Notebook Hunter

Apple MacBooks don’t often go on special, and for $1199 the MacBook 13 is a special worth taking a very close look at. The key thing here is that it has the unique style and excellent software that Apple gets its reputation for; if you’re looking for pure functionality, you’ll probably feel that the premium isn’t worth paying.

For the rest of you, as the latest iteration of the MacBook 13 the specs here are solid. The Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 isn’t as fast as the Intel Core i3 processors, but it’s still one of the faster processors available. There’s also 2GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor, which is only a basic graphics chip that shares memory with the main system, but is still able to play older games at basic settings. It's more than adequate to play back high definition movies smoothly.

The 250GB hard drive is a bit small, and the 13.3in (1280x800 resolution) screen could have easily been a higher resolution. However, in typical Apple style, the 2.14kg weight is definitely light, and 330.3mm width, 231.7mm depth, and 27.4mm thickness add up to a distinctly svelte notebook. It’s a well rounded notebook at a slight discount off the normal price, so buy it knowing you’ll be getting lots of joy out of it.

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