Hands on with the unibody MacBook

Apple's new MacBook is an instant design classic. If you still own a plastic MacBook you'll remain less of a human being until you upgrade. Looking at the $2399 13-inch model (a 15-inch is also available), here's what I love, like and hate:

LOVE IT: The unibody
It looks even sexier in the flesh – okay, metal – than in the vids. Cast from a single block of aluminium, the MacBook's finger-thin case is literally seamless. In a world where most notebooks come with silly ridges, swirls, incomprehensible indicator lights and stickers, it defines minimalist chic. Yes, it is heavier, for its size, but it feels rock solid. The keys are full-size, pleasingly tactile and responsive (I know, this is getting filthy) and each framed by the all-in one case.

Clever design touches abound, from battery indicator lights visible (at the push of a button) when the case is closed, to a standby light that isn't mounted on the case at all – rather, light shines through microscopic wholes in the aluminium case. Cover the built-in web cam with your thumb to simulate the sun going down, and backlights automatically illuminate the keyboard.

LOVE IT: Green cred
It also turns out that an all-in-one design is a very green way to manufacture and, along with the arsenic-free glass and other planet-friendly features, it's helped the new MacBooks to an EPEAT Gold rating, the highest environmental rating that the US governments Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supports. Apple has a surprisingly bad evironmental record (Greenpeace NZ called for a 3G iPhone boycott because of toxic chemicals used in its manufacture that other phone makers have now abandoned) so it's a nice turnaorund, and one that should please Apple board member Al Gore.

LOVE IT: The trackpad
The fist-sized trackpad is far and away the largest I've every seen on a laptop, and 39% larger than its predecessor. That means no cramping your fingers. The surface is made of glass – another MacBook first – and Apple says it did all kinds of lab work to find the optimal drag coefficient. Certainly, it feels frictionless, and beautiful to glide your fingers across. There are no buttons along the bottom; the whole trackpad functions as one giant button when required. Clever.

LOVE IT: The multitouch
Even better, the TrackPad supports multitouch, the Apple-controlled, tightly-held technology pioneered with the iPhone. So, for example, if you want to rotate a picture onscreen, you can touch two fingers to the trackpad, then "rotate" the pic to the desired ratio. It's far faster, and easier, than menu commands. Similarly, you can pinch to zoom. In another party-piece, you can slide four fingers up the trackpad (easy, it's that big) to clear the screen of windows, or drag them down again to return or thumb nail the windows. 
The trackpad's size is exaggerated, and streamlined, but its lack of buttons. Instead, to left click you tap the pad with one finger, to right-click you tap with two.

LOVE IT: The screen
Polarising antiglare technology, backlit LED, bonded glass and a black frame that draws in your eye in help create another beautiful MacBook display. The new MacBook's hinge is another piece of high-wow engineering, dropping the screen slightly over the back of the case as you open it to lower the height of the notebook slightly, which is nice for airline travel, and just looks very cool. The magnets that hold the display down when closed are not new, but gel nicely with the unibody's minimalist approach.

LIKE IT: The graphics and processor
The new MacBooks' NVIDIA 9400 M integrated graphics are five times faster than \previous model, Apple tells me, which has the ring of a stat based around "carefully" selected benchmarks. In any case, photo and video performance is buttery smooth. The Intel Centrino 2 chipset and processor offer all the hardware grunt you need. That's all good stuff, though not particularly unique to the new MacBook. Spend more than $1200 these days on any brand of notebook and you'll get crisp graphics and processor performance.

Other techs and specs - memory, hard drive options etc are as you'd expect for any portable. The option to trade out the hard drive for a 128GB Flash drive (quieter, ligher, cooler, not moving parts to break down, much more expensive) is state-of-the-art slick, but again something shared by the latest and greatest models from the Windows camp.

HATE IT: the DisplayPort connector
Along the side of my MacBook is a DisplayPort video jack. Ugh. Dell is also pushing DisplayPort hard as its video connector of choice. Like all consumers, I hate a standards war. This one is particularly annoying. Every major brand of high definition projector or widescreen TV comes with the rival, much-more widely supported HDMI video connector for high definition hookups. That means if you want to run a high def movie from your MacBook to a projector or TV, or in fact any video out, you'll have to buy an adapter, which is a hassle, and always impacts quality to a degree. Poor.

HATE IT: No Blu-ray
In a notebook of this class, I'd expect a DVD-rewritable drive (which is present and correct) to be complemented by high definition Blu-ray. It isn't.

HATE IT: No memory card slot or FireWire
Few mid to high-end laptops lack a slot for your digital camera's SD card (or other format of Flash memory) but Apple's MacBook remains stubbornly in that camp. FireWire ports have been common on other Macs, but are lacking on the new models, sending owners of FireWire cameras in search of a USB adapter.

But overall, the new MacBooks inspire serious geek lust. If you use Windows, consider picking up a copy of Parallels so you can run Vista on one of these babies. You know you want to.

Read full tech specs and pricing options for the new MacBooks here.