Building the Ultimate $200 MacBook #Helpful Post

hey guys Austin you may have caught a

video where I tried to game on this $200

MacBook and it actually kind of worked

but today we're with part two where I'm

going to give it a few choice upgrades

so this is a 2009 white MacBook

outfitted with a blisteringly fast Core

2 Duo processor 4 gigabytes of RAM and

currently nvidia geforce 9400m graphics

that might not sound impressive but this

guy's actually still fully supported on

the latest version of Mac OS High Sierra

which got me thinking can we actually

make this a usable MacBook for 2018

thankfully this is back when Apple made

mac books that you could kind of work on

so the first thing we see is our 250 gig

hard drive which that guy's definitely

get out of here

there's also the optical drive which

we're going to be replacing the battery

it still technically works in this

machine but it's pretty old so we're

gonna replace that get the memory this

is uh not that bad looking to work on

now depending on what you're doing

normally you actually don't have to

remove the battery but because we just

need to swap it out anyway is just gonna

make it a little bit easier to get some

of the other components you with that

out of the way now I'm going to remove

the hard drive so even though the true

particular card drive in here actually

does work just fine we've got something

just a little faster mind so next step

is to remove the optical drive now well

it is kind of nice to have it here I

actually want to go with raid SSDs

because you know we do practical things

on the channel there we go cable out we

have one optical drive that has been

freed from our MacBook now now we're

ready to start rebuilding the $200

MacBook so the main reason to remove the

optical drive is to use an O WC data

doubler the idea here is that instead of

being able to waste all that space on

DVD drive which honestly I'm never going

to use we can actually put an additional

SSD inside the idea here is that we

should just be able to drop it right

into place if I can flip it the correct

orientation

it should just sit like that and give us

our SSD one of the main things that

makes an older computer like this feel

slow is the mechanical hard drive but we

can fix that with a pair of 500 gigabyte

WD blue SSDs now one of these by itself

would probably be pretty quick however

two of these in raid it's gonna be a

little goofy

so we think with that we have our first

SSD installed all I need to do is put

this bracket back in place and we can

move on to the next one perfect so now

we have one terabyte of SSD storage and

our lowly $200 MacBook the next step is

to upgrade the memory so this laptop

originally shipped with two gigs of RAM

and at some point someone upgraded it to

four however it does technically support

eight gigs of RAM I'm gonna say there's

something cool about the idea of taking

a MacBook that for most people is kind

of considered old and obsolete and

actually giving it some love it's kind

of weird to think that in the future new

computers really are not this upgradable

it's pretty much like you get what you

get and that's all that there is to it

now we have the fun part this is a

replacement battery so this original

battery is totally fine but the issue is

because it's so old and it has so many

cycles well it does keep a charge it's

going to last 20 or 30 minutes and a lot

of MacBooks at this age the battery is

just completely flat but the good thing

is you can still order replacements off

of Amazon now generally speaking I don't

recommend getting third-party batteries

for laptops however in this case you're

not gonna have any luck trying to get

one straight from Apple so this should

actually work just fine

alright it is moment of truth time to

plug this guy in in case the battery is

actually dead out of the box she was

charging Hey

so it should give us yeah the disk error

because there's no OS installed but that

looks like we actually might have a

working MacBook now comes the fun of

replacing the keyboard now there's

nothing wrong with the keyboard that's

on this right now

coverts the older white style whereas

what we ordered here is a set of MacBook

Pro keys which should look a little

cooler there are a couple of ways of

doing the keyboard swap but what we did

was we just removed a bunch of the keys

and swapped them out with the black ones

if you really want to go crazy with it

you actually can't replace the entire

keyboard all in one piece however that

requires you to basically take apart the

entire computer if you guys caught our

first video one of the biggest problems

with this guy is that not only is the

back panel a little bit scratched up but

there's also a crack in the actual

screen assembly so what we could

actually swap out the entire shell

that's also a lot of work and instead we

can just cover it up so this is a

semi-transparent shell so first of all

it's gonna look a lot nicer than these

scratched up bottoms we have here but in

addition to the

keyboard cover which we don't meet

because we have a legit keyboard now we

also have a bottom shelf for it well

maybe this isn't the best looking back

book in the world it's a lot better than

it was before but my real question is

what exactly can you do on this MacBook

in 2018 after using the MacBook for a

week or so I've got to say it's actually

surprisingly usable through normal stuff

like listening to Spotify writing things

up with Google Docs and juggling a few

tabs it feels downright snappy I'll

totally admit using two SSDs is complete

overkill so I wanted to run the both in

raid however the way that high CR

actually handles raid right now is a

little bit buggy so I ended up just

installing the OS to a single drive but

it still makes a huge difference it's so

much faster jumping up to eight gigs of

ram also makes a big difference Mac OS

especially the more recent versions

really do appreciate at least eight gigs

one of my big worries going into this

was that the Core 2 Duo just wouldn't be

able to hold up and while yes a

processor from 2009 and a laptop doesn't

sound too impressive we actually run it

through Geekbench it's not bad it's

right up there with modern-day kind of

lower end parts such as Celeron and

Pentium now don't get me wrong throw

more than a few different tasks at it at

once and it will definitely start to

slow down but as long as you treat it

with the respect that a 2009 MacBook

deserves you can definitely get work

done on this guy and a big part of that

is because it is running a fully

up-to-date version of Mac OS hi Sierra

sure who knows if it'll ever receive

another major mac OS update and some app

just don't like the Core 2 Duo but for

the most part it's just like using a

modern MacBook you're pretty much

getting all the features including

iMessage and even Siri what's especially

impressive is that even some high-end

apps like Final Cut work and I'm being

serious you can load up some 1080p video

4k is a little bit too much for the

MacBook to handle and even the most

recent version of Final Cut 10.4 is

actually able to handle it pretty well

now you will need some patience when it

comes to the render side of things but

again this is a 2000 I Mac book that I

bought off of ebay for $200 and I'm

editing actual HD video inside Final Cut

so yeah while our keyboard soif really

isn't for anything besides show it does

still hold up today so now I doesn't

have a lot more travel but it just feels

a little bit more natural than the newer

butterfly switches and current Mac books

I've also been pleasantly surprised with

the trackpad somehow almost 10 years

later this is still better than most

Windows laptops

so you're getting everything you'd like

including that solid tracking you're

getting plenty of multi-touch gestures

like three fingers to swipe between

spaces and more importantly it just

feels natural something that so many

trackpads

do not get especially when you're paying

$200 porn-wise while I do miss USB 3.0

mini DisplayPort is nice if you on go

out to an external monitor up to 2560 by

1600 and resolution and MagSafe is still

one of my favorite ways of charging a

laptop ever even with that fresh battery

though you shouldn't expect 20 18 levels

of battery life so I'm averaging about

three or four hours with moderate usage

you can get a little bit more if you

turn the screen brightness down but it's

just kind of okay so should you go out

and load a 2009 MacBook with a terabyte

of SSD storage probably not but unlike a

lot of our builds this actually makes

sense picking up a used MacBook and

investing in some upgrades like the

battery memory as well as an SSD really

will get you an experience that is going

to be better than a lot of budget

laptops honestly I would rather use this

so what do you guys think about our

super awesome ultimate 2009 macbook this

is actually taking a turn I didn't

expect but it's actually kind of cool

anyway let me don't you guys think and I

will catch you on the next one