Apple can be treated differently. Someone hates the corporation for excessive pathos and huge investments in marketing. Someone worships for the creation of unique products and involvement in the premium market. But one thing is pointless to deny - Apple makes the best computers out of the existing ones.
One of these will be discussed in this article. This is a MacBook A1181. Review of the cult "machine" 2006 release read on.
Device design, ports
Today it’s hard to imagine a laptop from Apple made not of aluminum, but 10 years ago in California they did not disdain plastic. It was from this snow-white plastic that this device was made. In general, the design is similar to the MacBook Pro series of computers - just as austere and austere.
The laptop is equipped with a solid set of ports and wired interfaces. Among them:
- Two standard USB-A ports.
- Proprietary FireWire port for connecting exclusive peripherals.
- Port for connecting additional VGA format displays.
- Infrared port for working with the Apple Remote.
- Audio input
- Audio output.
- Port for connecting to the Internet.
Also on the edges of the laptop you can find a hole for the Kensington lock and an optical drive.
Controls
The computer is equipped with a full keyboard: 79 keys, 12 functional and 4 arrows. The buttons have a soft and fairly short stroke. Each key has a small recess in the working area for more accurate positioning with "blind" input. The letters are engraved in the center. The Russian layout is indicated separately in the corner of each key. There is no backlight, just like the light sensor. Under the keyboard unit is Apple's proprietary trackpad. The touch panel can recognize single touch, double, as well as flipping / dragging (drag gesture) and scrolling (scrolling).
Display
At that time, when the MacBook 13 ', A1181 was released, there was no such thing as a Retina display, therefore, laptops were equipped with conventional TFT-IPS matrices. The diagonal of the display is 13.3 inches, and its resolution is 1280 x 800 pixels (114 dots per inch). The display of the MacBook A1181 is not of high quality. A grainy picture, unrealistic color reproduction, color inversion when tilted - a complete set of flaws haunting the displays of those times.
For all this, the display has a glossy surface, which negatively affects the use of a computer in daylight (despite a decent margin of brightness). There is no anti-reflective coating.
Performance and autonomy
MacBook A1181 is powered by an Intel Core Duo processor. This is a dual-core processor from the Yonah series, the frequency of each of the cores reaches 2000 megahertz (with acceleration). The processor is built on a 32-bit architecture, which limits the possibilities for expanding memory and updating software.
Also under the hood of the laptop you can find a GMA 950 chipset responsible for graphic performance, two gigabytes of RAM, a hard drive up to 120 gigabytes (hard drive speed - 5400 rpm) and a 55-watt battery.
The hardware power is enough for a smooth and stable operation of the operating system and most of the built-in programs. When working with professional software, problems may arise (drop in frame rate or short-term freezes). The battery power is enough to work on a laptop for 6 hours.
Software
The latest supported version of the software on this Mac is Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. In addition to the classic Aqua desktop, the user receives an iLife application package and the opportunity to work for free in iWork for 30 days. iLife is a package of applications for creative people, which includes programs for processing photos and creating musical compositions. iWork is a direct competitor to Microsoft Office, developed by Apple, which includes programs for working with text, tables and presentations.
Expediency of purchase (instead of conclusion)
So, here is the MacBook A1181, the characteristics of which have long been outdated morally and physically, and the external design is not at all impressive. Is it worth it to buy? Yes and no. If the choice is between a modern Windows-based device and a used Mac laptop, then with almost complete confidence you can give preference to the second option.
Of course, when it comes to a low budget. The fact is that the MacBook A1181 can be purchased for a miserable 10-12 thousand rubles (or even less). Finding a good Windows-based computer for that price is a task with an asterisk, most often impossible. Therefore, it is worth giving preference to a device that was created as the best on the market, rather than exchanging for something new, but made after the sleeves.