Even tough it is the low end, the Apple MacBook is the best selling Machintosh in history, as a sales-research group named NPD declared the mid-range model of the Apple MacBook in October 2008 the single best selling laptop computer of any brand in the U.S. retal stores for the preceding five months. Since its release, there were three models of the MacBook made available. The first model had a casing made out of polycarbonate and fiberglass.
The second model was introduced alongside the 15 inch MacBook Pro in October 2008, and uses an unibody design similar to that of the 15 inch MacBook Pro. This model was later rebranded as the 13 inch model of the MacBook Pro family in June 2009, at the 2009 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. The third design was introduced in October 2009 and uses a unibody polycarbonate shell for the casing, because aluminum is from now reserved for the high end MacBook Pro laptops.
The original MacBook model was released on May 16, 2006, and could be bought in both white or black casings. It benefited of Intel's Intel Core Duo processor unit, whit a 945GM chipset and a GMA 950 graphics card, running on a 667 Mhz front side bus. Later revisions upgraded the MacBook to using Intel's Core 2 Duo processing technology, with a 965GM chipset and GMA X3100 graphics card, on a 800 Mhz front side bus. After the aluminum MacBook was released in October 2008, the black polycarbonate MacBook ceased to be sold.
The MacBook is thinner than the iBook G4 laptop that it replaced, and wider than the 12 inch models due to its widescreen display. Also, the MacBook was second product (the first one was the MacBook Pro) to use Apple's MagSafe connector, and replaced the mini-VGA port existent on the PowerBook with a mini-DVI port. While the first MacBooks replaced the PowerBook discrete graphics chip with an Intel GMA graphics card, the latest revisions of the MacBook use the more powerful Nvidia GeForce 320M. Even tough the first MacBook carried a large amount of characteristics from the PowerBook G4, it also brought some fresh features to the table, like the glossy display, the sunken keyboard, or the non-mechanical magnetic latch.