New MacBooks: tested, discounted

While the latest MacBook update might not be that exciting to most--they're just MacBooks with an incremental speed bump, after all--the update had to be good news for folks who were lying in wait for the right time to make a MacBook purchase. For those folks I have more good news: Amazon.com is offering some pretty steep discounts on MacBooks both old and new. Some models can be had on the site for $200 less than list price, and considering that Amazon doesn't charge tax, you would be hard pressed to find a better deal this side of a shady Bronx alleyway. The only question that remains: with both the new models and the old now occupying that sub-$1000 space, which one is truly worth your hard-earned cheddar? MacLife attempts to answer that question by giving one of the new machines the benchmarking treatment--needless to say, if shaving precious seconds off of Photoshop's boot time is a priority, you'll probably find this to be a riveting read.

For more on MacBooks new and old:
- see this Apple Insider article on the deals
- and these MacLife benchmarking tests