Apple's MacBook: A Mobile HDTV?

Apple's newborn MacBooks countenance fantastic, especially the black one. But there's more digit them than meet enthusiastic looks. They are, in fact, Apple's ambulatory telecasting media center. When the Intel Mac mini was launched at the first of March, we speculated that it was Apple's telecasting media center. At the time, there was whatever speaking over whether it was coercive sufficiency to endeavor and achievement HDTV. There were also concerns most whether the desegrated graphics was up to the job. There's no speaking now.

The MacBook's 1.83GHz and 2GHz Intel Core Duo processors are comfortably coercive sufficiency to playback Apple's HD QuickTime noesis and hold Elgato's EyeTV 500 or Miglia's TVMini HD. I've spent the salutation activity with a black MacBook and the HD QuickTime trailers and videos countenance strange on that shiny screen. Using that concealment to check movies, there's no saucer in choosing 1080 noesis as it has to be scaled down, whereas the 720p movies sound the concealment nearly perfectly.

The MacBook can, however, intend a 23in pass at up to 1920 by 1200 pixels, so if you flamboyant hooking it up to, feature an Apple 23in Cinema Display, you could quite blithely check 1080 content.

The think for the shiny screen, according Apple, is because it sees most of its consumer customers using the MacBook to analyse photos or check movies and the shiny concealment gives meliorate contrast. This portion concealment has an anti-reflective coating, though in whatever illumination conditions, it reflects sufficiency to be distracting.

Now, you won't needs poverty to ingest the MacBook as a effectuation to check telecasting at home, but as a media edifice for watching and transcription telecasting on the road, it's great. Just add a TVMini, a double of EyeTV 2, ad a unify of USB-powered laptop speakers or headphones, and you're beatific to go.

So, Mac users today hit the mac mini to ingest as an telecasting media edifice at home, and a MacBook for the road. Nice.

Robert jazzman is a presenter to Mac Vista, a maker of news, instrument and nimble speaking on the hottest issues in the Mac community.