Sonic Control.TV

As unbelievable as it sounds for those in music and video production, the new MacBook 13.3″ notebook, at a starting retail price of $1299, doesn’t have the Firewire connection used by both composers and videographers.

This means that on the newer MacBook, musicians and composers no longer have the option of connecting the faster speed audio cards from MOTU, RME, M-Audio and other companies to either add a computer to their existing network, or to record directly. The advantage of Firewire is its ability to handle larger amounts of data. There are two Firewire connectors, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800 with Firewire 800 sporting the faster connection speed.

USB 2.0 is nearly as fast as Firewire 400, which was found on the last generation MacBook. Read this story at How Stuff Works for a comparison of Firewire and USB.

To get Firewire on the newer models, Sonic Control readers will have to look instead at the 15″ MacBook Pro with a Firewire 800 port and a starting price of $1999.99.

According to InfoWorld, 200 posts in protest were filed with 5000 views in a thread appearing in the Apple Support Forums.

Skulking around, SCTV did find two “older” MacBooks available for under $1000 expandable to 4GB of RAM with Firewire 400 and USB 2.0. Model number MB402LL/A is 13.3″ and is priced at $849.99 at BestBuy, while model number MB402LL/B is priced at $999.99, also at BestBuy. The difference between the two models is in the DVD drive and Wireless.

Checking the Internet at NextTag, Sonic  found that BestBuy had the lowest price on MB402LL/A beating out just about any other dealer by $100 or better.