Tuesday, May 16, 2006, 11:00 am

Up close and personal with Apple\'s MacBook (photos)

By AppleInsider Staff

Apple Computer on Tuesday unveiled its newly designed MacBook consumer notebook, which features Intel Core Duo processors and a new 13-inch glossy widescreen display, elegantly wrapped in a sleek industrial design reminiscent of the company's existing professional line of MacBook Pro notebooks.

Together with the 15-and 17-inch MacBook Pros, the new MacBook completes Apple's Intel-based portables lineup replacing both the iBook and the 12-inch PowerBook.

A tipster who swung by an Apple retail store in Chicago was able to snap some of the first detailed photos of the black high-end model. The images show close-ups of the notebook's glossy widescreen display, keyboard, built-in iSight, track pad, infrared port and completely magnetic latching system. (Thanks Branislav Milic.)

MacBooks available at most Apple stores

Based on a series of brief checks, it appears that Apple began drop-shipping the new MacBooks late Monday evening to its retail locations across the United States. Several retail locations contacted by AppleInsider claimed to have stock of the new notebooks. While the average Apple stores appears to have received a handful of the computers, the company's flagship retail stores reported significantly larger stock of the notebooks.

Unlike the 15-inch MacBook Pro, which did not make its way into stores until about eight weeks after it was first announced, Apple is able to offer immediate availability of the new MacBook because it ramped manufacturing of the notebooks for a full two weeks before they were announced.

The Apple Online store is currently listing wait times of 1 to 5 business days for the white MacBook models and 3 to 7 business days for the black model. By comparison, the professional 15-inch MacBook Pro carried wait times of up to 6 weeks immediately after it was announced.









Read more on the MacBook's user-replaceable hard disk drives, heat-staked feet and innovative RAM slots.