Fly new BlackBook with Santa Rosa and GMA x3100

Well, the journey is finally over, and the process was anything but typical Apple. It started last Tuesday when I ordered a refurb black MacBook with the option to buy Leopard for $10 when it was released. The computer arrived 2 days later. The Leopard disk arrived Tuesday. So far so good. Until I tried loading Leopard.

The first step in the installation process was to check the install disk. The installer said the disk was scratched or dirty, but gave the option of installing anyway. After trying to clean the disk, I let it install, and it got hung up and partially installed Leopard. Crap. Had to install Tiger and try again. Failed. Apple FedEx'd me a full retail copy of Leopard, and things got worse with the installation. The hard drive became corrupt, and I couldn't even erase it when booting from a DVD. After several more calls to tech support, my patience ran out. I demanded to return the refurb MacBook without a restock fee. They agreed.

So in the meantime, this Tuesday, a refresh of the MacBook line was released. Santa Rosa chipset with 800MHz frontside bus and GMA x3100 graphics. That's what I'm using to post this. So I spent $200 more than the refurbished model, but I think I got my money's worth.

This thing's fast! The battery life as calculated by the computer is an hour better than the one I'm about to return. Remember the new keyboard on the iMac with rearranged icons and no Apple symbol? That layout's now on this 'puter. I haven't used much of Leopard's new features, but they look nice.

Anywho, I'm glad it's over, and we've finally upgraded from our G3 iBook circa 2001.