Mac Complainer » MacBook

New Apple Macbook and Macbook Pro now Out

Mac Boy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:44:18 +0000

Spotted on several sites in the Philippines, the new series of Macbooks and Macbook Pros are now available locally. See photos, specs and price below.

13-inch MacBook
* 2.0 GHZ – 2.4GHz
* Intel Core 2 Duo
* 160GB – 250GB HDD
* 2GB DDR3 RAM
* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics

Macbook 2.0Ghz (MB466) – Php 69,990
Macbook 2.4Ghz (MB467) – Php 84,990

Apple has upgraded the new Macbook Pro with a new casing and some feature improvements as well.

15-inch Macbook Pro

* 2.4GHz – 2.53GHz
* Intel Core 2 Duo
* 2GB – 4GB Memory
* 250GB – 320GB HDD
* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB

Macbook Pro 2.4GHz (MB470) – Php 101,990
Macbook Pro 2.53GHz (MB471) – Php 125,990

The new Macbook Air was also upgraded to 120GB HDD for the same old price.

Upgraded MacBook and MacBook Pro

BrianB — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:37:11 +0000

The Core 2 Duo Penryn MacBook Pro with gesture pad (multi-touch trackpad) is now out. These are 2.5Ghz and 2.6Ghz options with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB of GDDR3 RAM. This new configuration is supposed to give you 50% more processing speed. Quite the upgrade. Apple had added an LED option only for 17-inch MBP.

The MacBooks have also been upgraded with the lowest end now having 2.1Ghz of processing speed and 120GB of HD space.

If you’re scheduled to get a new MacBook this is definitely good news, especially since the base prices have not changed (with one exception, which I will mention later), but for those people who’ve bought MacBooks recently, this news stings. My own MacBook looks a little runty now specs-wise, and I was never happy with it to begin with.

To equalize things a little bit, if you buy a MacBook or an MBP now, Apple Remote does not come with the basic package. You can only take it home for an additional $19. Looks like Apple has adjusted their business model yet again.

To learn more, visit Apple

MacBook Users are Snobs

BrianB — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:02:10 +0000

According to Mindset Media, which surveyed 7500 Mac and PC users, MacBook owners tend to be, well, more self-involved than their PC counterparts. Mac users, according to the survey, tend to buy five sneakers a year, use teeth whitening products, go to Starbucks, pay for music they download, drive a hybrid and care about a Earth. Don’t believe it? Watch the video for yourself.

MacBook Scratchy or Buzzing Noise

BrianB — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:54:27 +0000

I hear it whenever I stop writing. I am in a quite room. Obviously I m typing this right now on the keyboard, so I do not hear the scratchy vinyl sound, the sound the we are all familiar with in movies depicting life decades ago, life before the iPod, before digital music, when vinyl was synonymous to good music, hell was music itself. I can locate this noise: it’s on the left side of the keyboard. I put my ear down to the area. It is below the letter Q and W, I think. or higher, perhaps below the number 2 and the function key F2. With my ear on it like that, it isn’t scratchy noise anymore but a sort of insect buzz. What is this noise? The fan? Not unless it needs oiling. The processor? You hear the same sounds in your MacBook?

MacBook Pro Gives Birth to MacBook Air

BrianB — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 16:41:16 +0000

Just how thin is the MacBook Air?

Like a giant clam giving birth to the goddess oflove, Venus, the MacBook Pro takes the MacBook Air into its womb.

More pictures here.

Pre-Ordered MacBook Air Arrives

BrianB — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:33:19 +0000

MacBook Air is now available, and for people who have pre-ordered theirs, you might be using it now reading this post. The video above is from a regular person with regular desires. Obviously, for him the MacBook Air’s form factor is worth the $1799 price tag for him. For walk-in buyers, the MacBook Air may be a little scarce as some have reported.

Now for the problems. We won’t bother you with what have been obvious in early MBA reviews. Early adopters are already starting to notice jitters in the MBA’s design: MacBooks Air’s WiFi may have trouble connecting to 802.11n routers in “draft.” It could interfere with devices using 2.4GHz spectrum, so users may be forced to upgrade to new routers supporting 5GHz. MBA’s iSight may be a little unstable. One solution is to update Quicktime to version 7.4. Heat problems are back with a vengeance in Apple notebooks. You may experience spontaneous or, God forbid, random shutdowns when using MacBook Air for long periods. The MacBook Air deals with heating problems in other ways: one of them is shutting down one core and slowing down the clock rate of another. And oh, the head phone jack is recessed. Not all headphones will fit.

Via

Mac bag for MacBook Air

BrianB — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:53:46 +0000

The Mac bag from Studio Leung is the most useless notebook bag I’ve ever seen. If you know Studio Leung you’ll understand why they made this bag. I mean, if you do understand the idea behind the Mac bag, a bag so sparse in space you couldn’t even fit a Manila folder in with your Macbook Air, you could tell me the idea behind the 2nd pillow case, a T-shirt which doubles as a pillowcase for guest (only the homeless will overstay their welcome with your odor stinking up your guest’s dreams).

Mac bag measures 34.5 x 24.7 x 22 mm and is made up of water-resistant waxed cotton and and felt lining. Also fastens like AirMail. No price has been announced.

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product via core77

MacBook Air Forum Getting Busy

BrianB — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:51:27 +0000

Apple.com has launched a support page for the MacBook Air. There’s a usage guide (PDF), a guided tour and a forum. The forum has been pretty busy even with MBA still on pre-order status. There are currently 2,352 messages and 297 topic threads. Pretty amazing for something that hasn’t reached consumer hands yet. This is logical for a notebook that is so different from all others before it. A smart user will need to know everything he possibly can before shelling out $1799 for a notebook with no optical drive and a slow-poke hard disk. You learn, for example, that the MacBook Air speakers are located below the keyboard. Wow! One revelation that warrants a separate post is the time it takes to recharge the MBA battery to full capacity… 8.5 hours! My God!

Readers: want to post a complaint at Mac Complainer? Register here. We’ll publish almost anything, you’ll see. You can also message me via the comments section.

MBA forum

British “Get a Mac” Commercial Delineates Apple

BrianB — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:55:23 +0000

Charlie Brooker of The Guardian makes a very interesting point about the MacBook commercials playing for the UK audience. The UK version is similar to the US version but swap Justin Long and John Hodgman with David Mitchell and Robert Webb of the “Peep Show.” Brooker finds the choice of Webb (Mac) and Mitchell (PC) very odd:

The ads are adapted from a near-identical American campaign – the only difference is the use of Mitchell and Webb. They are a logical choice in one sense (everyone likes them), but a curious choice in another, since they are best known for the television series Peep Show – probably the best sitcom of the past five years – in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, “PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers.” In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign.

And Brooker ads: “I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don’t use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.”

Here’s the rest of his article.

Smallest Laptop: MacBook Paper

BrianB — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:08:54 +0000

The MacBook Air parody keeps rolling. Here’s what I like to call, the Nanofication of everything Apple… enjoy.

Via