MacBook Updates Rumored To Include Glass Trackpad 273
CWmike writes to tell us that Seth Weintraub has been hearing some interesting rumors surrounding the next iteration of Apple's MacBook line. "I have been hearing some interesting things about Apple's upcoming line of portable computers. The talk amongst insiders on the new MacBooks is kind of scattered but here's a summation of what I've heard: The new models are thinner than current MacBook and MacBook Pros and slightly more rounded, taking design cues from the MacBook Air; the trackpad is glass, multi-touch and uses gestures. The screen isn't multi-touch; the body is manufactured out of one piece of aluminum. Eco-friendly, yet sturdy. Manufacturing process is completely different; the release date will be in the last weeks of September."
I don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes this "eco-friendly"? The glass trackpad? The "manufactured out of one piece of aluminum"?
Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
they paid off the right groups
-or-
realistically they know what words sell.
Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, you accidentally looked over the fact that it runs on new Ego(TM) power, not electricity. Common mistake.
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You can thank your sig for inspiring this:
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%$#@&*(@%$#
_Now_, over an hour after I post, I see the capitalization error. ARGH.
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It would seem a bit of an overkill to run all /. posts through pylint, though.
Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Funny)
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You forgot the joint endorsement from Al Gore and Barack Obama.
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Just wrong! (Score:3, Informative)
Apple has NEVER used desktop processors in ANY of their Intel lines. Even Mini and iMac use notebook processors, and the Mac Pros use Server-grade Xeon processors. That give them an edge up in buying quantity over Dell because they only buy higher margin parts that Intel likes to sell, not "cheap" ones.
They are considered more "eco-friendly" because they are removing parts and changing to reusable materials. I have an old Snow iBook and the thing is a complex mess of two layers of plastic with "tin foil"
Re:Just wrong! (Score:4, Informative)
First, consistent customers with a high spec get the best parts. When I was working shipping blanks, one or two big name companies got the reliable items. Everyone else go their rejects. This is a fact. If Apple is willing to commit to purchasing a year in advance, they get the good stuff. Everyone else, like Dell, who is looking for the cheapest price, gets Apple rejects.
Second, Apple has always been conscious about the environment, especially in relation to user safety. For instance, Apple was one of the first retailers to move CRT monitors to the swedish standards for radiation. They also moved to LCD for similar reasons. In the switch, Apple also cut the power needed to run a computer considerably. In fact Apple tends to have very energy efficient computers, with current models running on half the power of similar models from other vendors.
All this of course costs money. For years CRTs are cheaper than LCDs. Building power efficient kit costs money. It is easier to throw together a power consuming piece of junk than a well designed performer. A lighter, smaller machine has obvious savings in transportation. What is missing from most discussions is the fact that energy consumption during the lifetime of the product is going to far outweigh, in most cases, the energy needed to build the product. Furthermore, refurbishment of the entire product, where the company has control of disposal, it likely the best way to go, although it is also expensive as it does not externalize costs.
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Lately they've been using core2 desktop processors and not mobile chips [...]
What ?
Tough one... (Score:4, Informative)
I've really been trying to figure it out, but I can't. If it does have a second LCD in the trackpad as smitty97 speculates, it sure won't be more eco-friendly:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/07/04/lcd-greenhouse-gas-worries/1 [bit-tech.net]
Also if it has a 1-piece aluminum chassis, it will be more difficult to repair, therefore more likely to be replaced, therefore more hardware going into landfills, therefore less eco-friendly. The case itself is sturdier but if it's one hard piece of aluminum, the internals will take more damage and the case will take less. Again, less eco-friendly. A good case for preventing damage would be a replaceable one made of thin, soft metal.
Also getting the parts inside such a case would be a nightmare...I guess the screen would have a slit on the bottom where the internals are inserted and then clipped into place, and the body would just have removable bays as usual, but then the mobo and keyboard would be non-replaceable.
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These are Apple products anyway. Out of the past 100 distinct Apple notebooks I've seen (trust me, I am not exaggerating here) in the past year, maybe five of them were not brand new MacBooks or MBPs. Admittedly, the G4s are extra-old-and-busted (biggest waste of my money ever...), but it seems that people buy new Apple computers with their spring shopping anyway.
And they can finally get full benefit from their inflated RAM and HD prices. Ballsy move, if true, but it will probably work out.
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Aluminum is very recyclable. I really doubt many Aluminum chasis make it past the sorters and into a landfill. Hell, Al cans vanish out of my recycling bin before the truck even gets there. It's magic!
Re:Tough one... (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree...
I work at an Apple Store (therefor the AC, and obviously take what I say with a grain of salt as I'm as much a fanboi as the best of em').
From everyone's perspective, having repairs done in larger part replacements are much better. There is one flaw with your statement. The large replaced part isn't just thrown away, but rather can be refurbished.
Consider an LCD display on a laptop. We'll low-ball and say there are 7 individual replaceable parts and cables. Brick and Mortar big box retail stores get shipments from all shipping companies for all different purposes from all over the globe. With Air and Ground shipping for say 4 failed parts in an LCD panel (say it's a liquid damaged LCD) and you get shipments from DHL, UPS, and FedEx delivering all of your parts over a period of 3 days. Now, if you only have to order a monitor clam-shell instead of 4 different parts, you have 1 shipment on 1 single day. When you are sending parts back to be refurbed or recycled or trashed, you are sending a single item as opposed to several different packages. From an inventory standpoint this means MUCH less paperwork per shipment and less boxes/packing material being used to ship and be trashed/recycled.
For users, repairs can be done faster. (If repairs can be done while customer waits, only one car trip out to store)
For retail stores, more repairs can be done in-store. This means fewer repairs will be packaged and shipped out to repair centers.
I just don't see how single part replacements are bad. This allows Apple to help end users more effectively. It takes less shipping and packing, and as I've understood eco-matters (and I won't pretend to be the brightest bulb on the matter), air cargo and travel are pretty big carbon emitters. Apple can then refurb/recycle the part in a larger warehouse environment that is more adept at repairing the individual components of the larger part.
Any-hoo... just my $0.04
Re:Tough one...Not Really (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: dangerous chemicals (Score:2)
That's a stupid point you're trying to make, the dangerous chemical use is proportionnal to the area, so having a tiny screen 1/10th the area of the main screen is going to add, what, 10% of that bad chemical at worst. Boohooooo.
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Actually... the plastics on the Macbook line are very prone to damage, so prone that they are exchanged under the applecare warranty, no question asked.
I already ditched 2 keyboards and one bottom case from my macbook... I think that aluminium could be more eco-friendly in this case... specially because it can be recycled with ease.
Re:Tough one... (Score:5, Informative)
Also if it has a 1-piece aluminum chassis, it will be more difficult to repair, therefore more likely to be replaced, therefore more hardware going into landfills, therefore less eco-friendly. The case itself is sturdier but if it's one hard piece of aluminum, the internals will take more damage and the case will take less. Again, less eco-friendly. A good case for preventing damage would be a replaceable one made of thin, soft metal.
I disagree. An eco-friendly case would ironically be made from plastic, or if necessary some GRP or CFRP. Metal and glass, to use terms of trade, need shitloads of energy to manufacture, and the process is highly lossy. We don't even want to get started about how aluminium is extracted from the ore in the first place, or that a rather rare resource is needlessly wasted. Plastic can be molded to almost the final shape in a single pass, with a relatively low amount of energy (some heat and a vacuum pump).
All that "metal is good for the environment" is bullshit. It's good for marketing, because a laptop that feels like you could use it as a blunt weapon just feels better than "cheap" plastic. And even in that area, I'd put a lot of trust into some CFRP. It's effectively stronger and lighter than aluminium.
Re:Tough one... (Score:5, Informative)
But metal is recyclable, plastic is not really recyclable. And about 8% of our crust is aluminum, plastic is from the oil, which is disappearing quickly. You may have noticed that aluminum is extracted from the ore, but did you know how plastic become plastic?
As carbon fiber reinforced plastic, I hope you realize that carbon fibers are made from polyacrylonitrile fibers by heating. And most CFRP products are absolutely not recyclable.
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Aluminum is easily recycled and doesn't really involve many toxic chemicals in it's manufacture (except for a boat load of electricity, which is usually provided by hydro dams). The polycarbonate that makes up most notebooks isn't so easily recycled and the process to make it isn't quite as clean.
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According to this [azocleantech.com] only 25% of Alcoa's power is self generated. They are, of course, the world's third largest producer of aluminum.
I couldn't find exact numbers, but from this [puscii.nl] it looks like hydro power is rather important to aluminum smelting in most of the world. China is a bit of an exception, where the aluminum industry has been hampered because it has to compete with other industries for the mostly coal produced electricity. The arabian peninsula uses gas for their smelters, but then it's awfully com
Re:Tough one... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would think the internals would be damaged more by a thin soft case than by a sturdy one.
There needs to be a happy medium. Most damage to a notebook with be blunt-force, not sharp-pointy. As long as the energy from a fall is used up in deforming the exterior, the interior will take less damage. If the exterior is made of diamond, the interior will slam into the diamond exterior with the same energy as if it had hit the ground itself. Of course, if someone's stabbing your laptop, you'll want a hard case, and maybe better working/living conditions.
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Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently the materials used to make the Air are relatively environmentally friendly
Duh. It's made of air
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What makes this "eco-friendly"?
Al Gore is on their board of directors... therefore everything they make is automatically considered to be eco-friendly...
Just like Al Gore's giant house w/ huge power consumption bills... b-b-b-but I was spending that power on computing climate models to prove what horrible polluters American's are!
Re:I don't get it... (Score:4, Informative)
Higher power consumption != less eco-friendly. Gore's house has a much, much lower carbon footprint than the average American home because he gets nearly all of that energy he uses from solar and geothermal sources. Much of the reason that bill you're referring to was so high is because he's paying a premium to get his energy from clean sources.
Maybe you were just trying to make an innocent joke, but that meme needs to die.
Gore isn't saying everyone needs to cut their energy consumption down to zero, he's saying people need to make an effort to be carbon-neutral, and he's making that effort himself.
Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Funny)
I think they made a typo.
Ego-friendly*
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My guess it is the aluminum that is "eco-friendly" Aluminum is super easy to recycle compared to plastic but then so is glass.
Not a lot of other info so it is all guess work at this time.
Now to make it really "eco-friendly" they should promise to support it with ten years and promise that all future versions of OS/X for the next ten years will run on it.
Not going to happen but I would so love to see the end of disposable computers.
Re:I don't get it... (Score:4, Funny)
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Thought about the same thing.
Is aluminium more environmentally friendly to produce than other materials used in laptops?
Or is it the process of making it out of one piece of aluminium as opposed to using several pieces of aluminium? =/
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Here, you dropped this:
L
Re:I don't get it... (Score:4, Funny)
Not necessarily, he could be a monkey.
Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Informative)
Not necessarily, he could be a monkey.
You mean orangutan. NEVER call him a monkey.
Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Funny)
Ook?
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Not necessarily, he could be a monkey.
You mean orangutan. NEVER call him a monkey.
Good thing I wasn't drinking or you'd owe me a new keyboard!
For those not following along at home:
The Librarian [wikipedia.org]
The Librarian is known for his violent reaction whenever he hears anyone refer to him as a "monkey" (orangutans are apes). He speaks an elaborate language whose vocabulary consists of the single word Ook (and its antonym "eek" - where "ook" means yes, "eek" tends to mean no). Nonetheless, most people seem to be able to understand him. Both his language and his reaction were used separately and together as jokes in the first Discworld game.
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An iPhone screen for a trackpad? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:An iPhone screen for a trackpad? (Score:5, Funny)
Why, so you can glance up and down constantly to see what you're doing, and then curse occasionally as you press the wrong spot on the trackpad and open several programs at once?
yes! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:An iPhone screen for a trackpad? (Score:4, Funny)
I hope under the glass trackpad there's a little display just like the iPhone's.
Presenting the new smitty97 MacBook Touch [wikipedia.org].
How about just using the iPhone docked there (Score:3, Interesting)
Dock the iPhone where the trackpad would be, to lower manufacturing costs. Could use the iPhone's screen so that the trackpad would be more than just input, it would be a second display.
Maybe.
Glass trackpad? (Score:5, Interesting)
What are the advantages of a glass trackpad? Wouldn't your finger stick to it?
Re:Glass trackpad? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bling factor! It looks and feels more "expensive" not to mention the glass is harder so it won't scratch with use. Most trackpads kinda feel like a cheap vinyl / plastic sheet and get "wear" marks in the pad from finger friction after a couple months use..
Wouldn't your finger stick to it?
I'd think that getting fingerprints all over a shiny glossy surface that you are meant to touch all the time would be a bigger issue.
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As an owner of a few Apple laptops in my day I can say that the initial smooth surface of the trackpads wear off over time and whatever material is underneath, while functional, isn't as smooth making usage of the trackpad for long sessions uncomfortable. Your fingertips feel slightly "raw" after a while.
I would imagine glass doesn't have this issue.
Re:Glass trackpad? (Score:5, Funny)
The superior solution is obviously the clit mouse [xkcd.com].
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This is interesting. Although I've seen quite a few worn-down touchpads (especially on Dells), the one on my 12" Powerbook's looks pretty much just like new after 3 years of heavy use.
I wonder if Apple use different materials for touchpads on their "Pro" line than they do on their cheaper consumer-grade stuff.
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Yeah. My fingers stick to those. It's very difficult to do any sort of "sliding" motion. I found scrolling near-impossible on iPhones for this reason. Putting rubbing alcohol on my fingers (to dry them out) helped quite a bit. And when I used a little stylus, everything worked perfectly. But the idea of a touchpad that requires a stylus seems... odd to me.
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Bullshit. Styli don't function on the iPhone, only fingers. Why make things up?
Glass? Eww, eww, eww, eww (Score:5, Insightful)
I've not used an iPhone or iPod touch for long, but I got the impression that they were designed to favour short finger motions on the pad for precisely this reason. I'm not sure it would translate well into a touchpad.
Re:Glass? Eww, eww, eww, eww (Score:5, Informative)
I've not used an iPhone or iPod touch for long, but I got the impression that they were designed to favour short finger motions on the pad for precisely this reason.
I have to say, I've had an iPhone for a year. At first I was skeptical of the glass because of fingerprints, etc, but in practice I never notice any smudges, and I've *never* had any skipping, etc. In fact, it's remarkably precise, considering the blunt nature of a fingertip.
My theory on the way it works is that it finds the centroid of the pressure region. I've used drawing applications with it, and it's actually amazing how well it works drawing thin lines with a fingertip.
I don't know about a multitouch touchpad, that seems kind of lame. What makes multitouch cool is touching directly on the screen.
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Modern touchpads don't function with pressure but sense the capacitance of your finger. Just sliding along the srface is enough. That helps deal with skipping.
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All the current MBPs have multitouch track pads. They're quite nice. When I use my old MBP I really miss the reverse-pinch gesture to increase the font size in Safari.
Multitouch on the track pad isn't nearly as cool as directly on the screen though.
yeah aluminum... (Score:3, Interesting)
so the wifi range can be shorter O_o
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Uh, glass isn't needed for multi-touch (Score:2)
It seems like they're assuming an iPod touch screen surface would be required to have a multi-touch trackpad.
This is not the case.
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It seems like they're assuming an iPod touch screen surface would be required to have a multi-touch trackpad.
Hmm. My current MBP does multi-touch already. Heck, Apple's MBP marketing already states this [apple.com].
Multi-touch pad (Score:5, Informative)
the MacBook Pro already has a multi-touch trackpad [apple.com], so I'm not sure where the rumor part comes in...
Screw trackpads (Score:3, Insightful)
If Apple wanted to be cool, they'd dump the trackpad entirely and add a trackpoint.
Yes, that's right. They should switch to the nub. The pencil eraser. The clit mouse. The keyboard clit.
C'mon, it'd be awesome.
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What? Why?
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Because trackpads are annoying and make laptops a chore to use.
I love trackpoints. My old Toshiba Tecra M3 (RIP 2005-2007) had both a trackpoint and a trackpad. I used the Synaptic/ALPS drivers to configure the trackpad as a circular scroll wheel (a la iPod) and mapped middle-click to one of the corners. Scrolling and middle-click were the only things I used the trackpad for. For everything else, I used the trackpoint (bet you thought I was going to say MasterCard).
The trackpoint is the perfect pointing dev
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Yes, it would. I'm infinitely more comfortable using one of those then any trackpad. Put it in the same area as touchpads are and my very capable left thumb (thank you sega, sony and microsoft) would have no trouble navigating my screen. Hell, throw in a second one on the right for scrolling vert and horiz.
Or they could save everyone some time and just include a mini already-paired bluetooth mouse in the box.
Made for the villains... (Score:2)
They called him Mr. Glass.
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To counter act a man who had super strength and fortitude but a slightly below average intelligence (but still in the range of normal), but humble is a man who is super frail and sickly with a slightly above average intelligence, with a Huge Ego.
I realize thin is in... (Score:5, Interesting)
But I really would like to see something that I could use a day or two on a charge. If they can make it paper thin and still run a few hours, then surely, they could make something twice as thick that would go for a day?
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I use my macbook pro heavily, so for me a 3 hour battery life vs 5 makes no difference. I have to plug it in either way, so I'd rather it be thin, sleek and easy to carry over to the nearest outlet. Now if it could go for, say, 10 hours, that would be worth sacrificing a bit of portability and style, so probably tripling the size (and cost) of the existing battery.
Macbook ergonomics suck (Score:2)
I have a MacBook and aside from the ordeal I had to go through getting basic developer tools working, the edges are so sharp that I'm gonna have to take some sandpaper out or file them down before the pain in my wrists become too much for me.
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So what happened? I've installed an awful lot of OS X developer tools and it's always been a double click on the CD. Actually, if you're doing it on a large number of machines (a research lab of 40 or so, say) then it's faster to put the downloadable disk image on the server and double click on that.
So what did you do?
Glass = not ideal material for laptops (Score:3, Interesting)
Surely glass is a really bad idea for laptops? It's heavier than plastic, and less durable in terms of scratch resistance and shattering. Worse still it has more friction than some plastics, so not ideal for moving your finger over.
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Actually, glass is more scratch resistant than most plastics (try dropping your plastic sunglasses on the beach, once. Then try again with a pair of proper glasses, made from glass).
Glass can also be made less sticky by roughening up the surface. Now, I agree that it's indeed
joke (Score:4, Funny)
Round corners reminds me of the old joke;
Q;Why do they make macs so big?
A: So mac users cant put them up their asses.
Q: Why do macs have round corners?
A: Just in case they manage the above!
(-:
Re:Yeah... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. Yes it can actually.
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Only in the macbook can you easily service the ram and hard drive. In the macbook pro the only 'user' serviceable part is the ram. The reality of taking apart a macbook pro is out of the reach of most users.
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It cracks me up how many people who read a "news for nerds" web site are confounded by a laptop that requires a screwdriver and some simple instructions to disassemble.
Gosh, it's so HARD! There's SCREWS!
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It cracks me up how many people who read a "news for nerds" web site are confounded by a laptop that requires a screwdriver and some simple instructions to disassemble.
Perhaps you missed this part:
The reality of taking apart a macbook pro is out of the reach of most users.
. . . taking apart a macbook pro is out of the reach of most users.
. . . taking apart a macbook pro is out of the reach of most users.
most users.
We're a fringe. I like it that way.
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Since when was /. (officially) devoted to Linux/open source?
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It's not about being devoted exclusively to Linux/FOSS, it's about the simple fact that this entire "article" is that there's a rumour that new Macbooks might have a glass touchpad and an aluminium casing. Even if that was a stone-cold fact it wouldn't be newsworthy, so as a rumour it's complete bullshit. The GP is right.
Re:How about adding A bigger screen and video card (Score:4, Informative)
13" lightweight laptops are more expensive than the big bulky 15.4" laptops of the same specs.
This is true across the board.
The Macbook actually compares very well with current offerings from Dell. Compare it to the Vostro 1310 and XPS 1330. The Macbook specs are getting slightly dated in comparison to Dell's frequent updates, but when the new Macbook comes out expect the specs to be as good or better for the price than similarly-equipped laptops from other manufacturers.
Re:How about adding A bigger screen and video card (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you assume bigger is better? I'd rather have a 13" laptop than a 15" laptop.
My perfect laptop form factor would be a 12" non-widescreen with nVidia discrete graphics. Oh, and it would be even more awesome if it were a tablet and doubly awesome if I could rotate it into portrait mode.
Too bad the ThinkPad X61 only has GMA...
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Why do you assume bigger is better? I'd rather have a 13" laptop than a 15" laptop.
My perfect laptop form factor would be a 12" non-widescreen with nVidia discrete graphics.
I definitely agree. However, TFA says that:
16:9 screens which come in slightly bigger sizes: 14 inch and 15.6 inch with different resolutions, obviously.
Pretty disappointing... Come on Apple, everybody wants subnotebooks nowadays, and you increase the screen size??? If these rumors are true, the only 13 inch Macbook will be the Air? :) inch notebook in the near future...
I still hope Apple will make a 12 (or, who knows, maybe 10
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My perfect laptop form factor would be a 12" non-widescreen with nVidia discrete graphics. Oh, and it would be even more awesome if it were a tablet and doubly awesome if I could rotate it into portrait mode.
Not quite sure why the discrete graphics is so important. It's not like you'll be playing any high-end games on a machine like that (which will inevitably have a form-factor requiring a relatively slow ULV CPU).
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I don't care about high-end games, I care about memory usage.
Integrated graphics don't have their own memory. They work by eating system memory. I run without swap, so I need as much memory as I can get.
By the way, the Thinkpad X61 (a 12" non-widescreen notebook) does not require a ULV processor. It can come with anything up to a T8300.
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re: Why do you assume bigger is better?
More screen estate, higher resolution. I actually want two laptops: one Eepc and one 17" laptop. One is obviously ultra-portable and fine for checking email, running diagnostics with wireshark, etc. while on the other you can do real work or play actual games. Sometimes just having a portable desktop/workstation replacement is nice.
Of course considering I prefer to run Linux, gaming would be limited to LBreakout and Supertux. ;)
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At $1500 it should be better or at least put a bigger screen in.
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Not sure about the entire pose, but definitely left a bitter aftertaste after reading the *post*...
Sorry friend, you set it up, I knocked it down.
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Only if it is going to be a tablet.
I don't want to move my hands that far from the keyboard plus I don't think multi-touch would be all that good for graphics programs.
Now what would rock is a tablet With an external monitor.
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touchscreens works damn well on things like the iphone or kiosks. but as the default pointer input on a laptop? suck.
that's a 12-17 inch screen you have to move your hand across just to control the pointer... so unless the majority of your apps are entirely pointer driven it's gonna be usability hell. same reason i think tablets aren't that great, useful in very specific situations. (using it like a digital notepad and such).
Re:Touchscreen (Score:5, Informative)
Look up touchscreen gorilla arm.
That's why touch screens are not great and won't cause a revolution.