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The external screen feature is a great battery eating device that seems unnecessary. I don't think I am carrying a super thin laptop around with a shoulder strap. And the champagne colored trim to convey luxury is tacky. "It's jewelry," and I completely agree. This is just another silly showcase product for Intel's technology. Intel does this like everyone else in hopes people spark conversation and some manufacturer makes a new device using these concepts. The iPod is jewelery, not a laptop.

If you forget all the that you get a 2 pound notebook with 14 hours of battery life. The point is you can make these things small with a focus on design tacky or not.
 
not bad. and good for a prototype. but i'd rather see what the full production model would look like first.

notice one think though.... while it has a done of wireless connectivity. (does it have BT?) it has no other sense of connectivity that i can see. so now FW, no USB, no Audio port(s), no Modem, no Ethernet, no Optical drive. and obviously no IR receiver or iSight as the MB/MBPs have. does it even have speakers?

its easy to create such a small package when you start omitting things like that. and what size screen? did i miss that? given that its just under an inch, and given all the stuff that Apple has crammed into the MB/MBP i think they could top this with an ultra portable of their own, its finding the right feature set and what you *need* versus whats *necessary*
 
I always thought it would be cool to have a notebook display with woleds(rather than backlights) on both sides, so when you closed it, the woled on the inside lit up, but when you opened it, the one on the outside lit up.
 
Cute but two items:
1) Multiple wireless flavors, but which is in the base model when they quote 14 hours?
2) What is the size of the screen and resolution?
 
I could be mistaken, but after doing a little measuring in Photoshop of the side-view pic, I doubt they included a CD/DVD drive in there. I did a quick search on slot-load drive dimensions, and the thinnest was .5 inches. The bottom part of this prototype laptop measured to be about .38ish inches (I say "-ish" because of pixelation and not knowing the thickness of the walls).

Thin is in if you don't need some discs to spin.
 
not bad. and good for a prototype. but i'd rather see what the full production model would look like first.

notice one think though.... while it has a done of wireless connectivity. (does it have BT?) it has no other sense of connectivity that i can see. so now FW, no USB, no Audio port(s), no Modem, no Ethernet, no Optical drive. and obviously no IR receiver or iSight as the MB/MBPs have. does it even have speakers?

its easy to create such a small package when you start omitting things like that. and what size screen? did i miss that? given that its just under an inch, and given all the stuff that Apple has crammed into the MB/MBP i think they could top this with an ultra portable of their own, its finding the right feature set and what you *need* versus whats *necessary*

It does have USB. Look at the pictures. And a camera. Speakers are probably hidden somewhere. Everything else could be via bluetooth or wireless.
 
I don't like it, the only appeal is that it's super-thin (and the battery), besides that it looks pretty ugly, somehow I don't think they had a clue and excused the tacky design as being "for the ladies."
 
It does have USB. Look at the pictures. And a camera. Speakers are probably hidden somewhere. Everything else could be via bluetooth or wireless.

so one port, not a lot of connectivity there, and no where did it mention BT. still kinda limiting imo.
 
I'm a girl and I think those straps/colors are hideous. An aluminum version would be nice, though.

It's not all that much thinner than the MBP now, though.. unless in person .3 inches is more than it looks on paper. A TON lighter, though.

*shrug* I know I'm on the losing side, but although portability and battery life is important to me, I'm not really interested in giving up too much power in exchange.

I like desktop replacement laptops, power is king, I rather have heavy big and power.
 
Ok please do not take this wrong, but I first though when i read this, ok MacBook Pro rip off, and then I looked at the pic with the straps and different colors and I'm sorry but I don't think many men would buy one of these lol. I'm not being descriminative but it's just like cars... in general how many straight guys own a Mazda Miada??? Really? Just my prediction... Time will tell!

hence the name, "Metro"...

though I don't agree that miata's are that femme... maybe a VW Beetle would be though...
 
I'm a girl and I think those straps/colors are hideous. An aluminum version would be nice, though.

It's not all that much thinner than the MBP now, though.. unless in person .3 inches is more than it looks on paper. A TON lighter, though.

*shrug* I know I'm on the losing side, but although portability and battery life is important to me, I'm not really interested in giving up too much power in exchange.

Well, if you were a woman, of the kind of power that Michelle Kwan has in her taunt, tight, little skinny body; my kind of sassy strong woman, but still feminine and girlie soft...err, never mind ;).

Intel has lower power consuming mobile CPU's coming in @ 1.8 & 2.0Ghz, that will allow for near that magical 14hr runtime.

However, with the Intel transition, is MR going to start posting page 1 rumors of stories that have almost nothing to do with Apple, give me a break already Admns???

This story is friggin 8 days old, and it's only now being reported on MR...sheeeesh *shakes head*!!! Thin MB's or other laptops have been rumored for ages now, what makes this story more topical with respect to anything Apple might do??? Slow news week for Apple rumors?

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/04/16/intel_catwalks_concept_pc/
 
It's nice, but the design looks confused when compared to the current MacBook. Apple industrial designers produce better designs on the toilet every morning.
I don't agree with you. The line of the pachine, if you look in the Business Week article is very comparable with the Powerbook / Macbook Pro. The clearly looked at Apple. Now, remember that Intel has made it clear a few times that Intel and Apple are working together on some projects, and that Apple's influence inspired Intel designers. Maybe, just maybe, this is the Macbook Thin......
 
Sugoii!!! :) It's nice to see one of these Intel design competitions do more than just copy. Between this and that Sony prototype, I really hope we see a spate of really impressive ultras on the market. Although there is the Windows thing. This is going to have way too many features that Linux won't support without a lot of tweaking and coding. So, yeah, add me to the list that hopes Apple is getting close on something like this.
 
The external screen feature is a great battery eating device that seems unnecessary.

Think of it as a calculator. When LCD's in calculators lose their charge, they continue to display whatever was left on them and slowly return to a neutral state, apply a MINIMAL charge, and they continue to display that. Couple that, with a indiglo style backlight, the light isn't very bright, but it also uses very little power, and the external screen could run for many many hours with minimal effect on the battery.
 
This is not all that ground breaking. I have an almost 3 Year old Toshiba R100 (http://www.mobiletechreview.com/notebooks/Toshiba_Portege_R100.htm) that is 0.65" thick & weighs 2.4 pounds (~1.1KG).

Its got a "normal" HDD (1.8" 40GB), 1.25GB of RAM & a ULV Pentium-M 900Mhz (later models had up to 1.2Ghz). Its got wireless, ethernet, 2x USB, a modem, sound ports, dedicated video (Trident Cyberblade XP 32MB only but it must use board space)- even a PCMCIA slot!

Its missing some things (like bluetooth) but that's a function of how old it is.

Its an awesome machine- I haven't replaced it because its so damn good (Samsung Q30 is also similar, and the 1.2KG/~2.6lb Panasonic even has a built in optical drive).

Flash HDD would be awesome- mine only gets 2.5 hours on the built in battery, the extra pack that clips underneath adds a couple of hundred grams & another 4 hours, for a 6.5hr total.

So yeah, plenty of examples if you look. Apple needs to get on with it :)
 
Apple may have a hard time beating this.

well, the article says that the manufacturer is "yet-unnamed". It could as well be Apple. The usb port looks like macbook pro, the glossy screen, the inbuilt camera, the keyboard (even the fact the letters glow in the dark), the flat key buttons, the single-button mouse pad, how the screen dips behind the base when open, the font of letters on the keyboard... so on.
 
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