Review: MacBook 13.3″ Aluminium - Part 3

The OS installed is the Mac OS 10.5 Leopard and the iLife 2008 suite. Apple extends the warranty for up to 12 months, which can be upgraded to 36 months for the additional price of €349, which includes support. The price is €90 cheaper than the previous model.

Input Devices

Keyboard

The new keyboard on the MacBook is based on the researches made for the MacBook Air. The round keys were designed exactly to adapt themselves to the fingertips, which results in a very pleasant typing experience. When in darker environments such as planes or conference rooms, the illuminated keyboard allows users to always see what they’re typing. Compared to the MacBook Air, the keys seem even softer. The keyboard layout seems adapted to the Mac OSx. As for the MacBook Pro, the downside on this keyboard is the fact that the cursor keys are rather small, which can be a problem for gamers.

The new glass touchpad

As we have reviewed on the MacBook Pro, one of the main innovations on this new line is the glass touchpad with no buttons. All the touchepad is a button, and users can click wherever they want. We’ve reviewed the possibilities of a buttonless touchpad in our previous MacBook Pro review here. For this model, it’s exactly the same process, which can be a rather good feature, after all.