Editorial

Posted on 3 Nov 2008 at 17:50

 

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The new MacBooks look great and perform admirably, but I won't be replacing my ageing white MacBook just yet, it still works perfectly well.

Suddenly my MacBook looks old. Just like my iPhone did the day the 3G edition appeared. It's white, it's grubby, it's plastic and it looks like the interim stopgap it clearly always was.

But you know what? I don't care.

The new MacBook is a thing of beauty, you can't deny it. It's taken the best of the iMac and shrunk it down into a notebook format, upped the spec and dropped the trackpad button. The result is sturdy, attractive and very, very tempting. On a less emotional level it turns in some impressive results, too, as you can see from our full review.

Now I'm not going to put you off buying one (and if you do, use an independent reseller, not the Apple Store - you can find a list of dealers starting on page 76) but if you're checking your statements, watching the news and being scared witless every time BBC business editor Robert Peston pops up on TV (a dalek reaction for grown ups) then don't be ashamed to stick with what you've got.

Macs, as we've often said, have remarkable staying power, and the fact that you're using old, technologically outdated kit is testament to Apple's brilliance. While every 'improvement' to Windows seems to require that you upgrade or replace your existing machine, Apple has always striven to maintain backwards compatibility for machines five or more years old.

My iBook (RIP) lasted six years, two trips to the repair shop and four operating system upgrades. Keith Martin, MacUser's tech ed, kept his Pismo running for at least that long, and both of us used these ageing machines as our primary working tools at the office, on the train and at home.

Admirable, isn't it. While rival products might feature built-in obsolescence, Apple's notebooks just go on and on, and its balance sheet is none the poorer for it. The company's focus on quality, durability and staying power has paid off, with its latest set of results, which are nothing less than stellar, showing its cash reserves outranking even Microsoft, despite the latter's far larger market presence.

So while the new MacBook is now firmly installed on my Wishlist - and near the top of it, too - I suspect it'll be staying there for a good long while. My white MacBook may be ageing and grubby, but there's a lot of life left in her yet.

Author: Nik Rawlinson