Following rampant rumors across the blogosphere, Apple annouced the latest replacement for the iBook, the Macbook (sans Pro).  It's a 13.3 inch widescreen, Intel Core Duo powered 5.2 pound ultraportable thin and light notebook with a built-in slot mounted optical drive.  It's going for $1,099 to $1,499 base price, depending on which CPU, optical drive, and hard drive you want.  So far it looks like the black version is only available as a top of the line 2.0GHz Core Duo model with DVD burner and 80GB hard drive.  Lesser MacBooks use a 1.83GHz or 2.0GHz Core Duo, 60GB hard drive and either a DVD/CD-RW combo drive or a DVD burning SuperDrive.

I was expecting a single core Core Solo to keep the price down, but again Apple surprises everyone.  I'm also looking forward to the opening of the new cube-shaped Apple store on 5th Avenue in NYC (our home base) later this week.  I would've expected the annoucement of the MacBook at that event.  Oh well, at least I'll be getting my commemorative t-shirt. 

Check back with gearlog.com and pcmag.com for more on Apple's new consumer ultraportable thin and light notebook.