Among yesterday's big announcements at Apple's Town Hall event was a new generation 13-inch aluminum MacBook, packing some impressive specs, but also a gorgeous design. The new MacBooks (2.0 GHz and 2.4 GHz) are priced at US$1,299 and US$1,599 respectively, while an updated 13-inch white MacBook featuring 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors, a 120GB 5400 rpm hard drive and a slot-load 8X SuperDrive is now just US$999.

The same glass Multi-Touch trackpad found on Apple's updated MacBook Pros can also be found on the next-generation MacBook. The new trackpad gives users almost 40 percent more tracking area than before, while Apple has added new gestures that allow users to activate Exposé or switch between applications at the touch of a fingertip. The entire trackpad surface is also a button, allowing users to both track and click virtually anywhere on the trackpad, and this wasn't even one of the features that MacBook customers said they wanted.

What customers did hope for were an all-metal enclosure, high performance 3D graphics and LED-backlit displays. Apple managed to squeeze these in, practically turning it into a Pro, and priced the new notebook at US$1,299 ($700 less than the $1,999 price of the old MacBook Pro). The new device is only 0.95-inches thin and weighs just 4.5 pounds. According to Apple, it is “an incredibly compact and durable notebook.” Ok, enough small talk, let's see those specs.

According to Apple, MacBook now delivers “outstanding 3D game play on a consumer notebook,” with up to five times faster graphics performance than the previous generation, thanks to the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The 2.0 GHz, 13-inch aluminum MacBook (available now for US$1,299) also boasts a 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display; 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache; 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (expandable to 4GB); 160GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm (with Sudden Motion Sensor); a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive; Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately); built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; built-in iSight video camera and a glass Multi-Touch trackpad.

Just like the Pro, the new MacBook is available in various forms. Two models are currently available: the 2.0 GHz MacBook with a 160GB 5400 rpm hard drive, and the 2.4 GHz MacBook with a 250GB 5400 rpm hard drive and a backlit keyboard, the latter retailing for US$1,599.