Thin Apple notebooks may come clad in black aluminum - Page 4

so what do you think the odds are that this releases with the new os?

About 8/1

Here's the thing, remember all those years ago when you bought your first ipod and spent hours if not days loading up all of your CD back catalogue, before you started downloading tunes... surely if someone is buying their first mac/itunes/ ipod experince they can't be expected to download their entire back catalogue.. can they?

You got your answer in the other thread you posted in with the exact same thing. External.

Right...and if your house burns down all your photos go up in smoke. But my backup on S3 is somewhere in Amazon's cloud. For a head crash a RAID array is good enough if I don't have a 2 drive failure. I guess your data isn't all that important to you if you don't have offsite storage.

Like Amazon cares about baby pictures of my kid.

Who the hell has time to back up a terabyte worth of crap onto a stack of DVDs anyway? Oh you.

I'd rather just buy more disks and do a RAID 10. Anything that can happen to my array can happen to a stack of DVDs.

I'm not trying to inject myself into this debate. I have a question.

What's wrong with a home user having an external HDD (or two) and backing up with superduper?

I'm guessing a RAID setup is better, although in all honesty I'm not all that familiar with RAID. Is that really necessary for a home user?

You can mirror. Then remove the drive, and put another one in. Move it somewhere safe, if it's really important.

It depends on how important the home user feels thing are. It varies. Most people feel their stuff is important, but not important enough to back up.

I backup to an external HDD. I don't have a RAID setup though. I'm feeling a little inadequate after reading this thread.

Is an external HDD backup adequate or should I do more?

This us becoming very Zen-like.

How important is your stuff?

Is it important enough to keep if your HDD crashes forever?

Is it important enough that you will want it in 40 years?

Is it important enough to worry about after your house burns down to the ground?

Those are different levels. the highest level determines what you need to do.

If you are doing a regular backup at all, then you are doing more and better than 95% of what computer users do. Different backup schemes are good at different things. Mirroring doesn't protect against power surges that blow your drives, or prevent accidental overwriting, or provide anything of a history to go back to if a new version is corrupted. Mirroring is pretty obscure or rarely used, though I think all current OSs offer it. Mac mirroring is very easy.

It's a good idea to have a backup that's completely disconnected from power and computer except when backing up.

Everything eventually fails or breaks, and you can get some pretty significant backup regimens where you rotate through several drives, with regular complete and incremental backups and such which provides you a history and fallback positions.

Do you not anticipate the need to install any software, or burn a disk?

I can't answer for him, but I can say that it depends on what you intend for the thing.

I would imagine that most, if not pretty much all, people who buy an ultraportable also have another computer.

While some people use portables as a desktop replacement, an ultraportable is simply not a good candidate.

You are not likely to put nearly as much software on your ultraportable, as it's not suited to doing much of the work bigger machines are designed for.

Therefore, most of these devices will be mostly used for communications, rather than for heavy applications. The few new installs done, therefore, can be brought over from your "standard" machine. Any updates are usually done from downloaded packages.

rolf nice one mel!

I don't think the optical drive is the issue. There are light 12 in notebooks that have DVD RWs... like this Sony:

http://www.dynamism.com/tz90/main.shtml

2.2lbs!

You didn't read that correctly.

It's an 11.1" screen, not 12".

2.26 pounds WITHOUT standard battery.


With the 6 hour battery, add another .29 pounds.

Better battery, more weight and size.

the keyboard looks like MacBook keyboard or something wrong with me?

When I need to do those things I'd be happy to dig up the external disk drive that would surely come with an ultraportable. Like I said: OS install, one DVD rip in three months. That's my normal pace of optical drive use, and this is my only machine. If I had an ultraportable instead of an Macbook, I'd surely have a desktop in addition.

Only software I even have that comes on a disk is OS X, iLife, and WoW. The rest is off the net. Remember OS X can transfer your old apps through Firewire while installling, and remember that you can make disk images so as long as there's enough storage you don't need to insert the same disk twice.

I have burned some disks at work because security mandated physically separate networks. But at home, there's no such limitation. Why touch optical disks when you don't have to?

No one really seems to know whether the rumoured new black/ silver machines are simply new MacBooks are the MacBookPro Nano. To be honest, it doesn't matter.

The current crop of MacBooks are excellent. While they have certainly benefitted from faster processors, the only other way to improve them is to take the same basic form factor and reduce it. So, I'd like to see something with the same amount of screen real estate, albeit an LED 13.3" screen, and DVD drive but in a slightly thinner and lighter package. The existing Sony SZ-series more or less fits the bill. Very thin and very light, it now even comes with flash memory modules.

Who needs a super-slim model with a small screen and no DVD drive when you can already get such a machine made by Apple? it's called an iPhone.

I remember an Apple laptop that came with a docking station. I wonder if this would work here. You have an ultra portable that plugs into a dock that has a hard drive and CD/dvd.

You could even get a mini cd for the road. It would allow for a bunch of acc. and yet still make for an untra portable.

Just a thought.

en

Perhaps this line will take over for the macbooks, hence the minor update of the macbooks we seen in the last update. I was too lazy to go through all the previous pages to see if someone has mentioned this yet.

I would love a device like this.

Absolutely nothing wrong. Just toss the external HDD into your fire safe or better yet, your parent's fire safe across town.

The only reason I back up the S3 is because

a) It was easy. I downloaded JungleDisk and copied files over just like an external drive. Of course I SHOULD have looked an additional 30 seconds to figure out a backup program but honestly, I just copy new iPhoto folders over once a month or so.

.Mac is likely even easier but the costs are higher. Amazon S3 is $0.15/GB per month. So to get .Mac's 10GB is $1.50/month.

http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/007624.html

b) It was cheap. It's a $0.15/GB per month plus $0.20/GB transfer fee. I think my first S3 bill was under $4 to hold my tiny (at the time) iPhoto collection.

c) When you watch folks after a disaster the thing that hurts the most are losing memories...photos being one medium to store memories. Stuff is just stuff and insurance will replace some of it. But losing your wedding photos it's just gone. Or kid photos.

$5 a month is pretty cheap insurance for accidental deletions, drive failures and anything else that might befall those photos.

Now all the video I have is a different story. I load those on my "server" (old quicksilver) and stick the tapes in the fire safe and hope that they won't melt if something bad happens. If it weren't for the movies I wouldn't have bothered with a home server.

Looking at that blog it might have been the wrong way to go anyways although honestly all I do is use two external 320GB USB drives at the moment and duplicate the data. I need that much space just to fiddle with the videos anyway and if I had that much filled $48 on S3 is more expensive than keeping my own array and sticking a $80 drive over at my parents.

I do all this on a MBP and Quicksilver and I could see the same setup working for an ultraportable. Just slower. Maybe not...the quicksilver isn't fast.

After seeing Apple's most recent iPod release, I'm not too enthusiastic about an all flash-based notebook. Don't get me wrong, I've been waiting for the dawn of Touch for about 3 years now, and glad that it's finally here. Still, in light of the road that Apple's tread regarding capacity, 16 GB isn't a lot when your device's primary modus operandi is video playback.

That being said, given the current prices of flash memory, I think we could expect a storage capacity around 32 GB, 9 of which would be need to be devoted to a full install of Leopard. Assuming that you'll want do to more with your Mac than just turn it on, you might need an additional 2 GB for Photoshop CS3, 2.5 GB for Illustrator CS3, 0.5 GB for Final Cut Express HD, and about 0.5 for Office: Mac 2004, bringing the total to about 5.5 GB. Now, of course the average user may not *need* any or all of these apps, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that it's a handy configuration to carry around, and a fair start for most basic media projects.

Now if I can fit my entire iTunes library on an iPod, I'd hope that I could do the same on a PC. I like to listen to music whilst switching back and forth between Photoshop and Illustrator, and I've got exactly 9.5 GB in my audio library, so I'll use that as a benchmark.

So 9 + 5.5 + 9.5 = 24, leaving me with about 8 GB of storage space to play with, which isn't much by anyone's account. Of course, without an optical drive, it makes installing virtually any of these applications basically moot, but that's an entirely separate issue.

Also, one final word to those suggesting Glass + Aluminum enclosures: No one seems to have pointed out that glass is significantly heavier than plastic, plus a lot easier to break, making it a poor choice for laptops. Kudos to Apple if the find a work around; though I think a laptop made from transparent aluminum is a bit far out even for them.

If it is instead a Newton II running Mobile OS X then we're talking a OS install of well under a GB, which is the only way 32GB is going to be useful as storage. A man can dream.

I want a subnotebook myself, and all flash would be great but I think at this point in time perhaps 4GB of flash + 80GB HDD is the way to go.

If Apple are working on a PDA, what's the betting the PDA is flash-based and the 'ultra thin' is simply a smaller, lighter, possibly 12" MBP WITH external drive?

I'd be very, very surprised if Apple miniaturised the MB ahead of the MBP, knowing how much consumer cachet goes with smaller & lighter products.

I'm game for a black alu anno' Mac Tower...

Lemon Bon Bon

Ultra portable to the extreme eh?

I hear people saying over and over: "I am only getting [product name] if it weighs less than [weight here] and is as thick as [strange object comparison here]".

Well my goodness do we have the laziest weakest group of people here or what? As a college student with an apartment I find myself walking to and from campus, as well as to each class with my MacBook and it is no way hinders my ability to move every day, all day. I have many books to carry around on top of my laptop and to be honest the laptop is the lightest thing I have in my bag. What is all the rage with a laptop that weighs so little? To me I would feel as if I would damage it because it wouldnt have that strong sturdy feel. Like was stated in Jurassic Park "If it's heavy it's expensive" I like my expensive Apple products to have some weight to them, which is why I will never own a Shuffle I guess.

IMO the MacBook is the perfect compromise between the MBP (which is large) and the iBook 12" (which I also have and consider to small).

The difference between 3lb and 6lb is really huge. 6lbs won't kill you, but I'd buy a 3lb Mac notebook tomorrow.

Maybe this is just me, but do/would you feel secure owning something so light that costs $1300? I would feel again that something that is so light but so expensive is extremely fragile.

What do you think?

http://macnewbtube.wordpress.com/200...pple-keyboard/

The point here is that most of don't NEED an ultralight, but we would want one.

It isn't that carrying a 6 pound machine around would kill us, but that it isn't comfortable.

While 6 pounds, plus case, is very noticeable after a while, 3 pounds is much less so.

because of that, if the full needs aren't required all of the time, a much lighter machines would be better for those times.

I have absolutely no NEED for a portable, but if one was light enough, and small, I would get one.

And weight doesn't have to mean quality. There are plenty of heavy PC portables out there. Does that mean that they are higher quality than a lighter Mac?

You haven't explained why more weight means "better" to you.

Give us some reasons why a machine made of high quality materials, designed properly, and therefore weighs less, is any worse than a machine with cheaper materals, poorly designed, that weighs more.

Or is this just a "feeling" that you have?

What's so special that we have to think about it?

How much of the weight of a standard notebook is batteries anyway? The ultralights are a lot more miserly with battery power, so they can get away with much lighter batteries and still run longer. The weight devoted to thermal management can be reduced by a lot too.

I'm more enamored with the idea of a machine that lasts a long time on batteries than I am about the weight, a lighter machine would just be a bonus.

Isn't the new keyboard what the MacBook has anyway only in different colours?

The Sony 6 hour battery adds .29 pound. The 12 hour adds .69 pound.

By the time Apple could ship a Newton II, 64GB flash drives will be available. There is no way that Apple would put a HDD in a Newton II.

My reason was that I would feel that it would be extremely fragile (as I stated in what you quoted). I pick up my Dell E1505 and I feel like I could drop it from great heights and have no harm done to it (which I have done by accident, fell off my 5" tall bed in my dorm last year onto a tile floor). However I would not ever want to drop my MacBook from that height, as users complain about their MacBooks casing coming apart from simple use (see appledefects list of complains for Macbooks basicly unsealing themselves).

Now take the weight of my macbook which I am already paranoid I will damage, cut it in half, and you have a notebook so light that I would live in fear carrying it in my backpack with my calc books, and all my other school stuff.

Now this is just my opinion, as everyone is entitled to theirs. I am a member of, like I said in a previous post, the "if it's heavy, it's expensive" club. Small notebooks with screens < 13" are just not for me. I had a incredibly light Compaq v2000 and the thing felt like a toy. Not for me.

To me the current weight of the Macbook works great, I can watch DVD's in the car without a bump sending it flying in the air, and I can carry it around safely in my backpack with little worries (I worry a bit but thats because it is still around a week old, and scratch free thanks to Marware products).

Some people like more portability with smaller laptops because it makes them easier to use on an airplane, train, or in another cramped area. It doesn't appear you use your laptop while traveling much. Watching a movie is one thing, but trying to perform actual work while crammed in coach is a different story (thank God for Platinum first-class upgrades!).

The weight part becomes an issue on extended trips to remote areas. Try going on a medical relief mission in a third-world country where you have the choice of carrying an extra 2-4 pounds in laptops and batteries v. more medicine to treat the underserved. Yes, I have known of people who have needed to make that decision.

OK, I assume those are the ultraportable batteries. My Compaq's battery is about 0.85, I thought it was more than that, its total weight is comparable with a MacBook Pro. My sister has my MBPro, so I can't check that.