2.0 GHz Core Duo MacBook. All in all, I am very happy with my new machine, and I'm very happy with the condition that I received it in.
When I ordered refurbished I expected my new MacBook to look slightly used with a few scratches. Imagine my surprise when I took my new MacBook out of the sleeve it was in and saw that it looked practically new! I was very happy with that and I'll definitely buy all of my Macs refurbished for now on. Another plus to buying refurbished (besides the price) is that you don't feel obligated to keep the beautiful packaging that Apple is known for. Refurbished products are just shipped in a plain brown cardboard box so there's nothing pretty to keep.
Now for some things that are different from my old MacBook:
The most noticeable difference is the new keyboard layout. It's the same layout that Apple is using on their new desktop keyboards. When I first saw it introduced I hated it, but I am now beginning to like it after using it for only a few days.
Let's start off with the function keys: I really like having the volume control keys on the left. Because of the volume keys being on the left, they are a lot easier to find in the dark. The new media keys aren't too bad either, but they weren't anything I was missing because I had been using programs like CoverSutra that would let me set system wide hot-keys for iTunes. Also, the media keys only seem to work with iTunes which can be seen as either a feature or a bug. Another change is how the text is printed on the function keys. Functions such as adjusting brightness and volume are now centered on the key and the F1, F2, F3, and so on are now in a small type in the bottom right. The escape key text is also centered and something (I still can't figure out what) is different with the eject key. Those last two changes drove me nuts.
Another difference between the two keyboards is that Apple has done away with the useless num lock function. I never used it and not having the numbers printed along with the letters on the right half of the keyboard makes it look a lot cleaner.
Now for the modifier keys: The (Apple logo) is no longer present on the command key. It just says 'command' and has the Swedish Campground Symbol. This change saddens me dearly, but it can be seen as good for the new Mac Users. Especially when you tell them to press 'Command so-and-so' and they ask "What's the 'command' key?" Also the 'enter' key next to the right 'command' key has been changed to an 'option' key which is very nice because that 'enter' key was quite useless. The 'control' key is now completely spelled out instead of just saying 'ctrl'. It sure did take me a while to get used to that change.
Finally, the arrow keys: They no longer say 'page up', 'page down', 'home', or 'end' on them, making for a much cleaner look while still performing the same task.
The second thing I noticed was that the fan grill is designed differently. The fan grill used to be very busy and actually looked quite nice with all of the vertical bars. Now the fan grill is more sparse, and I assume Apple made this design change to improve airflow and cooling.
The third thing I noticed is that the iSight is no longer centered vertically in the bezel above the screen and it seems to be a bit smaller. I'm curious to why Apple made that change.
That's it as far as changes I've noticed. Check out some unboxing pics to hopefully clear up what I was talking about.
- 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
- Intel X3100 GMA graphics
- DL SuperDrive
- 1 GB of RAM (soon to be 2GB)
- 120 GB hard drive
It's not the newest MacBook but it was sure quite an upgrade from my old 2.0 GHz Core Duo MacBook. All in all, I am very happy with my new machine, and I'm very happy with the condition that I received it in.
When I ordered refurbished I expected my new MacBook to look slightly used with a few scratches. Imagine my surprise when I took my new MacBook out of the sleeve it was in and saw that it looked practically new! I was very happy with that and I'll definitely buy all of my Macs refurbished for now on. Another plus to buying refurbished (besides the price) is that you don't feel obligated to keep the beautiful packaging that Apple is known for. Refurbished products are just shipped in a plain brown cardboard box so there's nothing pretty to keep.
Now for some things that are different from my old MacBook:
The most noticeable difference is the new keyboard layout. It's the same layout that Apple is using on their new desktop keyboards. When I first saw it introduced I hated it, but I am now beginning to like it after using it for only a few days.
Let's start off with the function keys: I really like having the volume control keys on the left. Because of the volume keys being on the left, they are a lot easier to find in the dark. The new media keys aren't too bad either, but they weren't anything I was missing because I had been using programs like CoverSutra that would let me set system wide hot-keys for iTunes. Also, the media keys only seem to work with iTunes which can be seen as either a feature or a bug. Another change is how the text is printed on the function keys. Functions such as adjusting brightness and volume are now centered on the key and the F1, F2, F3, and so on are now in a small type in the bottom right. The escape key text is also centered and something (I still can't figure out what) is different with the eject key. Those last two changes drove me nuts.
Another difference between the two keyboards is that Apple has done away with the useless num lock function. I never used it and not having the numbers printed along with the letters on the right half of the keyboard makes it look a lot cleaner.
Now for the modifier keys: The (Apple logo) is no longer present on the command key. It just says 'command' and has the Swedish Campground Symbol. This change saddens me dearly, but it can be seen as good for the new Mac Users. Especially when you tell them to press 'Command so-and-so' and they ask "What's the 'command' key?" Also the 'enter' key next to the right 'command' key has been changed to an 'option' key which is very nice because that 'enter' key was quite useless. The 'control' key is now completely spelled out instead of just saying 'ctrl'. It sure did take me a while to get used to that change.
Finally, the arrow keys: They no longer say 'page up', 'page down', 'home', or 'end' on them, making for a much cleaner look while still performing the same task.
The second thing I noticed was that the fan grill is designed differently. The fan grill used to be very busy and actually looked quite nice with all of the vertical bars. Now the fan grill is more sparse, and I assume Apple made this design change to improve airflow and cooling.
The third thing I noticed is that the iSight is no longer centered vertically in the bezel above the screen and it seems to be a bit smaller. I'm curious to why Apple made that change.
That's it as far as changes I've noticed. Check out some unboxing pics to hopefully clear up what I was talking about.