Apple’s MacBook is destined to become an enduring style icon

In a field of overwhelming laptop sameness, Apple’s MacBook has long been destined to become an enduring style icon. But, with the birth of the aluminium framed MacBook Pro range, the creaky, old plastic MacBook was shown up somewhat – what it needed was reconstructive surgery of its own. Right on cue, meet the new MacBook, now with modern styling.

Imagine the MacBook Pro 13 finished in classic, Apple white, and that’s pretty much what this new model looks like. Apple has taken its unibody design concept from the original, and simply hewn this machine from a slab of polycarbonate rather than the rather pricier aircraft-grade aluminium.

It’s a transformation that isn’t just about looks. Build quality took a massive leap forward with the Pro range, leaving the old MacBook feeling creaky and insubstantial by comparison. Manhandling the new MacBook sees the lid flex slightly, but the chassis feels taut, sturdy and resilient, if not quite up to the aluminium standard. The rubber base is a nice touch, too, and stops it getting too toasty on a lap or sliding around on a desk.

In fact, the only issue is that the finish could be a bit better. The polycarbonate scratches easily, and both the off-white rubber base and glossy white shell quickly began to look grubby after a couple of days' use. And, if you’re a real stickler for details, flip the MacBook upside down and take a close look at where the rubber base meets the chassis – the erratic seam along the edge looks decidedly less professional.

Surprisingly, given that polycarbonate shell, it’s a touch heavier than its siblings, too – 2.11kg on its own, or 2.52kg with the power supply. Unsurprisingly, the lithium polymer battery is still non-removable, but you can probably leave that power brick at home: it lasted an impressive 5hrs 58mins of light use in Windows 7.

Curiously, just as we found with the MacBook Pro 13, battery life improves significantly under OS X Leopard, with the MacBook lasting just short of nine hours. The likely culprit is Apple’s Boot Camp driver set, which doesn’t allow Windows 7 to take advantage of nifty power saving features such as screen dimming. It also gave us some bizarre sound issues, such as disappearing drivers and strangely muffled audio. In its defence, Windows 7 isn’t officially supported by Boot Camp yet, so we can't be too critical of driver performance – and Windows Update couldn't find any better drivers to solve the issue. Apple promises full support at some point before the end of this year.

Turn your attention to what lies beneath the new, shiny white exterior, and you'll find largely the same specifications as the entry-level MacBook Pro 13. There’s a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo processor, a 250GB hard disk – 90GB more than that of the Pro – and 2GB of memory. It’s a capable line-up, and a score of 1.13 in our benchmarks proves it’s nippy enough for most duties, while the integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics managed a just-playable 29fps in our least taxing Crysis benchmark.

The final ingredient is the glossy new display. The 13.3in panel is now LED-backlit with a 1,280 x 800 resolution, and marks a vast improvement on the pre-unibody MacBook. Images burst forth with plenty of punch and vibrancy, and colour reproduction right is on the money, too

Elsewhere, the Firewire port, SD card reader and battery indicator have vanished, but the MacBook now boasts the glass multitouch trackpad found on the rest of the range. It comes as little surprise that Apple’s Snow Leopard OS takes most advantage, where the multitouch functions prove slick and instinctive, but it also works well as a traditional touchpad in the unsupported Windows 7, too. We’re not great fans of the Apple keyboard, with its light, short travel keys, but apart from the narrow Enter key it’s not bad enough to overly detract from the appeal.

At £799 inc VAT, though, the MacBook’s biggest competitor is its own stablemate, the £899 MacBook Pro 13. Most people will live without the lost ports and, we have to admit, the unibody design does look rather alluring in eye-catching white. But with the existing MacBook Pro 13 also offering substantially better build quality for just £100 more, this new model doesn't quite excite us as it should.