Apple 2.26GHz 13in MacBook Pro review

Apple's 13in MacBook Pro is a revised version of the company's previous 13in MacBook.

Despite the rigid metal enclosure, the MacBook weighs just 2kg. It lasted an astonishing eight hours and 22 minutes in our battery test, one of the longest times we've seen for a laptop. Sadly, though, the sealed battery isn't user-replaceable.

We were impressed with the brightness of the 13.3in widescreen displays and its accurate, vivid colours, although narrow viewing angles mean colour accuracy can suffer if you're not looking squarely at the screen. Although the glossy finish is reflective, it's not as distracting as other displays we've seen. If you want to use an external display, you'll have to buy a £20 VGA or DVI adaptor for the Mini DisplayPort connector, since none is included in the box.

The illuminated keyboard can automatically adjust its brightness depending on your surroundings. The keys are large, apart from the slightly undersized Enter key, and comfortable to type on. The accurate and responsive touchpad is huge and supports multitouch gestures, although most can only be used with Mac OS X. We suspect this is due to Apple's poor Windows drivers. The buttons are built into the touchpad; using them feels odd at first, but quickly becomes second nature.

It performed well in our Windows tests, but the integrated Nvidia graphics chip isn't up to playing the latest 3D games. The 160GB hard disk is astonishingly stingy for a laptop at this price. Fitting a larger internal disk is easy, or you can add a USB or FireWire 800 disk. There's no ExpressCard support, but the SD card slot is a first for an Apple laptop. The power adaptor connects magnetically so it breaks away harmlessly when knocked.

Apple's MacBook Pro is a well-designed ultra-portable, as long as you're happy using MacOS X. If you prefer Windows, Acer's Aspire 3810T is not as well designed as the MacBook, but it's cheaper and has even better battery life.

Author: Alan Lu & Barry de la Rosa