Review: MacBook (Early 2009, Black Sheep Edition) MB881LL/A

We’re one of the few sites willing to review the first black sheep of the Mac portable line, in the past decade.

First, you might ask why this system is the black sheep of the Mac family? Good question. Apple basically took the new precision aluminum unibody MacBook, and shoved it back into the white scratch-prone casing. Apple did this because they want to continue offering a low-cost MacBook, much like the Mac mini. It’s a compromise, one which Apple hopes will pressure you into the aluminum-grade price point. In fact, if you go to Apple’s MacBook web site, this system isn’t even mentioned.

Clearly, there is one reason why Apple made this upgrade, and that’s Snow Leopard. Apple wants all shipping Macs to support OpenCL graphics computing abilities once Snow Leopard ships. It’s not clear why, but we suspect Apple plans to announce apps that depend on OpenCL during Snow Leopard’s timeline (which, in turn, will spur new Mac sales). And, that meant that the lowest-end MacBook had to make the jump to GeForce 9400M graphics as well.

So, now we’ve established that the scratch prone white MacBook is purely a sales tactic, does that make it a good system? Well, actually, yes. There are a few reasons why it makes sense to buy this system, instead of the aluminum MacBook.

First up, is the fact that it has FireWire. Apple didn’t completely wipe FireWire off the face of the Earth with the last revision of the MacBook. It still exists on one system. This makes it a great choice for schools, where students might decide that wiping the hard drive is a great thing to do between classes. FireWire Target Disk Mode (TDM) is still dramatically faster than pulling out the hard drive.

Next, is the fact that it has DDR2 memory, instead of DDR3. That means that you can cheaply max out the RAM in this system. DDR3 may yield modest performance gains, but not compared to when you are able to max out the memory… at a fraction of the price. You basically get more performance bang for your buck, even if a similarly-maxed-out DDR3 MacBook would wind up being faster.

Finally, you still have a tactile trackpad button. While some consider this a feature of the new MacBooks, others like having the physical button… especially those who engage in mobile gaming. And, with the GeForce 9400M, that is much more possible than the depressingly-slow Intel GMA X3100.

That all said, this system still has the chronic drawbacks that the white MacBook always had. It has the iPod-scratch-prone plastics. It has the weak MacBook plastics. Did we mention the plastics on this thing are awful? We’ve suffered with these MacBooks in the past, and everything from this one indicates that they’ll have the same problems down the road (wearing out-wise). There’s really nothing new here.

It’s a tough call, one we’re glad we don’t have to make. (You really think we’re buying new Macs at MechaWorks in this economy? No, we’ve AppleCare’d ours, and added our credit card’s one year extended warranty on top of that).

On one hand, you have an aluminum MacBook that has the best casing in the industry. On the other hand, you have the FireWire and cheaper RAM that you’ve come to love from Apple.

And, that leaves us scratching our heads about this one. In this economy, we have to say that this system wins out over the Aluminum MacBook. But, you do have to buy it knowing that, at least for hardcore users, it will likely have to head to AppleCare’s depot at some point for a new top case.

In closing, Apple did some other nice things. For example, the system now comes with a SuperDrive standard… no more DVD-burning-less Combo drives in the MacBook family. The 120 GB hard drive is nice, but it will be well worth the extra $100 to do it yourself and buy a Seagate 500 GB hard drive.

Minor update: Since writing this article, Apple did add a product page for this MacBook, which they officially now call MacBook White. However, the page is only linked in Apple’s full product link area, it still isn’t referenced directly in the MacBook description or specifications.

Pros: Performance similar to aluminum MacBook, cheap, FireWire.
Cons: Carries over past white MacBook problems, poor casing.
Final Score: 4/5

Bonus points: Guess in the comments which system at Apple was the last to be considered the black sheep of the Apple portables family? Hint: The two are very close cousins.