A friend of mine just bought a white mac book non unibody brand new because they were on sale for 699.99. My question is if yellowing and cracking hinges still are an occurring problem in the more recent production models or have these problems been fixed. i tried searching but all the information i found pertained to the problem when it first came out, and being new to the mac world myself i don't want to give out bad information. thanks in advance.
I have one from 2007, and the cracking is a very, very, very serious issue. I recently managed to get my top cover replaced for free by Apple, but also after a lot of bargaining and reasoning with them. I have cracks everywhere - from the bottom case to the bezel itself, and I have never dropped it before. There are serious design flaws associated with this model of Macbook, I must say, and I don't think they have been resolved.
The yellowing isn't that big a problem because I have a clear plastic protector on the palm rest area, and I clean my keyboard pretty often. At such, it isn't too difficult to clean it yourself. I find that a soft eraser does the job very well for the most part. If you want it to be cleaner than that, use a damp cloth.
If you really like the white design, I'd say fork out a bit more money and get the Unibody design out there. I'm not sure of the durability of that one, but it sure looks a lot more sturdy than what I have now.