Thin Apple notebooks may come clad in black aluminum - Page 2

Yeah. You might not want it, but all of Japan does.

1. I find the bottom line is you don't need an optical drive and that an external optical drives work well.

Neither I nor almost anyone I know needs CDs/DVDs very often. And almost any installation stuff needed, is usually also downloadable. I am sure there are survey's and studies online that confirm how little use the average user makes use of their optical drives.

By the way, this is especially true for software on the Mac OS. So I'd trade the space and give up the drive. Not an issue if it is there, but happy to trade it off.

2. The minimum usable screen size you need for most users is 12-13 inches. I have used a 10inch sharp and the 12inch dell D420 and they do hurt many people's eyes. Remember that widescreen is less usable in terms of vertical space and so 12inches in widescreen is usually tougher on the eyes given the font sizes most people use.

I have never worn glasses, have 20/20 vision and this is what I see.

The Dell is a 12inch widescreen and so the usable space when visiting websites or typing in MS word is small and eye strain is much higher vs. the old 12inch powerbook/ibooks (which I also own).

Those of you thinking about old mac portables need to remember that widescreen really means that todays 13.3 inch is like the old 12 inches and 12 inches today are like 11 inchess of yesteryear.

Widescreen is great for movies and some video stuff, but poor for many other uses. So 13 inches is actually a good size for the typical user and approximates size on the old 12inch powerbooks/ibooks.

3. A related issue is keyboard size. You must have a 12inch screen to get a fully usable keyboard. Widescreen at 12 inches or more fits a good sized keyboard as well (so perhaps 11 inch widescreen would work, but the screen would seriously hurt your eyes.

Really? When does it start happening. We bought ours this year in April and haven't seen this problem yet.

http://macnewbtube.wordpress.com/200...eens-flash-hd/

Me likey!

Hey, AI:

ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE COLORWARE CREDIT FOR THAT PHOTO YOU POSTED WITHOUT CONSENT?!



-Clive

Greens my favorite color to, however I like the color green of my iPod mini more then the new iPod pastel green.

A picture of a MBP case that is gold anodized which looks really cool.
http://www.slashgear.com/gold-plated...cky-207515.php

How about this :

1./ People who watch DVDs on their laptop
2./ People who backup their laptop
3./ People who use their (pro) laptop to burn DVD/CD
4./ People who have other people giving them data CD/DVD

the list is ENDLESS

dell did this a while ago as well where the optical drive was a separate enclosure. Major PITA

interesting observation ...

i feel my 13.3" MB screen size is better than my previous 12" PB,

so 10/11/12" these sizes will be very strainful for the eyes,

but MB Mini is for mobile users and business users, i think it is still acceptable.

Welcome to AppleInsider! My thinking mostly mirrors yours in the above post.

I once went something like one and half years without even owning an optical drive. On my current Macbook, I have used the optical on about two occasions in three months (OS X install, ripping one DVD). I definitely don't need or want an internal optical drive on a laptop.

Also, 11 inch 1280x800 widescreen would be perfect for preserving full typing comfort in a minimal enclosure. The Macbook makes the shoulder bag really crowded, and the larger size makes it bump more into things as well. The 12" iBook was better for me but just a little smaller would be perfect. On the subject of seeing difficulty, even my old parents have used the iBook as their only computer. In my thinking, the internal screen is for mobile use, so the small size is purely a blessing (much easier to position suitably for typing in cramped bus/plane seating or a narrow lecture hall table). On the desktop I'm always on my external screen with laptop in clamshell mode.

This should not be watered down to make it a machine for most people. That's what a Macbook is for.

Holddddd up.

It depends on what Apple is going for. If they're making this their "ultra-portable," it wont have a optical drive. Think of those poor Japanese people. It's not a desktop replacement. However, if Apple is going for "Pro mini" so to speak, then it will, for the whole burning/reading aspect.

Good Point. However, I travel and also live in a NYC apartment so that is less of an option. Not sure what percentage of people make use of the external monitor (clearly there is a market for each). That is what I used to do.

I only mention 12 or 13inches if they can keep the weight down. I don't mind the extra inch in length and 1/2 inch in height that one would get relative to a 10inch as it would still be a small footprint, fit in a normal backpack, many women's purses/ataches and would be super thin either way. But again, that is only if the weight stays reasonable. So I am guess I am more weight sensitive for anything under 13 inch widescreen. I also still worr about the keyboard size on a 10incher as I type a lot.

Apple is supposedly coming out with a sub-notebook computer next year. Are these type of computers very popular? I'd hate to see a flop in the making. I know how you people don't like underpowered computers. It certainly wouldn't be good for playing games since it would probably have a weaker graphics chip than the MacBook. As long as it could be used to watch videos and run BootCamp/WinXP reasonably fast, I'd probably be satisfied with it. A reasonable price would be under a $1000. I still would like a DVD/CD combo drive even if it didn't burn media. I guess Apple would forgo a hard drive since they'd want it to be light and easy on batteries. I'm trying to figure who would buy this type of machine, but I'm drawing a blank. A computer only a couple of inches smaller than a MacBook doesn't make much sense except maybe in decreasing weight.

I'd like some computer about two to two=and-a-half times the size of the iPhone, but other than that the standard MacBook is a good step up.

Interesting the change in heart re the need for a super drive from all the negatives that were bantered about in these forums when Steve presented iLife '08 and said, For people who still want to make DVDs

An ultra portable will be thinner without a DVD... the question is Apple's goal.

On a related note .... a portable can be quite cluttered if you regularly plug in more than the power .. external monitor, keyboard, mouse, external hard disk, etc... perhaps a dock could do better (or a multipurpose connector ala the iPod)


Depends if Apple is going for these things.
ie:
1:/ People who watch DVDs -> but Apple wants to sell iTunes movies & possibly rent too
2:/ People who backup their laptop -> but Apple wants people using Timemachine
3:/ People who use their laptop to burn DVD/CD -> (personally, I agree) - but Apple may want people publishing their home movies online and/or watching stuff via the AppleTV. iMovie doesn't link with iDVD as much as it used to.
4:/ People who have other people giving them data DVD -> but Apple's new OS may be encouraging EVERYTHING online. Want to send a 50MB file? Why not let Mail.app send a link to the file stored on .Mac?.... easy!

I'm not sure that the above replacements work (in fact, with a slow connection you'd be stuck). But it wouldn't be inconsistent with what Apple has done in the past.

So with the 'endless' list... the question is "doe Apple have a new way that they'd rather you did it?" (linked with "is the thing I can't do anymore currently legal anyway?").

An update to my 12" PowerBook G4. That little box has been so good to me for the last several years. We've travelled all over the world together - I've watched DVDs from the wilds of Alaska and used internet cafes in the mountains of New Zealand. It's been dropped and abused and crushed, but it just keeps on going. It's just about perfect and has everything I need, I'd just like a current modern Intel CPU and maybe a bit better screen.

I've come close to buying a MBP several times, but I need a machine I can use on the drop-down tray in coach class on planes. And I'm not convinced the MacBooks are as durable and I hate their keyboards.

I keep wondering if we'll see an update to the eMate some time....
Doesn't really fit this rumour though.

Jobs'unveiling of the latest iLife shows that Apple is tiptoeing away from playing and/or burning DVDs. He said as much.

But I'll say that if any such product without a HDD and optical drive appears, it will need a significant expansion of .Mac, or a much deeper partnership with Google, if it is to have any appeal to a consumer.

Edited to add: Apple also said that Leopard will allow you to access your home "server" via .Mac from anywhere. So what if, this subnotebook debuts alongside such a "server" hard disk drive and software. This "server" could actually house two drives, the second as the backup used by Time Machine. (Today, you can plug a huge hard drive into the Airport Extreme and create such a server for home use (minus the Time Machine thing obviously), however, I wouldn't say it is super-easy to do out of the box for Grandma.)

And as a bonus, it would leapfrog past the big Microsoft announcement back in January: Windows Home Server - by making very clear use cases for such a server.

Cool.

Well, Apple indeed are dumping the plastic material on their product.

Just check the latest iPod Classic, they are indeed, silver brushed aluminum, and/or black brushed aluminum, also check the latest iMac.

It's silver with black.

Look at the new keyboard.

So, I won't guess wrong, that Apple will lunch new Macbook right with Mac OSX 10.5, and would be the best seller for this holiday season.

They might even come up with a promotion: "All-new-Macbook & iPod Classic"

George Tang
georgetang@hotmail.com

I think we are discussing 3 distinct products here:

Number 1:
Like the one I am on now. I take it for granted but I have never owned such a perfectly functional sexy bit of kit. The thing that looks dated 4 years on is the 1.5cm rim around the screen- if the 9to5mac rumor is correct then we could get more screen with a similar or smaller footprint (widescreen though), plus combined HDD/flash, plus intriguing touchpad (wasn't there a recent patent for a pad that stretched the way across the bottom edge?). Edit: http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/09/r...ptop-touchpad/

Number 2: A super light travel companion, i.e. no optical drive, flash based, screen that you wouldn't want to use all day everyday. Anyone else remember the strage patent filed for folding USB ports?

Number 3: An update to the MacBook: Santa Rosa, addressing quality issues (embarrassing state of affairs with the discolouration), optical drive and maybe a screen that comes right to the edge+/- smaller footprint but same screen size. As the MacBook for many may be their only mac, it needs to be a bit of a do all, hence compromises are inevitable.

We all know that all 3 will come to pass in the future, but we can only speculate about which one(s) are the subject of the current but eternal rumor-mill.

And, for the record, for the 12" PB replacement I'd want optical to make 'hard' copy archieves of my photographs.

first I think it is a pain in the ass not to have an optical drive, but many also thought the same thing about losing the floppy drive, and we got over it to our benefit.

when do I use my super drive:

1) watch dvds
2) backup stuff
3) install stuff, CS3, OSX etc.
4) my disk is full, off load stuff onto DVD-rom
5) ripping a CD at a friends house for iTunes

personally, I'd rather have a drive in my machine but I can see a lot of people who don't really need them on a day to day basis, and I have a few friends who above all else want a super thin and light machine. one has a bad back and simply would do anything not to have to carry a heavy laptop.

in terms of the above usees:
1) I suppose you'd need a home drive to do things like rip cds and copy dvds on to your machine if you really wanted to go from existing media to a driveless device. between itunes and torrents, I don't use DVDs that much in real terms any more.

2) backup would be done quite nicely on a network using: airport extreme + big USB drive + time machine, kinda makes DVD-backups unneeded. still its nice to have a real DVD on the shelf with critical stuff - that could be done with an outboard drive though

3) installation is tough, you'd need an outboard drive for a lot of today's apps. also, I'd guess Apple if they did go this route would need a solution for OS installation, and target disk mode is not enough IMHO.

4) offloading stuff is an issue. maybe that is the benefit of time machine, you can delete and restore at will. still it would not feel as secure to me as having a fixed media archive.

5) ripping a CD when away from home is handy but not critical.

If the machine could be truly very thin it might be a really amazing device, even if limited. those limitations can be annoying but I am sure there is a market for this type of laptop, or there will be soon.

really this is not that different from palm's cancelled folio in terms of form factor. maybe this is why palm gave up on that so fast. if you got rid of the hard-disk and the optical drive then all you have is a logic board. .5 inches would be possible. people travelling for business dont really need an optical drive that much, but there always might be a time when someone hands you a disk you need to read, kinda think that is an issue.

I think its also possible that while a macbook/pro is coming, all sorts of rumors are getting mixed up. like thinner lighter, but with optical drive makes sense. or maybe the line is refreshed, with the addition of a new super light, flash only model.

That black "mock up" case is from ColorWarePC.com, they sell modified MBP cases of all colors for a decent price.

As a traveling man, i though it would be amazing to have a MCP 17" an all powerful computer on my lap, but yeah it's massive! trains & and planes are too small for a 17" plus the battery life is to short. I've come to realize that I need a lot less than I think I do. It's driven me to the other end of the spectrum.

I'm excited about all the possibilities of this new machine, but does anybody know more accurately when it might be released? dates?

Think about this, how difficult would it be for Apple to introduce two variants. One with a CDROM drive i a slightly thicker case and one all solid state. I suspect that it could be done very easily.

AS to the need for a CDROM that really depends on the person. AT work USB flash drives have taken over from floppy and in many cases CDROM. So the demand that was there two or three years ago is now gone.

On the other hand if you travel a lot there is a bit of satisfaction in being able to play your favorite DVD's. This is still a significant usage for people that travel by air often.

Almost everything else is usually handled at the desktop. So a plug in CDROM drive is not a big deal. Often with laptops today the CDROM is unplugged to make the slot available for other things. I just don't see a issue with a optical drive free portable.

Frankly I see a lot of advantages. Depending on how flash hold up in real life, the units could be very reliable. I know at work the major issue we have had with laptops is in the hard drive. Following behind that is getting the optical drive to read CDROMS reliably. I think people are underestimating just how nice the combination of low power and reliability will be. As to the size of the units, it is a real market segment. I fully expect Apple to offer some of this sort of technology in the larger laptops.

Dave

I much prefer the prediction at thestreet.com.


That's a lot more like it! 2 pounds and 12 inches. All you curs better get behind me in line at the Apple Store. Heck, I think I'll forget about buying an iPhone in favor of this.

I personally would like to see apple come out with a thin lightweight notebook, I am on the go a lot with my notebook and would like to have one that could shed a few pounds, I would like to see a solid state one as well, I have had other laptops and have replaces the HDD in them several times due to the fact that I am always moving with them. One that I would not have to worry so much about them being banged up a bit would be nice, I used to use the optical drive in my laptops more then I do today, with flash drives now in 2 or more GB of storage I can load most of what I need to take with me on one of them. So losing an optical drive would be a bit of a pain at times but to me would be a reasonable trade off to keeping the weight down and making it a bit more rugged. Colors would be cool but again not more important then some of the other things.

I also agree that there is a market for all three types of notebooks that are being discussed here, some people would like to have one with all the bells and whistles that can be a direct desktop replacement others want something that can be a go between for a desktop and an ultra portable model that will have HDD and Optical drive so that they can do most of what they do at home on a desktop with, and finally others want something that can travel and not make you feel like you are on a hiking trip something that will be able to travel and you can almost forget that you have it till you need it.

but isn't the target customer for an ultraportable the user who travels? Granted, iPods/iPhones are increasingly supplying the means of listening to music and watching videos, but I'm not sure that product displacement is complete yet: a 3.5" screen can't compete (well) against 12 to 13.3 inch displays. I'd think lots of ultraportable owners would be glad they were able to watch videos on their 'puter on long flights. What do others think?

it seems to me the designers face two opposing forces:

1) iPods and iPhones increasingly provide the means for road warriors to watch videos and listen to cds
2) wide screens are useful only in viewing video but diminish readability.

the point i'm making is that wide screens were an innovation to accommodate dvd viewing (or iTMS video content viewing); if that function is being usurped by apple's smaller electronic devices, then its portables should no longer incorporate widescreen displays that limit those products' usability. Ya think?

You don't need a built-in DVD for any of that.

The problem here is that some people want the ultimate in portability, which will be enhanced by not having a built-in DVD, while others want the convenience of the built-in product.

The question that matters, really, is which is the bigger audience for this, because that is the one Apple will address.

That is, if they are coming out with this product at all.

I think this is an excellent point. And it may not go far enough. Apple has told us about "back to my Mac" as well as "Time Machine", Airport Extreme hard disks, and we've already got .Mac online storage.... does Apple's plan go any further?

example 1: what happens if your light laptop "synchronises" to your desktop? you could have a subset of your data with you on the road... and even re-synchronise over the internet. Backups are not an issue, and installing apps is not an issue since you would install an application on your home Mac and it would sync onto your laptop.

example 2: if I was visiting my parents and wanted to use my own Mac... could I just login to their machine and connect "back to my Mac" home directory? And load up my own desktop, documents folders etc?

Could examples 1 & 2 synchronise with a home directory on an Airport Extreme? If Time Machine backs up my home directory to .Mac, could I login ANYWHERE on ANY Mac and have my own desktop, applications, & data (via .Mac, and/or back to my Mac)?

(I sometimes have trouble thinking inside the square)

I've had my PB12" now for 3 years now. And I refuse getting a new notebook if it isn't at least as compact as the PB12". It's all about portability for me. My only demand is light weight. Hope they get the weight right. I can do without a superdrive, it's not a must have for me. However Apple had ideas for an upside down drive on the bottom of the notebook, to make it as small as possible. That would work for me. The only problem I guess is to make the cd door construction robust and flexible.

I'm actually writing this post from my new (new to me...got on eBay for a little under $500, will have to pay another $60 for a new battery that's maybe 1.25x the size of an iPhone) Toshiba R100 ultraportable. It has become my main computer. I'm a college student and having a two-and-a-half pound, .65" thick, 12.1" screen laptop just makes sense for when I want do go out to my classes and take notes, surf the web etc. No processor-intensive stuff to do really, o the machine's 1 GHz Pentium M squeaks by as being acceptable for what I use it for.

This weekend I have the choice of using this laptop (which has no optical drive, which I don't really miss t tell you the truth on a portable machine...laptop optical drives are just copromises between performance and portability anyway), my Del Inspiron e1505 or a loaner Macbook 1st gen from the campus bookstore, for my regular work. The Macbook is a fun little machine, however I think I'd find myself running Windows on it for most of the weekend and not really using it as it's placed awkwardly in between my 12.1" 4:3 Toshiba and my 15.4" 16:10 Dell. So I'll probably end up using either the Dell (at-desk work, hooked up to webcam, mic, headphones, USB devices, external monitor) or the Toshiba (web and email and documents because it has a decent keyboard, plus remote into the Dell). I don't need a 13.3" laptop with spinning 2.5" media when I have a 15.4" laptop that does that and a 12.1" ultraportable that eschews an optical drive for portability. It does have an SD card slot though which I'm really happy about...and no, it uses a regular (1.8" I think) hard drive however I'm thinking seriously of switching it over to a 32GB SSD.

But I digress. I'd say most of the student market, if presented with a durable, small screen (12.1" would be ideal, either wide or normal aspect ratio), thin ultraportable that would be fast due to inclusion of an SSD (ULV processors aren't an option for speed gains right now...fastest one is the Core Solo at 1.33GHz) and enough memory (mine has 1.25GB, its max), you would get a TON of sales. No need for an optical drive if you're going to leave that at the dorm when at lectures, no need for a fast processor to listen to music, surf the web, edit documents, that sorta thing. Just thin and light is all we need...and trust me, I've gotten tons of comments about my laptop because it is really tailored for this type of environment if you think about it, as long as you have another computer when you need it.

To continue the discussion about optical drives, and then screens, the last time I used an optical drive was to try and rip some CDs. The CDs ripped slowly and I could've downloaded the audio files online faster than the CDs ripped. Before that, it has probably been a month or two, again for ripping CDs. Before that, a few months previous, burning sme CDs. The sort of thing I would be doing on a larger machine, not an ultraportable. I'm fine with downloading (legally) my music and either network-sending files, sending them via flash srive, or waiting till I get home to fire up my (heavy) optical drive to burn some media. In a 2-3 pound ultraportable, I see no reason to include an optical drive.

For screen size, I agree that there is some such thing as too small. However my Portege is the result of the Foleo being cancelled, and that was with a 10.4" widescreen. Then again the resolution on that screen was just 1024x600 so not quite so hard on the eyes as you might think. After the Foleo was cancelled I tried getting the Sharp Actius MM10. 10.4" screen, regular aspect ratio, XGA. I ended up with a 12.1" 1024x768 display and am happy with it. It's plenty big enough for what I use it for and if I need bigger I just close my laptop, plug it in to an external setup and go for it!

On the topic of widescreens, I dunno but I found myself squinting at the Macbook's 13.3" 1280x800 widescreen. Then again I'm laughably nearsighted but I have no complaints whatsoever about my 12.1" screen. I might have some about a 1280x800 12.1" widescreen. then again I could be convinced otherwise...

What would get me to go Mac on this note?

1. Durable construction (aluminum sounds great, right now my R100 is plastic and magnesium and it holds up fine so far)
2. SSD-based with the latest ULV processors (I want lots and lots of battery life, but understand that you can really only fit a 3-cell battery into these things, but I also would like performance if it can be had, and with SSDs it can definately be had!)
3. No optical drive to keep thickness at or below 0.8" inch (my current ultralite is .65" but I'll budge a little bit if the specs merit it) and weight below 3 pounds, preferably well below 3 pounds
4. Regular hardware and software structure that is open (e.g. Mac OS X on an Intel platform with an SSD that is upgradeable, same with memory and maybe even processor if possible). I don't want to have to hack my ultralite to get functionality I need (Foleo wouldn't have been so bad but some of these ultralite platforms).
5. Decent price ($1000 or less, preferably $800 or less, even better would be $700 or less since you're not really giving much in the way of components for an ultralite...well, except for the SSD).

Again, I have now dismissed the Macbook as too "all things to all people" and want something specially built for my needs: a flyweight that throws its weight around.Yes, I'm now ultralight-spoiled but I'll bet Apple could sell a metric buttload of these to students for which the Macbook even is a little big for carrying around to class and such, particularly in light of the ultraportable bunch!

First, it seems like all these people complaining about difficult to read fonts are forgetting that Leopard will bring us Resolution Independence. In my opinion, Resolution Independence is the most exciting feature of Leopard.

By that logic, every iPod should have a CD drive.

Closer. It should read 32GB SSD.

I agree completely. Apple need to keep the weight below 800g in order to sell it in Japan.

Wow. If this is going to be the ultraportable ultralight etc. etc. Sony, etc. in the Asian market are going to be sweating bullets.

October is going to be intense.

But you are right, I think the newswires are crossed between the ultralight 11"??/13", revised Black/Alu 13", and Black/Alu 15" MBPs... somethings happening!!!

Ha ha that's what I was thinking too...

What about software that 'requires' the disc to be in the drive, like Matlab? A lot of the world still does not have broadband, so how do you update, install, reinstall the OS when your downlaod speed is 2.6 kbps?

Didn't apple have a patent application a while ago for a different type of DVD drive - one that was just a disc shaped depression in the bottom of the case so there was no loading slot/drawer hardware?

iPod hard drives are in constant use when one is watching movies on them. They can't be that bad....

I really hope this comes out sexy. The new look of alluminium on the iPods have not really been that mesmerising. Especially the new iPod Nano.

(about the nano) you're alone on that. Everyone I know thinks the nano is gorgeous.

I would go for this.... I photoshop too..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13994703@N02/1423885327/