Macintosh buying guide

Macworld - 'Tis the season to do some shopping, and if you've added a new Macintosh to you shopping list, you've picked a great time to buy one. Apple's current lineup features a nice variety of Macs that offer great value.

But with all that Apple has to offer, it's understandable if it's unclear as to which Mac you should buy. MacBook or MacBook Pro? 21.5-inch iMac or 27-inch iMac? We've tested them all (well, almost all of them; we just got the new 27-inch 2.66GHz Core i5 iMac and we're testing it right now), and we're here to help.

MacBook

It may not seem obvious when you look at the MacBook, but it has undergone a dramatic change. The new MacBook, released in October, still has a polycarbonate plastic like its predecessor released in June, but the new MacBook features a unibody design. The result is a MacBook body that's lighter, more durable and has fewer parts.

One drastic change with the MacBook is that it now has a non-removable battery. Apple says that a battery should last between 3.5 and 7 hours, depending on the type of tasks you're doing. Other improvements over its predecessor include a glass Multi-Touch trackpad with gesture support, and a LED backlit display.

The major missing feature in the MacBook is FireWire. The MacBook doesn't have either a FireWire 400 or FireWire 800 port. Connecting peripherals is done through one of the two USB 2.0 ports. The MacBook also doesn't have an IR port for the Apple Remote, but you can use an iPhone or iPod touch with a remote app over Wi-Fi.

Configurations: There's only one configuration of the MacBook available. For $999, you get a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 250GB hard drive, a 8X SuperDrive, and the Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics system, which uses 256MB of main memory for video.

Performance: The new MacBook provides a significant boost over its predecessor, thanks to the faster processor (2.26GHz in the new, 2.13GHz in the old) and a boost in RAM speed (100MHz in the new, 800MHz in the old). Compared to the 13-inch 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, the new MacBook was as fast or faster in many of our benchmark tests.

Macworld's buying advice: The MacBook is a very popular machine, offering a great combination of price and performance. The battery life was very good, and the new unibody design is a nice upgrade. The MacBook is a terrific machine for most people, but if you need FireWire in a laptop, you'll have to consider a MacBook Pro.