If you haven't heard yet, Apple on October 14th unveiled their new MacBook. The most touted properties of the new notebook are its aluminum unibody enclosure and the new buttonless glass trackpad. The rest of the specs for the notebook are relatively the same as the previous model.

Without question, the new aluminum MacBook is solid. It's unibody construction is both attractive and feels very durable. When you are carrying most notebook computers, whether a Mac, Dell, Sony, etc, there always seems to be a bit of wiggle between the lid/screen and the computer's main body. This is not the case with the new MacBook. When you are carrying it, it feels like it is one solid piece of aluminum.

As far as the buttonless glass trackpad goes, I don't understand why they refer to it as glass. It looks, feels and behaves exactly like the previous model's trackpad. I suppose that “buttonless glass trackpad” sounds better than just “buttonless trackpad.” The bottom half of the trackpad doubles as a button. You press on it and it will click with tactile feedback. I was a bit concerned how it would handle dragging and dropping. You can press down on the trackpad to click and hold an item, and another finger to drag it. If you lift the drag finger, you will still be holding the item until you release the other finger. It works just as you would expect.

The multi-finger gestures feature for the trackpad is kind of a mixed bag. Some are useful and others are pointless. With the gestures you can zoom and rotate pictures, go back and forward in your browser, go to your desktop, and more. The most pointless gesture is the 4 finger swipe to show the application switcher. Once the application switcher appears you must move your mouse pointer to the desired application and click on it. Even if I became accustomed to this method, I still think using Command+Tab on my keyboard would be easier and faster. To me, it would make more sense to use the 4 finger swipe to move from space to space in Leopard's Spaces feature.

Other than that, the new MacBook is pretty much the same as the previous model. The new MacBook has a better graphics card, the next generation of RAM, and a faster bus speed, but for the average user, these improvements are not worth upgrading from the previous model MacBook.

A deal breaker for some users is that the new MacBook lacks any Firewire port. Those who have invested in FireWire peripherals will have to go for the old generation MacBook which Apple still sells at a $999 price tag, or they will have to spend a bit more to get the MacBook Pro which also has FireWire.

Another note, the 2 USB ports in the new MacBook are very close together. I was unable to have a USB mouse and USB thumb drive connected simultaneously.