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Ultra-thin and Ultra-light Mac Notebook in 2007

Will the ultra portable replace the current macbooks?

The question is...will this ultra slim laptop be the new macbook?

Or will it be a separate entity altogether? Thus keeping the current macbook and macbook pro line up unchanged.

Or who thinks that these "ultra" portables WILL become the new macbooks? And that the current 13" size screen will move to the macbook pro lineup?

I think on the one hand the average consumer WANTS portable. Because would a 12" screen and no optical drive really be useful for a pro? I think pro mac users need a smaller option like the 13" macbook, so maybe this will be true.

But then the question becomes, do ALL the average consumers want to sacrifice the optical drive and larger screen?

Thats why I believe Apple will release this as a separate entity like a "macbook lite"...perhaps call it a macbook mini.

It might actually sell for MORE than the macbook due to its size.

What are all your thoughts on how an ultra portable will fit in the current line up of Mac portables?

I personally like the 13" size screen of the current macbook...BUT I don't want integrated graphics chip. Because I like to work on projects on the road. So an ultra portable which would be good for your basic emailer and websurfer would not do for me with its too small screen and no optical drive. And since I don't want a larger laptop like the 15" or ugh 17" macbook pro...I'd be stuck with a macbook.

Don't get me wrong. I love the macbooks style. I am just going to wait till September to see if apple gives the macbooks santa rosa with a dedicated graphics chip like the pros.
 
I'd instantly sacrifice my optical drive for more battery power and I'd like something sexier than the current MacBook. Just as well I would go for a 1.3 or 1.6 ULV instead of the >= 2.0 Core2Duo. More than enough power for my casual tasks. If you are used to a 12" system than larger ones are not so appealing. So I would be the first one to buy this thing. But honestly and sadly I think the ultra portable falls into the same category as the G5 Powerbook.
 
BornAgainMac said:
Possible Specs:

2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
32 GB Flash Hard Drive
Multi-touch 12 Inch Display
2 USB
1 Firewire (?)
Bluetooth
802.11n
Optical DVD-RW Drive?
Integrated Graphics
$1,799
Click to expand...

It'll be Penryn for sure. The current C2Ds run too hot, so you'd have to go with a ULV part. But why not just wait for Penryn which promises major gains in power management?
 
Aniej said:
If you want to see almost exactly what you are going to get with only some slight modifications, Intel has already given you a giant hint.

Compare the specifications listed by MacScoop and those set out in the intel prototype. Then look at the design and its distinctively Mac (sans the OS displayed). Watch and you will see this morph into your new ultra light, portable notebook. Below is just one of the images to whet the appetite.
Click to expand...

look at this image:

Intel_Mobile_Metro_Notebook_4.JPG



That bezel looks uncannily like that of the iPhone. A clue me thinks.
 
impierced said:
Perhaps that's true of the majority, but I can say I'd order half a dozen the day they were announced for myself and staff.

I'd pay $2000 apiece for an ultra-portable with a docking station from Apple and not bat an eye.

Hell, I'm still purchasing 12" refurbished PowerBooks when I can.
Click to expand...

oscuh said:
No One? I think you underestimate the market. If no one bought UPs, then why do so many of them get built and sold every year?

I for one would buy one in a heartbeat. As long as I could hook it up to a larger monitor for home use, I'll break out the checkbook.
Click to expand...

Well, ok, "no one" is an exaggeration. But the market seems very small compared to the conventional notebook market. Laptops are everywhere and are useful for all kinds of things. Ultra-portables are rare and pack so many compromises they are hard to justify.

Right now, we can imagine that this Apple ultra-portable is everything we want in a UP, with no fatal flaws. So what if each of us is imagining a difference computers? :D
But if it comes out, it will doubtless have numerous compromises each one of which excludes a portion of the interested market, until hardly anything remains.

Well, maybe Apple will come out with a "low-compromise" ultra-portable, but it is going to be really tough.
 
Maybe part of the reason people don't see the point of an ultra-portable is because they're thinking of it the wrong way. I think one key to ultra-portables is that they should not do everything. You have a desktop for the heavy work, and then an ultra-portable for travel. If you need to do heavy work on the road, you go back to your desktop...

...from your notebook.

Consider two of the features coming in Leopard; screen sharing and Back To My Mac. If you had easy access to your desktop while on the road, how much power does your laptop need? Not much. If you run into anything the laptop isn't good enough for, your desktop is just a few mouse clicks away. That's how I use my laptop now, using SSH and VNC.
 
For me a tablet please

I'd like a tablet with a screen size between 8'' and 11''. It doesn't have to be more power than a macbook. If it is powerful enough to run the iLive and iWork suites that would be more than sufficient.

What if iLive is so late in development because they are converting the programs to be used on this tablet - all functions touch screen driven and no more menu's.

A touch screen tablet with the UI of the iPhone extended in both the iLive and iwork suites. Now wouldn't that be sweet!
 
syklee26 said:
i dont understand all these fascination about ultraportable laptops...

Small hard drives, no graphics card, limited I/O, and no optical drives...

being a gadget collector is one thing, being a geek is another. if you can't handle the extra 3lbs, you really need to hit the gym.
Click to expand...

I for one am someone that does go to the gym and yet I still yearn for an ultraportable - you'd be hard pressed to call me a wimp.

My best mate has one of the Sony VIAOs and it is brilliant (I picked it out for him) - he loves it and I am hugely jealous of it. It's not just the weight (and sending people to the gym is missing the point I think) but more it's the size - especially when traveling.

Don't need an optical drive; it's an ultraportable why do you need a graphics card; small hard drive - it's all relative.<grin>

This isn't a computer that is your only computer - it is an ultraportable and for me would be just that, ultra-portable.
 
Shinjinho said:
32GB is too little... I think they will use a 1.8" 80GB harddrive at least. And a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo LV. The 34W Core 2 Duo is too hot for an ultra-portable.
No multitouch I think.
Click to expand...

No no no. You can't run an OS off a 1.8" HDD. They die too easily. You must either use a 2.5" or SSD. I think 32GB is plenty for a portable SUPPLIMENT to your desktop (or even your full-time laptop). That's what you get an ultra-portable for: suppliment. Not replacement. I think people don't get this. An ultra-portable shouldn't be an entire solution. Why don't you people get it?!

Stop trying to have your cake and eat it too! You can't run photoshop, final cut and WoW on an ultra-portable. NOW GET OVER IT!

I *could* fathom a portable that, like the iPhone, would run one major application at a time. Whenever Photoshop is up, that's all you get. Single-tasking only. That way, you could survive on a Core Solo or some other lightweight processor. Meanwhile, have an ARM in there for iTunes playback in the background... ;) rock out while you Photoshop. That's the way, uh-huh, I like it.

-Clive
 
Aniej said:
If you want to see almost exactly what you are going to get with only some slight modifications, Intel has already given you a giant hint.

Compare the specifications listed by MacScoop and those set out in the intel prototype. Then look at the design and its distinctively Mac (sans the OS displayed). Watch and you will see this morph into your new ultra light, portable notebook. Below is just one of the images to whet the appetite.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was aluding to in my post. If Apple could bring that out I'd be happy.
 
Clive At Five said:
No no no. You can't run an OS off a 1.8" HDD.
Click to expand...
I find everything about this thread extremely odd. There is nothing revolutionary about any of the specifications here. My employer bought me a Dell D420 with the exact specs this thread is mentioning. 12" screen, 1.8" hard-drive, 2.7 lbs, 1.2 GHz Core Duo etc. The thing is extremely light especially when you compare it to my 13" MacBook. Too bad it is ugly and runs Windows :mad:.

As far as performance is concerned my biggest complaint is the slow 4200 rpm 1.8" HD. I think if you added 4-8GB of solid state memory for the OS and most used apps it would improve performance quite a bit.
 
kutzcd said:
Apple's smallest portable just came out - the iPhone. Why would they create a 10" ultraportable?

Plus, what peripherals would be available for such a device. Are all the plugs and cord inputs that small - not everything is usb, ya know. Also, you would have to plug everything in just to use it - external drives, keyboards, monitors - who needs the hassle.

I think they are going to take what they learned from the iPhone and AppleTV and build on compatibility and consistency with those items.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I clipped the parts I disagreed with. The external device interface will be a dock and/or 802.11n wifi. AppleTV uses wifi interfaces to hard drives and monitors for moderately high bandwidth. That could be the interface to either a printer or to a printer on an ethernet network or a USB hub as well.

Soon each peripheral will be addressed via IP address over the internet anyway and the whole physical connection paradigm will die.

Rocketman
 
No Tablets

safXmal said:
I'd like a tablet with a screen size between 8'' and 11''. It doesn't have to be more power than a macbook. If it is powerful enough to run the iLive and iWork suites that would be more than sufficient.

What if iLive is so late in development because they are converting the programs to be used on this tablet - all functions touch screen driven and no more menu's.

A touch screen tablet with the UI of the iPhone extended in both the iLive and iwork suites. Now wouldn't that be sweet!
Click to expand...

Never going to happen as long as Steve Jobs runs Apple.

Bellow is a brief excerpt explaining why, you can read his entire article here. By the way, since someone is bound to just wave what this article say away as just some guy pontificating, he is the former head of apple's federal government division, you know the group that supplies all our scientists and researchers.

First, he said, the wireless bandwidth for huge images, plus the security needed to successfully do what NIH wanted, was just not on the horizon. (Apple staff had been notably fuzzy earlier in the briefing about wireless standards after 802.11b.) Plus, tablets' screen resolution was nowhere near that required for NIH's high-quality medical images. Finally, any product designed to work in the medical field would attract significant liability. The hint was that Apple wasn't interested in anything with that kind of potential liability. That pretty well shut down the issue.
 
By "redefine", I'm guessing this means it will not come with a physical keyboard, but a touch-screen one.
 
Spades said:
Maybe part of the reason people don't see the point of an ultra-portable is because they're thinking of it the wrong way. I think one key to ultra-portables is that they should not do everything. You have a desktop for the heavy work, and then an ultra-portable for travel. If you need to do heavy work on the road, you go back to your desktop...

...from your notebook.

Consider two of the features coming in Leopard; screen sharing and Back To My Mac. If you had easy access to your desktop while on the road, how much power does your laptop need? Not much. If you run into anything the laptop isn't good enough for, your desktop is just a few mouse clicks away. That's how I use my laptop now, using SSH and VNC.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I've been saying. Also, spot on about the "Back to My Mac" feature. I wrote about this in my iMac prediction post (the part about "Option B"). The only con is that you would require a high-speed internet connection, which isn't always available... especially on those long trips you speak of.

-Clive
 
Maybe those are the same...

Another rumor tells that Apple is about to release a new sleeker keyboard. Maybe this new keyboard and an ultraportable/multitouch laptop is this new keyboard !!!!

The keyboard can be just a 12" widescreen screen with a dock. When docked, this multitouch screen will display a full keyboard to use with your main mac. It can have a proximity sensor like the iPhone to save power. It can serve as an multitouch input for your leopard Mac.

We can only dream until Apple make this true.
 
this is great news. finally, a true successor to the Powerbook 12". if apple prices this thing just right, i can finally replace my aging 12" pbook
 
oscuh said:
2. radically new or innovative; outside or beyond established procedure, principles, etc.: a revolutionary discovery.

iPod/iPhone ... revolutionary? I think so ...
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but is Apple the first (supposedly by the way) to market an ultra-portable laptop?

iPod/iPhone -- no doubt, because they were the first (well, with iPod the first to really make it work well) :)
 
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