Apple Revs Up Low-End MacBook

Apple has quietly updated the low end of its MacBook line with Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics, a 1066Mhz frontside bus, 2 GB of RAM...and the same price.

When Apple announced its new “unibody” MacBooks back in October 2008, it left one hanger-on from its old MacBook line at the low end of its price spectrum: a white, 2.1 GHz MacBook with an old-style plastic case for $999. Now, without any fanfare at all, Apple has updated the innards of the white low-end MacBook to mostly match the speedier components of its unibody brethren…while still keeping the $999 price tag.

The reconfigured white MacBooks now feature 2 GB of RAM standard, Nvidia 9400M graphics, a 1066Mhz frontside bus, and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. The only other spec to change was the system’s processor, which sadly drops a hair from a 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo to a 2.0 GHz CPU. The white MacBook still sports a 1,280 by 800-pixel glossy LCD display, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi networking, gigabit Ethernet, Mini-DVI video output, a 120 GB hard drive, and an 8× SuperDrive. Unlike its pricier MacBook brethren, the white MacBook still has a FireWire 400 port. It also retains its 667 DDR2 RAM bus, rather than the faster DDR3 memory in the newer MacBook models.