News for Friday, 19 May 2006

Mitsunobu Tanaka from Kodawarisan lets us know he put online a complete step by step showing how to dismantle a MacBook.
As compared to an iBook, this is incredibly more simple and it looks much more like a Powerbook.

Here's a pic of the motherboard, which is really very tiny and close to that of an iBook. Let's say that for Apple, we don't know how they could have added a dedicated GPU on such a small thing.
http://www.kodawarisan.com
Apple still recommends using much thermal paste as shown on the pic underneath. We found a name for this issue : the whipped cream syndrome :)

As usual after every new hardware introduction, Ars Technica make a review about the new product; no exception for the MacBook.
The glossy screen was reported as annoying under certain circumstances (depending on lighting), and the high operating temperature syndrome well known by the MBPro users is also present in the MacBook.
As expected with a GMA950-based MacBook, it is not a game-dedicated machine, however, one can use it to play games, except 3D games such as Doom3, Quake4, etc...
In almost all test, the MacBook is much faster than the iBookG4; and Ars gives it a 9/10.
Link to the article: Ars Technica

According to Digitimes, Intel has planned to modify the price list of its Core Duo processors on May, 28th.
The 2.16GHz model will feature the strongest decrease in price, from US$637 to US$423/CPU; then:
- 2.0GHz: US$423 to US$294.
- 1.83GHz: US$294 to US$241.
- 1.66GHz: this model will simply disappear (EOL) and be replaced by the Low Power Consumption model also clocked at 1.66GHz and US$32 cheaper.
Those price are expressed per CPU for 1000 CPU orders; Apple is of course paying much less.
This is good news for users who will buy/have bought a Mac mini Core Solo; the CPU upgrade will be cheaper.

After first benchmark yesterday, MacWorld has placed a video on-line illustrating how to access RAM modules and the SATA HD in the MacBook.
You will only need to remove 3 screws to change the HD.
This is definitively a huge improvement, and the new MacBook is now very easy to disassemble compare to the previous iBook or PB12"



MacWorld news.

Apple Insider has published photo of the glass-made Cube marking the entrance of the Apple Store located on the 5th Avenue.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1759
It is a nice architectural project.
The website Ifostore has posted a video showing the removal of the black curtain that was covering the Cube before the inaugural event.