I worked at the Apple Store when these were available. Anecdotally, a lot of people bought the black MacBook because of how it looked. Although I thought both colors were beautiful, the MacBook's screen wasn't ideal. It was highly glossy and had pretty poor viewing angle, especially compared to the MacBook Pro of the time (which was still available with a matte screen on certain models).
After using them for awhile, the palm rest on the black model would develop a nasty-looking sheen. The white one suffered from durability issues — the palm rest would chip in the place where the top case met the bottom case.
Those issues aside, I remember that time at the Apple Store with extreme fondness, especially the pre-iPhone days. We were slinging iMacs with Parallels and Windows XP to comfort the legions of switchers, all the while reassuring them that, yes, Macs had plenty of great software, even though its library paled in comparison to that of Windows. And, of course, iPods were the cash cow. Funny how things change.
Yeah, the quality of the plastic was dreadful. I got the black one and my wife got the white one. Out of the box, I still think mine was the most beautiful machine I've ever owned. But my wife's went brown, and both cracked round the edges.
After using them for awhile, the palm rest on the black model would develop a nasty-looking sheen. The white one suffered from durability issues — the palm rest would chip in the place where the top case met the bottom case.
Those issues aside, I remember that time at the Apple Store with extreme fondness, especially the pre-iPhone days. We were slinging iMacs with Parallels and Windows XP to comfort the legions of switchers, all the while reassuring them that, yes, Macs had plenty of great software, even though its library paled in comparison to that of Windows. And, of course, iPods were the cash cow. Funny how things change.