Low Tech Studio: Apple MacBook 4,1

Gimme more white plastic!

My MacBook running this blog

I Always wanted a MacBook to complement my Mac Mini, just couldn't justify the price tag. Now I finally own one, and this one came with a very attractive price tag! Seller stated that it was slow and it had been used by her children who found it to be way too slow. Furthermore, it was bought in America, so it lacks danish characters "ÆØÅ", it had an american power plug and it would not eject CDs. It went ahead and bought it anyway for 60 €. A good price I think...

The computer had the game "Sims 3" installed, and I suspect this is why they considered it slow... I suppose it's not a modern game machine! It had 1GB of ram, a 120 GB hard drive and a 2.1 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. I reformatted the hard drive and found a good deal on 4 GB of ram on the used marked. This made a huge difference in performance. Also upgraded to OSX 10.7 Lion instead of 10.5 Leopard. Next I upgraded the hard drive to a 120 GB SSD drive from eBay. Still not a lot i suppose, but enough for my needs and for a reasonable price.

Last problem was the combo drive that would not eject CDs or DVDs. That turned out to be an easy fix! I put a flathead screwdriver in the slot, gave it a gentle twist and that's it! It's now in perfect working order!

All in all this was a very sweet deal and I'm very happy with it. The extra ram and the SSD made all the difference in the world, and for daily use, it does not feel like a 6 years old computer.

With accessories and upgrades, this MacBook cost me 138€. Nice!