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But let's face it, it had to happen. We weren't going to move away from floppy drives until some company somewhere had the guts to do away with them entirely, and force the development and mainstreaming of things like CD burners, USB flash drives, etc.

Yup....if Apple hadn't had drop the floppy drive, then other forms of portable storage wouldn't have been needed, and price wouldn't have dropped as fast.

Basicly you'd have run into the same problem, just later on.
 
Core Sole is a good amount better then G4...the Core Solo in the Mac Mini(when it was first released) was about as fast as my 1.8Ghz G5.


Unless the Low powered Core Solo loses tons of speed vs the high powered one(which don't think happen, just the low powered one costs more) then the speed is a large improvement over 12'' PPC i/PowerBook.
Au contraire, my friend:

Ars Technica benchmarks
MacWorld benchmarks

Basically, it's a wash. The G4 is faster on some tasks, the Core Solo on others. The 1.5 ghz G4 (in the last PowerBook 12") would more than hold its own against a 1.33 Core Solo ULV.
 
9"-12" is ultra-portabale. 5"-9" is the UMPC/MicroPC arena. 1-5" is PDA range.

I cannot understand why Apple would even consider a UMPC with a 13" screen? Moreover, why a rumorist would suggest it. It makes no sense. It won't be much lighter than the macbook, so what's the point.

It will have to be a 10-12" screen and in the 2-3lb range for it be competitive as an ultra-portable, as well as differentiating with the macbook.

I have not problem with an external optical to lower weight/size, but there are PCs with internal optical in the 2.9-3.2lb range.

Good point about the weight. a DVD drive is fairly light (specialy a strip down one) and should not be removed just for the weight. If Apple is removing it, it is likely to be for the real state. Every one seems to be fixated on the 13 inch screens, I do not think Apple is going to use them on the ultra light. I think it will be using them either on the MB (consumer) or on the long rumored tablet.

If Apple is making an ultra light laptop it is likely to be 11 or 12 inch screen with external DVD drive. Possibly with Nand memory for drives and maybe an optional second battery instead of a DVD drive. Most people can leave the DVD drive home and travel without it. Intel Macs can boot of both Firewire drives and USB drives so the external DVD could be either.

I bet it is not a 13 incher at all but a 12 or 11 incher. The 13 could be for the Tablet or the consumer MB.

The rumor mill has been very quiet for a while about the tablet and it is a fact that the tablet exist in the lab even though it may never see the light of day.
 
Guys, sorry to digress from the conversation but do any of you know if the new ULV Core Duo 1.06 Ghz in sony's new ultra-portable laptop is faster or slower than my 2.6 Ghz Pentium 4 w/ HT tech desktop i bought 3 years ago?

I could not live with anything slower than my current desktop.
 
Guys, sorry to digress from the conversation but do any of you know if the new ULV Core Duo 1.06 Ghz in sony's new ultra-portable laptop is faster or slower than my 2.6 Ghz Pentium 4 w/ HT tech desktop i bought 3 years ago?

I could not live with anything slower than my current desktop.

I'd guess slower for most stuff. No way is Core 1 over twice as fast as Pentium 4 (and are you sure it's a dual core chip? Even if it is, for most stuff that Pentium 4 should be better, assuming the same amount of RAM, etc.)
 
Don't follow in Sony's footsteps.

It is unfortunate that the Sony's quoted below are also lousy. I have one and know two others a work who have them and they are nothing but trouble. After about 6 months of use the system bogs down and begins to hammer the hard drive and at 4200RPM that is not a good thing. You can defrag all you want and it won't help. You have to restore from the restore disks to get the performance back. Worse the are too fragile. All three units have had their plastic cases crack, two of the LED screens have been replaced, the Bluetooth/WIFI switch breaks and the systems will periodically refuse to boot. The only good thing about them is that they are light, have good battery life and are convenient. But not worth the money.

I hope the Apple doesn't have the same issues. Regarding an earlier concern about the Apple not having a built-in optical, I don't see this as a negative. I can count on one hand the number of times I have used the optical in the past 6 months and each time I have used it I have been at work so a USB would have been fine. I do hope they have more than the one USB port Sony puts in their units.


The Sony VAIO VGN-TXN29N/L has some interesting specs:
- 11.1 inch display
- Built in optical drive (dual layer)
- 2GB RAM
- 100GB HD

Price is around $2,600.

I don't see Apple introducing a ultra-portable much cheaper than $2,000. Maybe $1,600, but not anything close to $1,000.
 
It is interesting how Sony is stating how great the carbon fibre structure is so great. I mentioned that I have personal experience with three of these units and each one has had problems with their cases cracking, LED displays failing and switches not functioning.

Hopefully, Apple puts more fiber in their units.

http://vaio-online.sony.com/prod_info/exclusive/vaio_g_video/index.html

Cool video on how carbon fibre structure increases ultraportable's durability.

I wish Apple can use carbon fibre structure/chassis in their ultraportable.
 
Are the G-series already available in the US? Because TX and SZ only has carbon fibre in their lid but not the actual structure of the laptop...

If that is true..'tis a shame....

The video only applies to the G-series, TX and SZ cannot withstand such tests.
 
I will ONLY look at an ultra portable right now if its a tablet. The size of a ultra portable laptop makes it hard to type to begin with so all you are doing is adding bulk to a device that is trying to be small as is.
4648_Q1Utlra_Front.jpg


4651_Q1Ultra_top.jpg


http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/4648_large_Q1Utlra_Front.jpg

Base price $800. Loaded? $1,499 Design is a bit iffy. But its from a Windows OEM so what would you expect. But for that price point? I may end up picking one up this summer.

If you are going to do an ultra portable DO an ultra portable.
 
Guys, sorry to digress from the conversation but do any of you know if the new ULV Core Duo 1.06 Ghz in sony's new ultra-portable laptop is faster or slower than my 2.6 Ghz Pentium 4 w/ HT tech desktop i bought 3 years ago?

I could not live with anything slower than my current desktop.

Please, try to grasp that most ultra-portables are people's *second* computers.

Light weight and good battery life are the prime needs for this market - not big disks, fast CPUs, optical storage and the like.
 
It's not the sort of ultra-portable or even tablet that most uses here seem to want but I could really go for something like the Mac Mini tablet that this guy made.
It's much better than the Nokia internet tablets and can run iTunes. Awesome! :)

I keep wondering whether to buy a Macbook or iMac but if they start neglecting the Macbook to keep people going for the MBP, I mightn't bother to wait.
I'm still waiting for the new design that's been rumoured for so long, the only new design in ages has been the Macbook.
 
Au contraire, my friend:

Ars Technica benchmarks
MacWorld benchmarks

Basically, it's a wash. The G4 is faster on some tasks, the Core Solo on others. The 1.5 ghz G4 (in the last PowerBook 12") would more than hold its own against a 1.33 Core Solo ULV.

#1. This was using a Core solo not a Core 2 Solo.
#2. This was using 10.4.5 Apple has released several versions since that time.
#3. Intel's latest graphics is a FAR and away better then the crap they put out early last year.
#4. The CPU speed is probably going to be in the 1.8Ghz-2Ghz range. That's assuming Intel even releases the solo in such a configuration since the C2 Solos aren't even out yet.
#5. The G4 sucks at this point in time. Deal with it.
 
Am I the only one excited about a MacBook Pro update?

Absutively not.

Someone already asked a similar question to this but I didn't see an answer to my question so here goes: When Apple releases a new product, such as an updated MBP, does shipping time take long because of the flood of new orders they get? For example, say they release a new MBP in 3 days (giggity), and tell everyone it's available immediately. If I order it on Tuesday, will I still not get it until, say late June or something, because of how many orders they'll get all of a sudden? Because I thought someone was saying that often happens, but I thought he/she might have been referring to the fact that Apple sometimes announces a new product and then says it won't be shipping for several weeks/months (as with the iPhone). So does Apple usually take a while to deliver orders after updating a product?
 
Please, try to grasp that most ultra-portables are people's *second* computers.

Light weight and good battery life are the prime needs for this market - not big disks, fast CPUs, optical storage and the like.

I'm a student and i'll bringing my laptop literally everywhere. I don't need fast processor but I need adequate ones that don't hang when I wanna watch movies or divx files. Technology wise, 3 years is a very lengthy time, it's just that i'm expecting current ultraportable to perform wee bit better than my old PC.

I completely understand the roles of ultraportable, please don't try to explain it to me.

Heck, maybe i'll consider MBP as my laptop of choice. It wouldn't hurt to have a bit of workout sometimes.
 
Absutively not.

Someone already asked a similar question to this but I didn't see an answer to my question so here goes: When Apple releases a new product, such as an updated MBP, does shipping time take long because of the flood of new orders they get? For example, say they release a new MBP in 3 days (giggity), and tell everyone it's available immediately. If I order it on Tuesday, will I still not get it until, say late June or something, because of how many orders they'll get all of a sudden? Because I thought someone was saying that often happens, but I thought he/she might have been referring to the fact that Apple sometimes announces a new product and then says it won't be shipping for several weeks/months (as with the iPhone). So does Apple usually take a while to deliver orders after updating a product?

Nah. Usually when Apple updates an existing product and has it as Immediate or 1-3 Day Availability no amount of sudden orders will produce week-long wait times. :)
 
Anyone here in the UK and is familiar with HE discount? Is it true that all laptops come with 3 years standard warranty? If so, what's the point of AppleCare then? Do students need them?
 
I seriously don't understand why so many people aren't strong enough to pick up even a teeny tiny 13" notebook, and want something even smaller....

Completely off the subject but I remember a funny story from some car magazine quite a few years ago. In those days, Mercedes Benz was one of the only car companies that was not installing power windows in their cars. In the magazine article, they were interviewing one of MB's head engineers. He was asked why MB did not put power windows in their cars. He replied (use your best Henry Kissinger accent here...) "Vell. If you are to weak to open zee Vindow, you should not be driving zee car."
 
Here's a really ultra-portable computer:

opera_ds.jpg


Since a lot of things can now be done online, I'd rather use something slower that fits in a shirt pocket. Even a 9" sub-laptop couldn't do that (fit in a shirt pocket, that is). ;)

Bonus: the Nintendo DS Lite looks like a small MacBook. :cool:
 
Absutively not.

Someone already asked a similar question to this but I didn't see an answer to my question so here goes: When Apple releases a new product, such as an updated MBP, does shipping time take long because of the flood of new orders they get? For example, say they release a new MBP in 3 days (giggity), and tell everyone it's available immediately. If I order it on Tuesday, will I still not get it until, say late June or something, because of how many orders they'll get all of a sudden? Because I thought someone was saying that often happens, but I thought he/she might have been referring to the fact that Apple sometimes announces a new product and then says it won't be shipping for several weeks/months (as with the iPhone). So does Apple usually take a while to deliver orders after updating a product?

I think Apple is a big enough company that they can get an update like this out to people pretty quick. Remember that even though people are excited about this, it doesn't mean that it's anything revolutionary. As some people have said, this is just evolutionary technology, not anything too huge...I don't foresee a large backup of orders with an update like this and a company like this.
 
Completely off the subject but I remember a funny story from some car magazine quite a few years ago. In those days, Mercedes Benz was one of the only car companies that was not installing power windows in their cars. In the magazine article, they were interviewing one of MB's head engineers. He was asked why MB did not put power windows in their cars. He replied (use your best Henry Kissinger accent here...) "Vell. If you are to weak to open zee Vindow, you should not be driving zee car."

Actually I'd pay to have manual windows in a car. Way more reliable than auto windows (even if motorized windows are kind of handy-especially for the back seats).
 
All I want for the "new" Macbook to have is:

  1. Santa Rosa
  2. LED display (please make it brighter)

+ the stuff it has on it right now, or even better. :)
 
What do you think the chances are of the Macbook Pro's being updated next week? Or do you think it will be more likely to be updated at Macworld in June?
 
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