The notebook is intended for educational and consumer markets.There are three different MacBook models.The first one was modeled after the PowerBook G4 which it also replaced,part of the Intel transition that Apple was going through.It has a casing made out of polycarbonate and fiberglass.The second model was introduced in October 2008 alongside the 15-inch screen version of the MacBook Pro.Alike the 15-inch MacBook Pro,the second model of the MacBook has an aluminum casing,therefore it was rebranded as the 13-inch version of the MacBook Pro one year after it's release,at the Apple Worldwide developers conference in June 2009.Aluminum is now reserved for MacBook Pros,reason for which the third installment of the MacBook,which was released in October 2009,had a unibody polycarbonate shell.
The Original Discrete Polycarbonate Model
The original MacBook model is made out if polycarbonate.The first lines of the product,released on 16 May 2006 used Intel Core Duo and 945GM chipset with GMA 950 graphics card on a 667 Mhz front bus.Newer revisions were upgraded with newer and more powerful components such as Core 2Duo processor technology,GM965 chipset and GMA X3100 integrated graphics card with a 800 Mhz bus.
The MacBook is thinner than the notebook it replaced,the PowerBook G4,and wider than the 12-inch model due to its wide screen display.The MacBook is also the first computer after the MacBook Pro that has Apple's MagSafe technology.The VGA output was also replaced by a DVI port.Although the iBook's graphics were replaced with an Intel solution for the original MacBook,newer revisions use Nvidia's GeForce 320M more powerful graphics card.
The original design
Although the MacBook followed the standard design of the PowerBook G4,it has some new features that were innovative for a notebook.The glossy display,the sunken keyboard design,or the non-mechanical magnetic latch are some of these features that were never seen at a notebook before.That was not enough as the keyboard has received several updates until 2007,so it now resembles to the one shipped with the Apple iMac(the Apple icon was removed from the control keys,the same multimedia keyboard shortcut as the one on iMac's keyboard was added,and the virtual numeric keys were also removed,like the ones on the iMac keybord).The original polycarbonate MacBook is the first notebook to come in more than one color.The MacBook has known great success until it stopped being produced in 2008 when the aluminum case MacBook was released.