Better yet, just give us a tiny external drive for these tasks if necessary...pretty much NOBODY needs an optical drive on the road...I can't wait to see this new marvel from Apple...it's gonna dominate the market and redefine what a subnotebook is, for sure.
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Ultra-Portable Mac Expected at Macworld Expo 2008
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Better yet, just give us a tiny external drive for these tasks if necessary...pretty much NOBODY needs an optical drive on the road...I can't wait to see this new marvel from Apple...it's gonna dominate the market and redefine what a subnotebook is, for sure.
scienide09
macrumors 65816
Now I'm glad I didn't jump at an updated Macbook. I was wavering anyway, and don't need it now.
Will be most interested to see what happens with the GPUs, drive sspace, and price.
I don't see the big problem with no optical drive and having to connect to another computer. After all, don't most of us already have other computers? To me, an ultra-portable is something you use on-the-go, like a PDA, that can be synced with a more powerful computer that stays safe at home.
Will be most interested to see what happens with the GPUs, drive sspace, and price.
I don't see the big problem with no optical drive and having to connect to another computer. After all, don't most of us already have other computers? To me, an ultra-portable is something you use on-the-go, like a PDA, that can be synced with a more powerful computer that stays safe at home.
iPhil
macrumors 68040
Buschmaster
macrumors 65816
Maybe they will package an external optical drive with it...
That would be a great way around all of this. It would keep those happy who feel an optical drive is a waste of space and it would keep the people happy who need(/want) it.
The last group of people are the people who don't think it should be an extra cost on the price since every other laptop comes with the optical drive. So you need to keep them happy by packaging it with the computer at no extra cost.
That would be a great way around all of this. It would keep those happy who feel an optical drive is a waste of space and it would keep the people happy who need(/want) it.
The last group of people are the people who don't think it should be an extra cost on the price since every other laptop comes with the optical drive. So you need to keep them happy by packaging it with the computer at no extra cost.
Just think of all the business road warriors out there armed with their IBM/Lenova X60 Thinkpads, laptop dock complete with optical drive on their office desk. The X60 is a great, great machine...light, rugged, superb keyboard & compact.
If Apple build a super-light laptop that's rugged, compact, fast, with a great keyboard, built-in camera for video chats and a phenomenal OS that can run bootcamp/parallels they would have a significant business market to tap into here IMO.
Vanilla
PS: The MacBook/iMac keyboards are brilliant..truly.
corywoolf
macrumors 65816
Sounds pretty useless to me. Who wants to shell out over $500 for a giant iPod Touch? This should be a standalone computer, if Apple doesn't want it to end up like the iPod HiFi. A tablet would be stupid. They should just keep it simple and create a 12" widescreen notebook that uses an LED display and a flash hard-drive. And price it at $999.99. Give it a 2 Ghz Core 2 Duo.
13" is not a sub notebook and not an ultra portable.
If the terms "sub notebook" and "ultra portable" are synonymous with the rumor, we can expect something 12" or smaller.
A thinner, lighter 13" without optical drive just doesn't make sense.
If the terms "sub notebook" and "ultra portable" are synonymous with the rumor, we can expect something 12" or smaller.
A thinner, lighter 13" without optical drive just doesn't make sense.
yea yea yea another rumor 🙄
its too hard to believe anyway.... too quick to update MB this soon...maybe in march??
unfortunately for me, i decided against buying the modestly updated macbook and went for the crappy yet more feature rich dell again 😱
and got it for 900 pounds with a whole lot better specs 🙁
i hope to jump next time and i hope that next time comes sooner 😀
its too hard to believe anyway.... too quick to update MB this soon...maybe in march??
unfortunately for me, i decided against buying the modestly updated macbook and went for the crappy yet more feature rich dell again 😱
and got it for 900 pounds with a whole lot better specs 🙁
i hope to jump next time and i hope that next time comes sooner 😀
boss1
macrumors 6502a
Agreed...unless it turns out to be smaller than 13" , replaces the keyboard with a full touchscreen and runs an OS version that is between Mac OS X and iPhone OS . only then would the no optical drive make sense as well as justify ultra portable.
elppa
macrumors 68040
What I do like is Apple having the bravery to pull the 12" PowerBook and not replace it immediately, but taking the time to design something from the ground up that they believe will be a worthy successor. They don't want to sell second best or yesterdays technology. They want to be in the lead. Whilst other companies talk about this, Apple delivers the goods.
One thing no one has really mentioned in very much detail is the resolution. I wonder if the resolution will be greater than (1280 x 800 pixles). This is where res independence could finally come into play if it has a 160-200ppi display.
I believe they will use a combination of solid state and hard disk drive. The iPod is up to 160GB now. A combination of the two could be quite compelling in terms of access speed and size.
Volume wise it will be the same or smaller, sure it will be a little wider, but it will also be shorter (screen height) and thinner.
And of course it will be lighter. The crowd that loved the 12" PowerBook form factor will probably love this just as much.
No, you buy the matching ultra slim FW 800 super drive.
Ask not what your Macbook Nano does for you, ask what you can buy for your Macbook Nano
One thing no one has really mentioned in very much detail is the resolution. I wonder if the resolution will be greater than (1280 x 800 pixles). This is where res independence could finally come into play if it has a 160-200ppi display.
I believe they will use a combination of solid state and hard disk drive. The iPod is up to 160GB now. A combination of the two could be quite compelling in terms of access speed and size.
Volume wise it will be the same or smaller, sure it will be a little wider, but it will also be shorter (screen height) and thinner.
And of course it will be lighter. The crowd that loved the 12" PowerBook form factor will probably love this just as much.
No, you buy the matching ultra slim FW 800 super drive.
Ask not what your Macbook Nano does for you, ask what you can buy for your Macbook Nano
Manatee
Contributor
It's not the footprint that would force them to ditch the optical drive, but the profile -- half the thickness of a MacBook Pro, 0.5 inches.
I hope we're headed that way. We can fit 8GB on a microSD card, and I read somewhere that we'll see 32GB on those tiny things next year. Granted, the price of a 4GB or 8GB microSD is far from the "disposable" range of DVDs, but the difference in physical volume shows how inefficient DVDs and CDs are.
I've probably said it here before, but I can remember when I upgraded a DEC minicomputer to 1GB of storage in the mid-'80s, and was impressed that all that storage could fit in a single rack footprint. It was four physical drive enclosures, each the size of a microwave oven, stacked vertically. I think it cost around $40K.
BIK
macrumors member
The Whole Notebook line needs a Refresh (sorry Mac Pro Fans)
Hopefully at macworld in jan they will also unveil a new more portable Macbook Pro. I just can't justify dropping 600 more dollars to have a non-integrated video card.
I will say, my iBook G4 has proven to be quite the trooper. Who knew a 32mb ATI vid card would still be better performing than the macbooks 2 YEARS LATER.
As for the ultraportable rumor, it would seem like a great way to introduce iTunes movie rentals.
Hopefully at macworld in jan they will also unveil a new more portable Macbook Pro. I just can't justify dropping 600 more dollars to have a non-integrated video card.
I will say, my iBook G4 has proven to be quite the trooper. Who knew a 32mb ATI vid card would still be better performing than the macbooks 2 YEARS LATER.
As for the ultraportable rumor, it would seem like a great way to introduce iTunes movie rentals.
An iPod touch display used as a trackpad. It would be a better use of space then the normal black plastic track pad.
Manatee
Contributor
OQO. Search it on the web. It's a very cool device, but just too slow for my taste.
boss1
macrumors 6502a
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/11/12/iphone_to_gain_apple_spotlight_search_in_2008.html
Gene Munster:
I'm leaning toward agreeing with the latter .. "an entirely new product"
Gene Munster:
I'm leaning toward agreeing with the latter .. "an entirely new product"
If you make the case as small as possible, using full-size keys/trackpad, you can get a 13" screen in there. Here's the 12" which has about as small of a case as you're ever gonna get from Apple, notice the borders where a screen could extend to. http://img.osnews.com/img/2547/pbook.png
To get a smaller maximum screen size, you'd have to use smaller keys to type on which would suck darts.
To get a smaller maximum screen size, you'd have to use smaller keys to type on which would suck darts.
Avatar74
macrumors 68000
Apple has always been a leader in popularizing (not necessarily inventing) various technologies... be it firewire, ethernet, 3.5" microfloppies, CD-ROM, CD/DVD burners.
What I see is a move of foresight... The internet has had a tremendous impact on how we move and share data. So much so that it has rendered many types of removable media redundant. Between e-mail, FTP, blogs, myspace, youtube, etc. there are so many different options for content sharing and transfer with the ultimate portability factor... one can see that while removable media hasn't completely outlived its usefulness, it's getting there.
Apple is smart to be thinking about the future (or lack thereof) of removable media now. I was thinking about this the other day when I found a relatively simple way to access my media over the LAN from my iPhone without actually storing the content on the iPhone itself. As bandwidth increases, what's the point of local storage except for working with files that you tend to alter in a processor and memory intensive way? And how many of those does the average person actually intend to work on between trips to Starbucks?
I got laughed at by naysayers for suggesting that removable media is going exxtinct from consumer electronics, but here we are with at least half of the posts concerning the ultraportable's possible lack of an optical drive being, to even my own surprise, a positive reaction.
And this is in no small part thanks to the content ecosystems popularized by iTunes, YouTube and the like. And I feel that AppleTV, or some kind of successor to it, has yet some very important part to play in this ecosystem... bridging it all together for the holy grail of technological convergence.
What I'd like to see:
- Core 2 Duo ULV U7700 1.33GHz (release date 12/30/07)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...2Merom-2M.22_.28ultra-low-voltage.2C_65_nm.29
- 32 GB SSD
- 2 GB RAM
- 80 GB HDD
- 12" screen with almost no bezel
- 802.11n
- keyboard similar to the new BT keyboard, not sure I want the touchpad...
- Intel GMA X3100 graphics for 1,500$, dedicated GPU for 1,800$
- 6+ hours battery life
- less than 3 pounds
What do you think?
- Core 2 Duo ULV U7700 1.33GHz (release date 12/30/07)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...2Merom-2M.22_.28ultra-low-voltage.2C_65_nm.29
- 32 GB SSD
- 2 GB RAM
- 80 GB HDD
- 12" screen with almost no bezel
- 802.11n
- keyboard similar to the new BT keyboard, not sure I want the touchpad...
- Intel GMA X3100 graphics for 1,500$, dedicated GPU for 1,800$
- 6+ hours battery life
- less than 3 pounds
What do you think?