Oooh, new MacBook!

Kenneth Hynek • 21st Oct 2008 • The Sciences, Computers
Apple, GeForce 9400M, iMac, Intel, MacBook, NVIDIA

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The new Apple MacBooks are out, and boy do they look snazzy:link-icon:. It’s nice to see that the aluminium finish, previously the exclusive domain of the higher-end Mac laptops, has now made it down to the base models, giving them a very professional, sleek look. The black finish around the screen, obviously cribbed from the iMac models released a while back, is icing on the cake. And the specs are decent as well — even the lower-end model ships with an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card, which is a fairly powerful unit in and of itself; the other systems specs are also quite generous. Indeed, I think it’s the first time I’ve ever felt that a laptop, taken “as is” from the company’s web store, was adequately specced.

But really, it’s all in the graphics for me: what had previously deterred me from even looking at MacBooks was the fact that their graphics cards were just the integrated Intel graphics chips, which simply wouldn’t have had the horsepower I need. I’m not deluded into thinking that a mobile graphics card is going to make for the most amazing 3D experience evar!!!!One!1!!, but the jump to a higher-end nVidia chipset is still a welcome move, and adds some much-needed punch back into what was, otherwise, a great package.