Apple's White MacBook Goes Unibody Too

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Apple MacBook Pros introduced in late 2008 with their unibody aluminum design was something new, effective and innovative (which is influencing PC design too).

Of course, those who didn't want to spend more than $1,000 on a notebook couldn't have one, since they were all past that mark. And if you wanted a MacBook for under $1,000 ($999, to be exact), you couldn't have the unibody design. But starting today, you can.

Apple today, without any iFanfare or iFireworks, updated its popular MacBook with a new polycarbonate unibody design. That's right, Apple has taken its metal unibody and turned it into plastic.

Catching up with the rest of the family, the new MacBook gets a glass multitouch trackpad and the 7-hour built-in battery.

“The new MacBook includes many of the great features found on the innovative MacBook Pro, such as an LED-backlit display, glass Multi-Touch trackpad and built-in long-life battery,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With the only lineup of notebooks all featuring unibody enclosures, LED-backlit displays and long-life battery technology, there’s never been a better time to switch to a Mac.”

The new design includes a unique non-skid bottom surface and weighs 4.7 pounds, which is 0.2 pounds heavier than the MacBook Pro 13-inch.

Perhaps best of all, however, is that the new MacBook does not inherit the MacBook Pro line's ultra reflective glass screen covering.

The full specs for the new MacBook at $999 includes:

• 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;
• 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
• 1066 MHz front-side bus;
• 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
• 250 GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• a slot-load 8X SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
• built-in AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• Gigabit Ethernet port;
• built-in iSight® video camera;
• two USB 2.0 ports;
• one audio line in/out port, supporting optical digital out and analog in/out;
• glass Multi-Touch trackpad;
• built-in, 60WHr lithium polymer battery; and
• 60 Watt MagSafe® Power Adapter.