Stealthy refresh strengthens Apple consumer range

APPLE STEALTHILY updated much of its low-end home computing line-up in an under-the-wire attempt to boost its Christmas sales yesterday evening, at the same time stealing the wind out of Microsoft's Windows 7 Launch. Though we're pretty sure that was just a coincidence (*cough*).

Catching most industry pundits with their pants down, the Cupertino company introduced a whole raft of refreshed products without warning, aside from the traditional temporary closure of the Apple online store.

Rumours of the fabled Apple tablet device were once again dampened as Cupertino announced a new £800 polycarbonate Macbook, the long-awaited updating of the Mac Mini including a brand new server option, and a complete revamp of the entire Imac range of all-in-one desktops.

Grown up Macbook
The entry level £800 laptop has had a major overhaul bringing it much closer to its flashier sibling the Macbook Pro. It retains the white plastic (or polycarbonate if you don't want to make it sound too cheap) shell, but a new unibody design adopts the Pro's aluminium block construction. It also inherits the Pro's 1280x800 glossy backlit LED display, massive glass coated multi-touch track pad, and the controversial built-in battery technology that Apple claims will last up to three times longer than a normal notebook battery.

Weighing in at 4.7 pounds (2.13kg), the "any colour you want as long as it's white" notebook, which is aimed firmly at student types and first-time Mac converts, is driven by a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and comes with 2GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM.

Graphics chores are carried out by an integrated Nvidia Geforce 9400M chipset which will also drive an external monitor using the Mini Displayport output, although you'll have to cough up extra for the cable.

The base model comes with a 250GB 5400 rpm HDD and a slot loading dual layer Superdrive, so it looks like Apple is keeping up its policy of staying out of the Blu-ray market for the time being at least.

Add 802.11n wireless, Blutooth 2.1, Gigabit ethernet, a built in webcam, two USB 2.0 ports and combined analog/digital audio ins and outs and you have pretty much the full picture. Except of course for the rubbery bottom. Because there is no battery enclosure, Apple has been able to coat the whole bottom of the new Macbook with a non slip rubber sole, which should stop it slipping off of the desk in a puddle of drool when you fall asleep in that History of Typography lecture.

There's nothing revolutionary in the Macbook refresh, but it's encouraging to see a lot of the more desirable features pioneered by the Pro range trickling down to the lesser models. And with huge numbers of new college students bugging their put-upon parents for new kit this holiday season, this should fly off the shelves.

Return of the Imac
Since the launch of the very first Imac way back in the mists of time, opinion has been divided on all-in-one computing solutions. PC purists will tell you that buying a non-modular computer is a fools errand because, if one component fails, your whole setup is banjaxed. The Mac faithful will, of course, tell you that Macs rarely fail.

Neither argument is entirely watertight, but that hasn't stopped just about every box builder on the planet having a half-hearted attempt at aping Apple's solidly simple design.

The Imac range has always been all about the display and, with this latest iteration, the screen is everything… literally. The new 21.5 and 27-inch glass displays stretch from edge to edge of the seamless all-aluminium enclosure, with just a strip of logo-sporting metal at the bottom to spoil the view. The smaller version offers full HD at 1920x1080 whilst the top-of the range model adds 60 per cent more screen real estate with 2560x1440 resolution. Both screens use IPS technology to offer 178 degrees of viewing.

The base model 21.5 inch Imac is on sale now for £950 and sports a 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB HDD, a dual layer Superdrive and Nvidia Geforce 9400M graphics. £1200 will get you double the hard drive space and boost the graphics grunt considerably with an ATI Radeon HD 4670 chip set with 256MB of memory.

The £1350 27-incher features the same Intel CPU and optical drive as the smaller models, a 1TB hard drive and the ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics set. The £1600 big daddy of the range moves up to 2.66GHz Quad Core i5 CPU technology and ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics with 512MB of RAM. As usual with Apple, there are about a billion different build-to-order permutations available, and pushing the specs up to a 2.8GHz Quad Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 2TB drive will see you leaving your local Apple store smug in the knowledge that you've purchased the fanciest all-in-one computer on earth, but £3079 poorer.

All four models come with the newly-upgraded and very sexy wireless aluminium keyboard, and Apple's extraordinary new Magic Mouse, more of which you'll find elsewhere.

And finally… Mac Mini
It's been a long time coming, but Apple's diminutive Mac Mini has finally been given a spruce up, albeit a minor one. There are two new base models, the £500 version powered by a 2.26Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive.

The £650 model jumps to 2.53GHz, and doubles the RAM and HDD to 4GB and 320GB respectively. Both feature Nvidia Geforce 9400M integrated graphics and dual layer Superdrives.
The surprising addition to the family is the Mac Mini Server. It has the same basic specs as the £650 model but loses the optical drive in favour of two 500GB hard drives and comes pre-installed with OSX Snow Leopard Server. Priced at £799, Apple reckons the Mini Server is so simple to set up and run that it will allow loads of small businesses to create their own cross-platform networks. µ