So I wandered into my local CompUSA yesterday and of course headed straight to the Mac section. I start telling my friend, who had very graciously accompanied me and let me rant to her about Macs, about how a good virtual buddy of mine, that would be Keef, had uncovered all this info about the new iMac screens. She seemed suitably impressed and as a recent Mac convert herself actually looks forward to when I have something Mac related to say.

I’m looking at the various “deals” and nothings really standing out until I see a $699 MacBook sticker. No machine on display, but there is a note assuring that the MacBook is actually in stock. Turns out this MacBook is an open box, yes I’m already wary, display model of the older MacBook Core 2 Duo.
Specs:
1.83GHz Core 2 Duo
512MB
60GB Hard drive
Combo drive
802.11g unlocked to N with the enabler
etc.

So, the CompUSA sales person gave me the generic AppleCare and other software/hardware push and I politely declined. He went to the back and on return presented me with the MacBook box and an AppleCare box. Expecting a hard sale or some other nonsense I braced myself, but nope it was actually a bit of a deal the salesman offered. If I bought their full priced AppleCare, he’d knock 10% off the price of the MacBook. He even let me know that indeed there was 3 months of original Apple warranty left. I figured he checked after me originally asking about serial numbers and original warranties.

Anyway. The case is in pretty good shape. A little dirty, but I think everything, but maybe the trackpad, can be back to that 99% new look and even the trackpad could be back to to maybe 90% with a bit of spit and polish. The screen has a handprint* on it, but looks otherwise undamaged and I didn’t see any dead/stuck pixels.

While 512MB RAM isn’t really cutting it, I figured I’ll give it a month with the stock config and then max it out. I’d like to be able to run virtualized Ubuntu after all. One last surprise, and I mean a good one potentially. It seems like the CompUSA people left a full version of both MS Office 2004 and iWork 2006 on the MacBook. That was unexpected and welcome, even though I doubt I’ll do much with Office. iWork could be useful though.

Nathan

*WTF is the handprint about. I can understand finger prints, but a whole hand!?!?!