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AppleInsider’s Kasper Jade today reports that Apple has new plans for its workhorse laptop, the MacBook. This will be the first time since the product’s launch in 2006 that the company’s entry-level Mac has received a complete design update.

The MacBook is the best-selling computer in the history of the company. It introduced many of the features we take for granted in today’s high-end MacBook Pro machines. The MagSafe connector and latchless lids might be expected of Apple’s laptops these days, but they originally debuted in the diminutive MacBooks more than three years ago.

The report claims that the MacBooks were slated to be discontinued, but that at a redesign the company will “solidify them at the base of the Mac maker’s notebook offerings for the foreseeable future.”

There is no news as to what the redesigned MacBook might look like, but if Apple is to position the machine as a low-cost, entry-level device while keeping it distinct enough from its 13-inch MacBook Pro cousin, it seems unlikely it will be made using the same unibody extrusion process.

A carbon fiber composite would make sense, given this 2006 patent application filed by Apple. It describes a method for producing a carbon fiber composite used as an exterior shell for electronic devices. Of particular note is mention of a “scrim” layer designed to improve the cosmetic finish of the material.

Furthermore, there was talk last year of Apple planning to replace at least part of the MacBook Air’s aircraft-grade aluminum body — specifically, the bottom cover — with the tough-but-light carbon fiber material. While the latest updates to the Air continue to use an all-aluminum body, it is conceivable the carbon fiber plans will see the light of day in the new MacBook.

As for the refreshed internals, there’s only speculation, guided by the assumption Apple will want to position the new MacBook as an affordable (read “cheap”) machine:

Apple is expected to achieve these markdowns through largely existing tactics, such as using lower-end components and previous-generation Core 2 Duo chips and architectures from Intel Corp. Battery life should receive a boost from cutting-edge technology that recently found its way into the company’s other notebook offerings, while high-end legacy features like FireWire connectivity are likely to be sacrificed in the tradeoff.

[Apple] toyed with the prospect of throwing an Intel Atom processor into the existing white MacBook enclosure as [an] interim solution aimed at delivering a low-cost Mac portable for those consumers eying a Mac but hit hard by the recession.

Interestingly, Jade explains that this idea was dropped earlier in the year right around the time when Apple “solidified the forthcoming Newton web tablet for a first-quarter 2010 rollout”.

If Apple prices the new MacBook around the same $999 mark as the current machine — which it most probably will — what will that mean for the price of the tablet? Whatever the outcome, it sounds as though Apple has a clearly defined product/feature differentiation in mind for these devices, despite their similar price points.

It’s all just speculation, of course. But it’s nice to see that Apple is potentially breathing new life into an old and trusted friend.

My friend and Low End Mac’s publisher, Dan Knight, posted a nearly 3000-word essay recently positing a “what’s the perfect Mac” conundrum: MacBook Pro or iMac. I share Dan’s enthusiasm for examining and debating such hypothetical questions, and I thoroughly enjoyed the piece, but for me, the matter is much more open-and-shut.

I’ve been advocating for more than a decade that laptops are the logical Mac for most users, and in my estimation the unibody MacBook Pros — particularly the new 13-inch model — come as close to personal computer perfection as has yet been achieved.

As his top laptop candidate, Dan Knight leans more toward the 15-inch unibody model, with a particular nod toward the $1,699 configuration, which would be my second choice for ultimate Mac notebook value. First choice is the 2.26 GHz 13-inch MacBook Pro at $1,199, which gives you almost everything you get in the lowest-priced 15-incher, with the obvious exception of display acreage, and for $500 less.

However, for Dan, screen size and finish are much higher priority issues than they are for me. He developed his computing style and habits working as a professional book designer on two-page 152 x 854 and 1280 x 960 resolution screens, and finds smaller displays — say 1034 x 768 (SVGA) or lower resolutions — too restrictive for his tastes and work.

I, on the other hand, spent my first three Mac-loving years on a PowerBook with a 9.5″, 640 x 480, passive matrix grayscale display. After that experience, anything larger has seemed generously roomy, or at least adequate. The highest-resolution screen I’ve had in any Mac to date is the 1440 x 900 display in my 17″ PowerBook, which I like a lot, but adapting to the 1280 x 800 resolution of my 13″ unibody MacBook when I upgraded posed no real problem. Leopard’s Spaces feature has eliminated much of the inconvenience of working with modest display real estate.

Today, I would draw the line at 1064 x 768, which is what my two still-in-service Pismo PowerBooks offer. That’s also the highest resolution any of my desktop computer monitors have ever had, which sounds quaint when the entry-level $1,198 iMac today comes with a 20-inch 1680 x 1050 screen.

Dan’s current production rig is a dual-1GHz Mirror Drive Door Power Mac G4 driving a 1280 x 1024 a Dell flat panel display — hardware that befits the theme of his website, and ideal for a guy who isn’t yet willing to give up Mac OS Classic Mode. However, Dan says he’s excited this week because now that Apple has just added an “antiglare” display option for the 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro, he thinks it could become the perfect production machine for him, even going so far as to suggest that the 15-inch MacBook Pro is probably the perfect computer, period.

I won’t quibble overmuch with that, although I do still champion the 13-incher, since I’m more than satisfied with the glossy display. As Apple notes, with a glossy screen finish you get graphics, photos, and videos with richer colors and deeper blacks, which is better for most users who don’t have to work in print media. But if having an antiglare option helps persuade folks like Dan Knight to dismount the fence on the laptop side, I’m all for it, and let’s have it available on the 13-inch model as well.

So will Dan finally end up on a MacBook Pro, which would be his first production laptop since the original Titanium PowerBooks back in the early-to-mid ’00s? I think there’s a good chance he will, but he isn’t slamming the door on desktops by any means, noting that the perfect desktop computer would take the current iMac design, move some ports for easier access, and offer an antiglare screen option. Perhaps for him it will boil down to whatever Apple does next with the iMac.

How about you? Would you vote for either the MacBook Pro, the iMac, or something else entirely as “the perfect computer?”

System Profiler reporting 13″ MacBook SATA speed

A week after reports first surfaced of a downgrade in SATA bus speeds, Apple has issued a fix that both solves the problem and puts an end to conspiracy theories about it.

The issue centered around new MacBook Pros having a SATA speed of 1.5 gigabits, down from 3 gigabits on previous models, including the low-end MacBook. While there would be no performance degradation on any MacBook Pro with a mechanical hard drive or standard solid-state drive, there was at least a theoretical decline in performance for those with faster SSDs, like the Intel X-25M.

MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 “addresses an issue reported by a small number of customers using drives based on the SATA 3Gbps specification with the June 2009 MacBook Pro.” Interestingly, there is also a caveat: “While this update allows drives to use transfer rates greater than 1.5Gbps, Apple has not qualified or offered these drives for Mac notebooks and their use is unsupported.”

As the owner of a unibody MacBook, I can report that my “unsupported” Intel X-25M has run like lightning for six months and counting. The real issue here isn’t about unsupported drives, but how something like this slipped through Apple QA. Nonetheless, those considering upgrading their drives can now be confident of the best performance, be it real or imagined.