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Comments: 108 +-   HTC Shift + ThinkPad X300 + MacBook Air = Perfect Notebook? on Friday March 21 2008, @02:49PM

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 21 2008, @02:49PM
from the pipe-dreams dept.
portables
hardware
technology
Tom's Hardware has an interesting look at the HTC Shift, the newest contender in the ultralight portable arena, with a strong compare and contrast to the other two heavyweights, the ThinkPad X300 and the Macbook Air. "As some of you know, I actually like the Macbook Air but found the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 to be a vastly more useful product in the class. I'm one of the few folks that have been using an early version of the HTC Shift , a smaller screened ultra light tablet with a keyboard and a touch screen which is superior to both offerings in some ways and just released on Amazon.com for $1500 (someone screwed up, this wasn't supposed to happen until next week). This got me thinking: The perfect next generation ultra-sexy notebook should be a blend of all three products."
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Feed: The HTC Shift + ThinkPad X300 + The MacBook Air = Perfect Notebook by thfeed (1083225)
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HTC Shift + ThinkPad X300 + MacBook Air = Perfect Notebook? 50 Comments More /

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  • Heavyweights? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Microlith (54737) on Friday March 21 2008, @02:50PM (#22822988)

    the other two heavyweights, the ThinkPad X300 and the Macbook Air.

    Shouldn't that be "lightweights?"

  • Perfect? For whom? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My perfect laptop includes the following.

    15-17" monitor
    5" attachable monitor
    webcam and mic on the front panel
    as big as a keyboard as possible in relation to the monitor
    swappable battery, dvdrw and >4 usb ports
    and wifi

  • I used one (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 21 2008, @02:57PM (#22823060)
    it's a toy. Don't buy it because it's too expensive. Tom's hardware is a joke in the meantime.

    In my mind, if you want a laptop, there are two rifts. Either one that will serve alongside a desktop sibling which will be vastly more powerful, or a desktop replacement.

    So either an EeePC or a MacBook Pro/IBM notebook. The HTC is EeePC at nearly the MBP price. Yuck.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by p0tat03 (985078)
      Disagree on the Eee PC front. A friend of mine got one, and as light and nice as it is, the keyboard is simply unworkable. If I'm on the road and need to type up a long email, or just to take notes at a conference, the Eee PC would have my fingers aching in no time at all. IMHO the two sides of the rift are the MacBook Pro/ThinkPad/workhorse laptop, and a 12-13" notebook like the MacBook, XPS M1330, etc. The sub-10" market IMHO will not replace this, and will remain a relative niche.

  • Headline punctuation... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ichthyoboy (1167379) on Friday March 21 2008, @02:57PM (#22823068)
    Yr doin' it wrong.
    • Seriously. The headline is atrocious! I had no idea what it meant until I clicked thru to the article, which uses plus signs and an equals sign to make the meaning more clear.

      Submitter is the one at fault here.
  • Purple Monkey Dishwasher? "Hey I know, instead of thinking of a coherent thought for the title I'll just throw in product names randomly, no one will notice!"

    I know this is Slashdot and the above statement is probably true but come on, at least pretend like you can speak in complete sentences.

  • Did no one notice? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by marcus (1916) on Friday March 21 2008, @03:01PM (#22823102) Journal
    This bit was written by the ever adorable Rob Enderle?

    I'm surprised it even made it to the /. front page.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by grendelkhan (168481)
      I didn't even notice that until the end, and then I felt all dirty for clicking the link. Of course he like it better than the ThinkPad and the Air, he hates IBM and he hates Apple.

  • Macbook air is FAR more than 2.5 hours... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nweaver (113078) on Friday March 21 2008, @03:05PM (#22823146) Homepage
    I got far more than 2.5 hours out of the air at a conference, running compiles and mysql database work enough that the fan was on 100%.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by aetherworld (970863)
      On a sidenote: I don't get why people constantly compare the macbook air with other more or less lightweight notebooks or subnotebooks. The air is the most light weight notebook apple has to offer. And when I want or need OS X on a subnotebook, there is no alternative. Neither a HTC or IBM product will run OS X (at least not in the quality i'm used to).

      However, if you seriously don't care about the operating system and can run linux or (worse) windows just as well, then you're stupid if you buy a macbook ai

      • Re:Macbook air is FAR more than 2.5 hours... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by MojoStan (776183) on Friday March 21 2008, @05:30PM (#22824608)
        Maybe Mac users compare the MacBook Air to non-Mac subnotebooks because some Mac users want some of the hardware features found in other subnotebooks that the MacBook Air lacks (e.g. optical drive, gigabit ethernet, more USB ports, user replacable battery, memory card slots), even if it means sacrificing some the Air's form factor (but not weight). I think they compare them because other notebook makers have proven that you can include these features in a subnotebook, but Mac users have no choice but to move up to the 5+ pound MacBook or 15+ inch MacBook Pro.

        I guess what I'm trying to say is: they compare because they think Apple can do better (or offer more choice) in this category. Another thing some Mac users complain about: no Mac desktop that's not a huge dual-processor workstation and doesn't have a built-in display.

  • Sigh (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by geekoid (135745)
    The Air has style. It's about style. It's about the young female executive showing off her style, while getting work done. It gets the work an executives need done, done. Nothing else, but whether you like it or not how you look is a big factor in promotions.
    A lesson I wish I had learned when I was 20 instead of thinking what I produces would do me any good.

    • Do you mean 'promotions' as in 'getting a different job title'? Like moving from IS Engineer to IS Manager? Because I sure don't want that. I'm a short, fat guy with questionable fashion sense and minimal personal hygiene. And yet I get better reviews and make more money than most of the managers in the company. So I guess how I look was a big factor in me not getting promoted - but it wasn't a factor in making advancement.
      • Dude, I'm talking about power players here, not your company measly upper middle management.
        You don't know that. you could be making more money at a bigger firm if you fit 'the mold'.

        I'm not defending it, and certianly what you produce should be the number one issue. I've just been an observer of these kinds of behaviors for a long time.

        And by promotion I mean moving up the org chart. People going for C*O positions. Golden parachutes, fat bonus, and having mil+ by 29.

        There are people who make more then uppe

      • Re:Sigh (Score:4, Funny)

        by Otter (3800) on Friday March 21 2008, @03:50PM (#22823608) Journal
        I'm a short, fat guy with questionable fashion sense and minimal personal hygiene.

        Maybe you and the young female executive with the Air could do one of those "I'm a Mac...And I'm a PC" commercials.

  • Ok, let's try to find what Rob means by "blend":

    Starting with the Shift, the dual mode long battery life aspect is wonderful and it is also the most affordable of the three. The Lenovo is the most practical, usable and comprehensive product and the Apple is one of the most beautiful notebooks that is currently available. In addition, the perfect product needs the battery life and wireless capabilities shared by the Lenovo and HTC products and, were you to wrap all of this up in a bow, I think you'd have a

  • toilet paper tube... (Score:4, Informative)

    by stokessd (89903) on Friday March 21 2008, @03:13PM (#22823242) Homepage
    800x480?! Why not just give us four handy red 7 segment displays to interact with.

    Sure, I understand that small computers have small screens, but my aging ipac has a 640x480 screen the size of a baseball card and fits in my pocket. I take it that people who want small light computers are also blind? A screen that size could be 1400x900 and still be very usable.

    Sheldon

  • Riiiiight.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by dazedNconfuzed (154242) on Friday March 21 2008, @03:17PM (#22823286)
    has a small 800 x 480 pixel 7" touchscreen

    For the same price I can get an ultraportable (3lbs) Sony VAIO with ~10" screen, real keyboard (only slightly scrunched), 1280x768 screen, and real everything else including optical drive and WAN radio. Heck, I've had two models over 5 years, wishing only for a stronger case and boot-from-USB; I carry it everywhere.

    I'm not sure where the author thinks this toy is usable for anything but an overblown cellphone without the phone.

    Next...

  • a laptop with a case made from eighth inch stainless steel diamond pattern floor plate...

  • Not an Eee PC, it's a tablet (Score:3, Informative)

    by Nightspirit (846159) on Friday March 21 2008, @03:51PM (#22823614)
    The thing most of you people are not realizing is that the shift has tablet functionality which neither the eee pc, x300, or airbook have. Not only that, but it runs windows mobile as well as vista. I also believe it is GSM quad band/HSDPA (or at least it was supposed to when I read about it 5 months ago), so essentially it can replace your phone, PDA, and travel laptop. If I had 1.5k sitting around I'd definitely get one.

  • WTF? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ScrewMaster (602015) on Friday March 21 2008, @04:38PM (#22824112)
    HTC Shift ThinkPad X300 MacBook Air Perfect Notebook?

    What the heck does this mean, anyway? And no, I don't want to read the article.
  • "has a small 800 x 480 pixel 7" touchscreen"

    I can't think of a single application other than email that can be used efficiently at this resolution. Web browsing is pretty pointless with sites wanting 1024 or more these days. How in the world could you edit photos and videos on something like that? What about playing any games? Word and Excel might work fine, but man, could you imagine having to fight with only being able to see only a couple rows at a time?

    What a nightmare. It really sounds more like a con

  • Fuck HTC (Score:3, Informative)

    by Vegeta99 (219501) <rjlynn@gmail. c o m> on Friday March 21 2008, @04:49PM (#22824220) Homepage
    Fuck HTC.

    I bought an AT&T Tilt (HTC TyTN II Rebrand) and it came with the Qualcomm MSM7200 chipset that's supposed (and was advertized) to have ATi hardware 3D rendering and hardware video assist. It seems, however, that even though these features were advertised, HTC users weren't given them. Some amateur research says that it's because of a Broadcomm patent lawsuit against Qualcomm with a judgement preventing them from making drivers (but they were allowed to sell what processors were already being made under other contractual obligation).

    See this Firehose article. [slashdot.org] The videos on htcclassaction.org demonstrate the issue very well.
  • I'm getting a little disturbed by the whole "We hate it because the battery's not removable". Even here in the Tom's review they make the somewhat insane claim that the machine isn't portable because you can't swap batteries.

    Well let me tell you, if you're going to load yourself down with extra batteries (and one supposes, a power supply), an optical drive then it's not that portable anymore either. Maybe you'd be happier with a T61 Thinkpad or a full blown MacBook? Swiss Army Knife isn't the intended purpo
    • A thumb pad should be on the right. Having a thumb pad has always been stupid..except for aliens with an arm growing out of their chest.
      • A thumb pad should be on the right hand side for that 85% of the population who are right-hand dominant at a computer -- they put it in the center as a compromise for the other 10% who are left-hand dominant. The remaining 5% couldn't care less where it is, but probably prefer anywhere but the middle :)

        I'll tell you... it's next to impossible to use one of those "ergonomic" mice with your left hand. As I fall in the 5% category, I just go with the majority however.

    • Re:He really wants a EEE PC. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MrHanky (141717) on Saturday March 22 2008, @06:22AM (#22828286) Homepage Journal
      No, the writer is Rob Enderle, the guy who defended SCO against the evil Linux copycats (and praised the VROOM-VROOM start-up sound on his Acer Ferrari). I doubt he wants to use a 'free software scam' like the Eee for anything.

      Which raises the question of why a fluff piece by this idiot should be posted to Slashdot (or to Tom's Hardware in the first place).

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by LiquidCoooled (634315)
      You really should take a look at the nokia n810 (or even n800).
      They have a similar form factor, run Maemo Linux and are great to use.
    • If it ever actually existed, you might have a shot at buying it here. [usedhandhelds.com]

      Disclaimer: I used to work for that company.

    • Re:Only machine with a real secure OS (Score:5, Funny)

      by Gentlewhisper (759800) on Friday March 21 2008, @04:26PM (#22823982)
      >>In the history of Macs, from 1984 forward, there has never been a single successful remote attack on the OS.
      >>No other operating system on the planet can state that as a medal of honor.

      Ah yes, the mind control broadcast towers are working as planned...

      • Re:Only machine with a real secure OS (Score:5, Funny)

        by ScrewMaster (602015) on Friday March 21 2008, @04:44PM (#22824160)
        there has never been a single successful remote attack on the OS.

        Put it this way: a really successful remote attack is one which nobody ever learns about, so it's ridiculous to claim that any given operating system has never been exploited. I guarantee that Macs have been cracked at some point in their history. I think it doesn't happen more often because Mac owners don't have anything on them that anyone would want.

    • Re:None of these are the "perfect" notebook (Score:4, Funny)

      by ScrewMaster (602015) on Friday March 21 2008, @04:47PM (#22824200)
      Ergo, it's not on the market yet (until some kind of weird unfolding tech comes out, or people use projectors, or something like that).

      Think holojectors, dude. Three-dimensional holojectors, that's the ticket. Toss that puppy onto a table in front of you and see a beautiful 3-D desktop floating in midair. I know they can do it if they want to ... I've seen them on Stargate SG-1!
    • ... and do 900 squazillion miles on one gallon. Of water. I've patented it, just on the off chance that some sucker actually makes one. [evil cackle]
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