mistsy's Full Review: Apple MacBook 13.1 in. (MA255LL/A) Mac Notebook
This machine is quite nice and now that it is a little "old", it's much cheaper on the after-market.
I won't compare the vitures of PC to Mac, but I will compare the features. You have a paltry 2 USB slots that are so close together that is difficult to actually plug more than one thing in at a time. No matter - you can always buy a cheap USB hub.
The screen is very small and it's difficult to navigate to all the places you might have to go to to render the type big enough for any pushing 35 years old or more. I often find myself leaning in to see all the tiny type. The small screen also makes it difficult to view pictures or video at a decent size. That, and the "dock" (the place that holds the programs) eats up considerable screen real estate unless you set it on auto-hide.
I like the battery life. I never seen to wind up too low on that, no matter how much I use it. The power cord magnetically attaches to the machine so it won't break off if you trip on the wire or something like that - it will simply disconnect.
The keyboard is sufficient but lacks a forward delete key. The one-button touchpad is not to my liking as you get more functionality with right-click ability. Solve that by buying a USB mouse and you can right-click happily all day.
The machine comes in white, which is a terrible color for something you touch all day. It quickly becomes dirty and cannot be cleaned because the machine is so darned fragile. I wiped some of the dirty keys with a windex-like cleaner and the keyboard failed.
That brings me to service - yikes. You buy these things new either online or in-person at the Euro-trendy Apple Store where they don't have "real" people to help you - the have "greeters" of some kind and then "gurus" and "geniuses". And you can't just waltz in and see a "genius" at the "Genius Bar". You have to make an appointment usually several days in advance and you have to pay for it.
After spending so much money on this little machine whose type is so small, I expected better service - after all, you can get a cheap pc for half (or less) of the price making paying for a "genius" much less gaulling.
Then come all the other little expenses. You have to buy Office if you want to be compatible with the rest of the world. You're out about $100-150 here. (Yes, you could use OpenOffice for free, but that's clunky.)
You may need to buy some kind of emulator so you can run Windows software if you use some kind of software that doesn't have a Mac version. (This isn't too common, but it does happen.) If that's the case, you're out $70 for the emulator software, and another $200 for Vista or XP or whatever Windows OS you need.
You'll probably want a "skin", too, which is a cheapish piece of plastic that will cover and protect that ever-so-fragile keyboard. That's another $20. You may want a plastic case, but I think you really could do without it but many people buy then for about $20 for more cheap plastic.
If you travel, you'll probably like the adapters that fit on the power cord and are special to Mac. Think $35 for those.
That should just about do it but I hope you're getting the picture here that this is a very expensive laptop and gets pricier and pricier as you add things that are rather cheap on the pc side. That being said, some of the auction sites will offer a lot of these items pretty darned cheap.
The memory on this machine is small but Mac doesn't have all those background things running so it's more than sufficient. The fact that it can run Windows is awesome.
I think if I had this purchase to do over again, I'd still go with Mac, but I think I'd prefer the iMac accompanied by an iPod touch for travel. I'd be out a couple of hundred more, but I think it's worth it.
This machine is just OK. I expected a whole lot more given the higher cost vs a similar pc laptop.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 1100 Operating System: Macintosh Processor: Don''t Know Processor speed: Don''t Know Screen Size: 13 inches RAM: 256 Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Powered by the Intel Core Duo, built from ultra tough polycarbonate, just 1.08 inches thin Mac Book combines performance and portability like never be...More at eBay
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