Expresscards on every Mac?

[zcor]

I'm currently thinking on making the transition from PC and buying a MacBook or a MacBook Pro depending on what they come up with in the following weeks.

So as I was reading the specs for each machine as they are now I noticed the MBP has Expresscard/34 slots. I always thought the whole philosophy of Apple was to make their computers relatively "closed" in terms of hardware, to save their tech support and the end users the hassle of buggy combinations... I was pleasantly surprised to know that should I want to invest the boatload of money on a MBP at least I could, for example, upgrade it to support eSATA connections.

My question is, why haven't they added these Expresscard slots on their entry-level computers, for example the iMac? Why only the MBP? Surely the "pros" aren't the only ones who want their investments to be long-term???

Cheers

 

[techound1]

The slots may appear on the MB in the Oct 14 refesh. However, I think most Apple users find they don't need them. I've had my MBP for about 2 years and have yet to use the slot.

 

[RedTomato]

The best use for these slots are for:

a) specialist applications and hardware - there's a fair bit of wierd and wonderful stuff out there like interfaces for scientific probes and lab equipment, or extra videocards or cellphone modems or whatever.

b) extending the use of your laptop when something on it breaks,
On my old Powerbook, the firewire broke, so I bought a PCMCIA firewire card and used that for firewire.

c) or you want to add a new interface standard e.g. eSATA like you said. Other extensions would be to add wifi N, or wimax, or extra USB/ firewire ports.

That's part of the gravy you get for spending big bucks on a pro laptop. Me, I now have a Macbook, and I'm happy with it.