MacBook, MacBook Pro and Ultra-Portable Updates

[cube]

If you are going to make a blanket critique like that you should at least back it up with a reason. Let me give a few.

- makes a small power supply much bigger.
- means you can no longer attach the power supply directly to the socket (too big and heavy).

- makes for a heavier and more complex cable.
- makes an ultraportable less than ultraportable

You forgot:

- When one of the two things breaks, you have to replace everything.

 

[macmino]

I confess that I didn't think of all of these downsides. Without pretending that the idea is perfect let me bring up some interesting points:

+ Travelling without it you have a as light-as-can-be ultraportable with maximum battery life. (no optical drive included)
+ If you plan a longer trip or have the intention to do some serious work done you would have to lug around the plug anyway - and an external drive with its own plug and two cables. Here you get the same functionality with only one box (that is far from being twice as tall), only one cable, only one power outlet required (many people I know lug around a triple-power-hub as well)
+If you're afraid of highly integrated system, a laptop is NOT exactly ideal for you anyway. At least this is certainly NOT an argument for integrating (!) the optical drive into the computer.

 

[cube]

I confess that I didn't think of all of these downsides. Without pretending that the idea is perfect let me bring up some interesting points:

+ Travelling without it you have a as light-as-can-be ultraportable with maximum battery life. (no optical drive included)

Battery life is not really an argument for not including an optical drive.

 

[Zadillo]

- Smaller because more expensive
- Slower to write
- Faster degradation

Umm, huh? Are you confusing SSD's with something else? The whole point of SSD's is faster performance and lower power requirements.

You make it sound like SSD's are worse all around, but why do you think people want SSD's in laptops?

* Faster startup - Since no spin-up required.
* Faster read time – In some cases, twice or more than that of the fastest hard drives.[citation needed]
* Faster than conventional disks on random I/O
* Low read and write latency (seek) time, hundreds of times faster than a mechanical disk.
o Faster boot and application launch time in certain cases - Result of the faster seek time. But only if application already resides in flash and is more dependent on read speed than other issues, eg. OS bootup that detects devices will not be significantly speeded up even with faster seeks & reads. See Amdahl's law.
* Long lifetime[1] - Back of the envelope calculations suggest that flash based SSDs can be written to at full speed continuously for 51 years before exceeding the flash memory's write endurance.
o However, it should be noted that certain SCSI hard drives have MTBF of 1.5 million hours (~175 years) and normal SATA harddrives have MTBF of 500,000 hours (~57 years). [2]
* Few to no mechanical parts
o Lower power consumption and heat production - no mechanical parts results in less power consumption.
o No noise - Lack of mechanical parts makes the SSD completely silent.
o Better mechanical reliability - Lack of mechanical parts results in less wear and tear. High level of ability to endure extreme shock, vibration and temperatures[citation needed], which apply to laptops and other mobile devices, or when transported.
* Security - allowing a very quick "wipe" of all data stored.
* Deterministic performance - unlike mechanical hard drives, performance of SSDs is constant and deterministic across the entire storage. "Seek" time is constant, and performance does not deteriorate as the media fills up (See: Fragmentation).

 

[cube]

You make it sound like SSD's are worse all around, but why do you think people want SSD's in laptops?

People want flash drives because they are driven by hype thinking that they will also be faster. Random writes are slower than that of a 7200 RPM drive.

 

[macmino]

Battery life is not really an argument for not including an optical drive.

It seems to me that battery life goes down noticeably by heavy optical drive usage. Therefore I beliefe that if maximum autonomy is an issue, one should avoid to use an internal optical drive on the laptop's batteries.

 

[cube]

It seems to me that battery life goes down noticeably by heavy optical drive usage. Therefore I beliefe that if maximum autonomy is an issue, one should avoid to use an internal optical drive on the laptop's batteries.

That's why I said it's not a problem to include it. If at some point you want to conserve battery, just don't use it.

 

[Glenny2lappies]

What's wrong with having a separate optical drive?

Obviously it depends on how you use your system, but for me it's a rarity as it's main use is for ripping a CD. I tend to swap files either using the network or use a USB key drive (which are much cheaper and really small when compared with a CD/DVD).

If it's ultraportable, then it doesn't need the optical drive and a USB/FW equivalent would be fine.

Also, what about the "patent" apple got for the bleeding obvious; putting the optical drive underneath the machine? If it's ultra portable it can be turned over and the disc inserted. This will make the machine lighter as it won't need the additional strengthening to stop the slot from being crushed.

 

[cube]

Last year I was looking for an ultraportable for my dad and I just ignored everything 10" and smaller because they didn't have an optical drive, even if I would have liked the smallest possible system.

 

[Koby]

In regards to the issue of the optical drive (or lack thereof), why not include a docking station with one built in where you could run the charger into the dock and power both the laptop and optical drive. This way you could use it to reinstall os x, watch a movie (God help your eyes), burn a cd/dvd, etc.

 

[scrambledwonder]

ultra portables

Question for everybody who's really interested in the ultra portable:

So this would be your second computer. How would you keep everything straight?

Anytime I've had more than one machine, seems like I end up needing the files that are on the "other" machine. I constantly say to myself: I just want ONE machine with all my ongoing projects, emails and music on it. Seems much more efficient.

 

[kajitox]

Question for everybody who's really interested in the ultra portable:

So this would be your second computer. How would you keep everything straight?

Anytime I've had more than one machine, seems like I end up needing the files that are on the "other" machine. I constantly say to myself: I just want ONE machine with all my ongoing projects, emails and music on it. Seems much more efficient.

I'm pretty sure there are programs that automatically sync computers when they are in the same place. (And if they don't exist, they should.)

 

[Zadillo]

People want flash drives because they are driven by hype thinking that they will also be faster. Random writes are slower than that of a 7200 RPM drive.

Speed isn't the primary reason I've heard for most people wanting SSD's.

The reason most people want them has less to do with speed (although as noted, read and write access can be much faster) but because there are no moving parts and because they can improve battery life.

I'm not sure why ignore the positives of the technology.

 

[Vidd]

I'm pretty sure there are programs that automatically sync computers when they are in the same place. (And if they don't exist, they should.)

If not, an Aiport Disk and the new, higher speed wireless would do the job.

 

[scrambledwonder]

If not, an Aiport Disk and the new, higher speed wireless would do the job.

I look forward to the days when the world is blanketed in high-speed wireless and we can just use little terminal machines with VPN. Talk about ultraportable. . .

 

[Zadillo]

Oh yeah, also, for the people complaining about the lack of a built-in optical drive (if that is the route Apple goes down).

Asus' U1F, their latest ultraportable, also forgoes a built-in optical drive:

http://www.dynamism.com/asus-u1/main.shtml

It's an external unit instead.

 

[cube]

So? That notebook sucks.

 

[Wolfpup]

.

How come no one is talking about a 17" MBP?

I remember the morning, last year, when that puppy hit the Apple website (drool, drool) I can't remember if the 15" MBP came out first, or the 17".

Could they release a 17" in the near future? If it had Santa Rosa, an updated graphics card, and a 7200rpm drive at 120 to 160 gigs, it would be my main computer.

Typically the 15" and 17" models get updated together. The exception was the 15" MPB was originally released a month or two before the 17" model, and then the 15" model got upgraded at the same time the 17" was released.

The next upgrade did both at the same time, and I'd expect the same to happen this time. I plan to buy a 17" model too (if it fits my other requirements).

The "downside" to the 17" model is that it'll probably have the traditional CCFL rather than LED lighting in this revision (since LED backlighting is more expensive the larger the screen). The traditional compact florescent lighting works fine though, so I don't think I much care.

I'm just crossing my fingers for a user replaceable harddrive in the style of the Macbook... That's the biggest thing I require...and unfortunately the least likely to get since it would require a bit of a case redesign.

I'd be shocked if it doesn't have a better GPU and all the other features though.

 

[Chef Medeski]

Typically the 15" and 17" models get updated together. The exception was the 15" MPB was originally released a month or two before the 17" model, and then the 15" model got upgraded at the same time the 17" was released.

The next upgrade did both at the same time, and I'd expect the same to happen this time. I plan to buy a 17" model too (if it fits my other requirements).

The "downside" to the 17" model is that it'll probably have the traditional CCFL rather than LED lighting in this revision (since LED backlighting is more expensive the larger the screen). The traditional compact florescent lighting works fine though, so I don't think I much care.

I'm just crossing my fingers for a user replaceable harddrive in the style of the Macbook... That's the biggest thing I require...and unfortunately the least likely to get since it would require a bit of a case redesign.

I'd be shocked if it doesn't have a better GPU and all the other features though.

If they go for new screens and Santa Rosa I think a case re-design is in store since Santa Rosa is a whole new chipset and the screens are a completely different width. It just seems to make sense.

 

[koobcamuk]

What a horrible idea.

Haha. Totally. Awful. Can you imagine the heat?

 

[72930]

So? That notebook sucks.

But Apple could do it well...maybe even a wireless external optical drive?

 

[cube]

Look, an external drive is heavier, more bulk, and it doesn't work while in some form of transportation.

And I definitely don't want my bits flying around when it's easy to just use a cable.

 

[72930]

Look, an external drive is heavier, more bulk, and it doesn't work while in some form of transportation.

And I definitely don't want my bits flying around when it's easy to just use a cable.

I barely use my macbook's drive...I could really cope with an external only machine...

A lot of people who might get this would use it as a secondary machine, so music imports wouldn't happen so often...

 

[sushi]

I barely use my macbook's drive...I could really cope with an external only machine...

Same here.

A lot of people who might get this would use it as a secondary machine, so music imports wouldn't happen so often...

Agree.

To me the ultra portable would be for those who do not need the capability of a complete laptop or desktop system.

I am on the go a lot. The lighter the better. Now I rarely use my PB15. My Sharp MM20 is my main laptop.

Having the optical drive as a option via USB would be great.

The Sony that I discussed before in this thread is nice. But it is flimsy and the keyboard is not full sized. I think having the optical drive, while increasing the weight a bit, makes the computer less strong.

Nope, take the PB12 concept and remove the optical drive, replace the 12 inch display with a 11.1 inch widescreen display, add a Core Duo chip, put in a long lasting battery, keep the current keyboard and make it as thin and light as you can and you would have a nice ultra portable.

 

[Zadillo]

So? That notebook sucks.

And what do you base that insightful observation on?

I've noticed that you seem to love to make blanket statement (SSDs suck, the Asus U1F sucks, etc.) with no support behind it (or in the case of your insights about SSD's, completely incorrect information).