Hands On with the $1,199 13-Inch MacBook Pro

Last summer, I bought the second-tier white plastic MacBook (at the time, $1,299). The new 13-inch MacBook Pro (newly rebranded now that it’s design matches its 15- and 17-inch siblings) is the Mac I wish I had. Not only did Apple shave $100 off the price and refresh the specs; it also added a more colorful display and SD card slot, and its battery, now non-removable, promises up to 7 hours of battery life. Like the MacBooks released last fall, it has a sexy aluminum design and huge multi-touch trackpad, but this one also has the 17-inch MBP’s durable Unibody construction (that is to say, it’s made from a single, seamless piece of metal). Needless to say, I was excited to see the 13-inch MBP arrive at our office bright and early the morning after Schiller and Co.’s epic keynote. We’re in the process of benchmarking it and completely putting it through its paces, but for now, here are my first impressions. Same Design– Almost At first glance, the 13-inch MBP looks like last fall’s MacBook. Aluminum chassis? Check. Soft black island keyboard? Check. Large multi-touch gesture-enabled trackpad? Check. Edge-to-edge 13.3-inch display? You get the idea. Although the Unibody design makes the notebook more durable, it’s weight (4.5 pounds) and dimensions (12.8 x 8.9 x 1.0 inches) remain the same. Because the lid is so thin (or, perhaps, because we’ve lately spent a lot of time with ultra-thin laptops) we expected it to weigh less in the hands. That said, 4.5 pounds is totally reasonable for a 13-inch notebook, not to mention lighter than the white MacBook, which weighs 5 pounds, flat. Other than the Unibody construction, the biggest design change is the addition of an SD card slot, an addition I’m happy about, but also loathe to praise Apple for too much, since they should have done it long ago. The other ports, as before, include 2 USB 2.0 ports, a Mini DisplayPort, headphone and mic ports, an Ethernet jack, and a FireWire 800 port. You’ll  have to upgrade to the 17-inch MBP ($2,499) to get 3 USB 2.0 ports and an ExpressCard slot. There’s also a slot-loading DVD burner and Apple’s excellent iSight webcam (complete with its Photo Booth application, which is built into Leopard). Keyboard and Trackpad As always, the island keyboard has a soft finish, and makes little sound while you type. While the keyboard on, say, the 17-inch MBP might be too large for some hands (and also too recessed) the 13-inch’s keyboard is comfortably placed. It’s also backlit with an ambient light sensor, which comes in handy in low-light environments. The touchpad remains one giant button that doubles as both the trackpad and the touch button.It’s not the smoothest we’ve ever tested, but nevertheless the friction is still slight enough that it shouldn’t be a problem. In the past, we’ve found the button to be a bit stiff, with a slight learning curve to match. By now, Apple’s gotten the design right: we were able to effortlessly press down on the button without thinking about the fact that there’s no dedicated touch button (never mind two). The multi-touch gestures work smoothly. By pushing four of our fingers toward the top of the touchpad, we were able to fling windows toward the top of the screen, exposing a clean desktop. When we used two fingers to zoom in and out of pages in Safari 4 (fresh out of beta, and a new, Cover Flow-tastic addition to the Leopard OS), the onscreen response was very quick, and only slightly jerky. Display and Audio The 13.3-inch (1280 x 800) LED-backlit display, like the others in the refreshed MacBook Pro line, has a 60 percent increase in color gamut. In short, the screen sure is pretty. It’s bright, and the colors popped, while blacks appeared as rich shadows. By default the screen goes dim very quickly when unplugged; surely, that helps users achieve such long battery life (we haven’t tested that yet, but we’ll include our battery test scores in the full review). Unfortunately, when we watched a bit of Mad Men, the glossy screen limited our viewing angles from both the sides, and from the front when we dipped the lid forward. On the plus side, though, the speakers are plenty loud (we opted to keep the volume set to just three or four bars out of 16. As for the sound quality, it didn’t get distorted at high volumes, and it was far richer, and less tinny, than what we’re used to hearing from 13-inch notebooks. Specs Our $1,199 configuration has a 2.26-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a 73-watt Lithium-polymer battery. We’ll include plenty of benchmark scores in our full review. Stay tuned. An Early Verdict I already know I love the aluminum 13-inch Mac. But with a more durable design, SD card slot, more vibrant display, faster innards, and– best of all– lower price, I’m sure I’ll love it even more. The real question mark right now is battery life. We don’t imagine it being poor or worse than its predecessor, but I’ll reserve full praise until I see just how long it lasts unplugged. For now, it looks like Apple’s produced another gem.