March 5 - 6:55pm EST   Primate Labs has taken a close look at the performance of Apple's lastest MacBook, and claims that the newest base model is slower than the previous generation. A performance comparison via Geekbench -- an application designed to test the speed of computers in various areas -- revealed higher scores for MacBooks released in early 2008 than the latest models offered by Apple. In overall performance the early 2008 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook scored 3,135 against a baseline score of 1,000, which signifies the score a 1.6GHz Power Mac G5 would receive. Conversely, Apple's late 2008 2.2GHz MacBook scored 2,890 -- significantly less than the slightly older model. [full story]

February 7 - 6:55pm EST   The MacBook Air's touted five-hour battery life is an almost acceptable measure of the ultraportable's abilities, while enthusiast site Mac on Air has performed a full take-apart of the laptop. According to tests performed by AnandTech, the MacBook Air is capable of running for four and a quarter hours with normal web browsing, while playing MP3s in the background. The test was conducted by browsing 20 web pages, spending 20 seconds per page, and looping music in the background. This test was designed to emulate standard usage, as one would experience taking notes in class or using the Air during their daily commute. [full story]

January 24 - 11:25am EST   Benchmarks of Apple's new Mac Pro systems -- which began shipping earlier this year -- show how the latest systems stack up against each other as well as the company's older workstations. Overall performance ratings placed the Mac Pro 3.2GHz at the top of the charts in both 64-bit and 32-bit tests. Tests show that the performance difference between Apple's 2.8GHz and 3.2GHz Mac Pros is not as great as the difference between running 32-bit code and 64-bit code, according to the Primate Labs Blog. [full story]

January 10 - 6:20pm EST   Primate Labs today released figures regarding performance of the new Mac Pro versus the old eight-core model. The old model is configured with the eight-core Xeon X5365, running at 3GHz, while the newer model features the Xeon W5462 running at 2.8GHz per core. Both machines were tested using Mac OS X 10.5.1, with the new Mac Pro using 2GB of RAM, versus the former that uses 1GB. Primate Labs says that the tests that GeekBench 2 uses to calculate RAM scores relies more on the speed of the memory rather than the quantity, so it was deemed a fair test. [full story]