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Thinkpad X300 Specs Leaked
Kyokushi writes "Gizmodo reports that some specifications of a new ultralight Lenovo X300 have been leaked. 'It appears that Lenovo have themselves a new ultralight X300 series Thinkpad — and outside of the price and release date, we have all of the specs that you need to know. At a glance, some of the major features include: a 13.3-inch LED backlit 1440X900 screen, an ultralight 2.5 pound form factor, and Intel Merom Santa Rosa Dual Core CPU (2.0 Ghz / 880 Mhz ), a 64 GB SSD, up to 4GB of DDR2 PC2-5300 memory, and 4 hours of battery life.' If this is true, then Lenovo looks to have some heavy competition for the Macbook Air." Update: 01/20 22:55 GMT by S : Corrected Gizmondo->Gizmodo.
Gizmodo is the tech blog reporting this.
But does it run OS X?
This sounds really interesting, but I'm waiting to hear more about video and wireless card. Thinkpads have been very good for me in running Linux, but Linux on laptops these days often comes down to the video card, modem, and the wireless card. Modems are usually winmodems, which are hard to support - but I haven't used a modem in years. Anyone have other details to point to?
It even has wired ethernet. But Apple still has the branding that the general populace flock to nowadays.
I still cannot understand the rabid obsession with thinness the most people have, the two most importent things for me are weight and battery life, the laptops thickness is its least problomatic dimension. i would rather have this over the Air, this should also be tougher than the Air, which cannot be too tough. This also has 4G Ram, which is a must for any media work. The Air is more of a fashion accessory than a serious laptop IMO
"If this is true, then Lenovo looks to have some heavy competition for the Macbook Air." HA!
Unfortunately much to the chagrin of the Gizmodo reporter, tv-b-gone remotes don't seem to have any effect on the new laptop.
I have nothing compelling to say
Why do all thinkpads look like they are from 1995? I know they are targeting businesses, and are great laptop's, but seriously, that laptop looks the same as my 300mhz Pentium 2 thinkpad
There are of course people going for the specs, but they are just as much about branding. The target markets has very little overlap.
:-), someone in the market for a new Volvo is unlikely to be swayed by a Porche, and vice versa.
The guy on the Gizmondo blog that compared it with Volvo vs Porche got it right (a car analogy always helps
The rest of the bloggers aso got it right, they focused on how ugly, boring, old fashioned, and conservative the Thinkpad looked (it looked like every other Thinkpad), which is exactly what the Thinkpad market wants. They don't want something looking flimsy and flashy as they would consider the MacBook Air to look.
I don't see any mention of price! Does anyone else see it?
Also, there are 4 images: 1,2,4,5. I guess price was listed on image 3. Huh.
but does it have an LAN port? Or more than one usb port?
Those are the two things that really turned me off on the air, in addition to the poor specs for the price.
If this is true, then Lenovo looks to have some heavy competition for the Macbook Air.
It can't be a competitor until Lenovo releases pricing, and I doubt Lenovo considers the very niche-market Macbook Air to be a competitor. Also, Apple's shipping units in a week or two, and Lenovo hasn't officially announced their product yet (and they missed doing so at CES, not a good sign.)
I know it's hard to resist the comparison, but just because they're both ultralight doesn't mean they're competitors. Successful products are either better than their competition (win your battles), or they put themselves in a [large enough] niche market not filled by competitors (pick your battles.)
Please help metamoderate.
Good it's not one of those ultraheavy 2.5 pound laptops.
As someone who's used IBM Thinkpads for a while, I have to ask: is it actually a Thinkpad, or is it based on Lenovo's own designs (like the ideapad)? If it comes with the titanium-alloy reinforced case, the HDAPS and support from IBM's standard thinkpad support line I'm sold. If not... *shrug*
A quick glance at the picture suggests it could be either way- it has the keyboard light that most thinkpad users come to love and adore yet the screen hinge looks plastic instead of the heavy duty metal hinges that give thinkpads that smooth and secure feel while adjusting the screen you just don't see with most other laptops.
With specs like a LED backlit 1440X900 screen, Santa Rosa 2, and a 64 GB SSD, this thing is going to be nowhere close to the MBA's price point. The supposed battery life of 4 hours doesn't make me hopeful either -- manufacturers tend to lie, er, be overly optimistic about these things. This thing will be in a totally different market. Like, for users who love spending >$4000 on their laptop and having it plugged it permanently.
It's only competition for the Airbook (yes - I know it's a "MacBook Air") if the intent of the Airbook was to lure droves of Windows users. As to the idea that it was "leaked" - please - this was nothing more than a press release in the guise of a leak. It was stunningly reminiscent of the Windows "yeah - we've got that too - next week! - so don't go anywhere" tactic.
I just got my first laptop recently, and its 14" screen makes it too top heavy to, well, sit on your lap properly. A friend's 12" laptop seems to work just fine for sitting nicely, partially because its a bit thicker than the average laptop. I don't like this new form factor standard. It seems more like the opposite of what my experience says is practical.
Black Air.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
for long flights. This is even more important now that the TSA in USA does not allow spare laptop batteries on board.
>If this is true, then Lenovo looks to have some heavy competition for the Macbook Air
Lenovo already has a computer in the ultralight space, the X61. The X61 has almost identical specs to the macboook air, at a much lower price and significantly higher clockspeed.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3765
Looking at this new machine, I really like that they've lowered the weight more and slightly increased the screen size; however, I have to wonder what the point of a 1440X900 resolution is at 13' inches.
I also have to ask what the point of including a touch pad is, when you have one of those "keyboard nipple" trackpoints. The trackpoints are so ridiculously and unambiguously superior to a touch pad, that it just seems like a waste of space.
The third issue with the new spec, is that it is still VGA output instead of DVI output. Pretty much all modern monitors have DVI inputs, so I don't see the point of going with the old standard.
Finally, I'm not convinced of the benefits of a flash harddrive. If they are saving weight, that's nice (although I'm not sure they are lighter). However, it's a pretty small drive, and it is a myth that flash drives are faster. Flash drives have better random access, but slower sequential access, and most accesses are sequential. Things are going to seem *slower* moving to flash, not faster.
Only if you intended to run your favorite FOSS *NIX or Windows on it in the first place.
For those looking for OS X in a similar form factor won't be buying the Thinkpad. I thought that to be obvious.
why is one core 2.0 Ghz and the other 880 Mhz?
looks lopsided to me = O o
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Light is nice but Steve Jobs seems to have a bit of a Clive Sinclair complex. He just pushes the envelope one bit too far. Sinclair did it on cheap (microdrive not a floppy), Jobs does it on practicality (no exchangable batteries).
The Lenovo looks like it is slightly less cool but a lot more practical. I bet you can swap out the battery. In fact I bet that nobody even thought of not allowing the user to swap it out.
Looks to me like this is a deliberate, sanctioned leak in response to the Air. Looks like solid state drives are becomming mainstream. Getting rid of the mechanical components from the board is going to make it much easier to do thin.
I suspect that the actual battery life is 3 hours and 6 with the extended battery pack, my T43 still does that reliably with two year old battery packs.
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Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Nice, but like what they've done to the R/T series (without a suitable model out there that even comes close to the 2623DDU) is nearly unforgivable. That's where the title of "The ultimate Thinkpad", as you could get that quality you wanted.
Now you might as well just extend the warranty on an IPS T42p, R50p(unless you've done 1900x1200 screen work), or T60p. The models where you could get quality that you wanted seem not to exist thanks to them.
This is just another distraction.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
...Yeah right...
Looks like a fantastic machine, could compete very well with the Sony TX ultra-small, full-powered laptops (models I have used for several years). The only thing obviously missing is the option to buy it with no OS and/or with Linux. Before someone cries about "Linux isn't ready" or "Linux isn't mainstream", I would stress the word *OPTION*. Let consumers decide what they want, if it means no OS, so be it... Lenovo doesn't HAVE to offer Linux support, although that would be even more courageous.
MS-Windows can be preinstalled but licensed separately, meaning there only has to be a single packaging, model, inventory, etc. They could even choose a free, redistributable Linux distro and install that too and the user can have a working machine in minutes, even if they opt to not spend money on Vista. Initialization of the machine can automatically remove the space consumed by either, based on the user's choice.
I kinda doubt Microsoft would allow such competition, though... but it seems a reasonable objective to combat such restrictions based on an anti-trust lawsuit.
I'm personally not a fan of ultraportable laptops with the footprints of ordinary laptops. If a laptop is going to be minimalistic, its manufacturer ought to go all the way. A subnotebook will never replicate the functionality of a typical 14" computer, so it's pointless to give it the footprint of one. I'd much rather see a diminished footprint than a minuscule thickness. I would personally prefer an updated version of my Thinkpad S30 than this MacBook Air competitor.
This message printed on 100% post-consumer recycled electrons.
Since they've axed IPS, that's about it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I just looked at the size of this monster:
W 12.52 x L 9.09 x D 0.73-0.92 inch
Compared to the MacBook Air:
12.8 x 8.94 x 0.16-0.76 inch
Volumetrically, two MacBook Airs fit into one of these!
(Thinkpad: 93.9 cub inches., MacBook Air: 52.6 cub inches.)
With that kind of space, Apple could've fitted a jet engine and Osama in hiding.
That would mean it was unintentional. They were revealed in a press release. Poorly disguised maybe, but it was a press release. And my advice is to go with XP or the business edition. Works pretty good with less fluff.
What?
Why is it every time you buy a new piece of hardware, the next day something cooler is announced? :)
I've owned various thinkpads since '98, and they have never let me down. I'm currently running a t21 (850mhz, 14.1" 1400x1050, 512mb) that's suffering from case fatigue. I bought it almost 7 years ago, and it's been running the same Debian/sid install the entire time. I use it for at least 6-8 hours a day (home machine) in all kinds of awkward positions (laying down, on the easy chair, etc)... it's travelled around the world, and to many a datacenter.
I did have to deal with IBM service once. At one point in 2003, I sent it to IBM (their cost) with what I believed to be a bad hard disk (I/O errors). After they ripped it open, they told that I'd spilled coffee in it.... I was quite upset at this as I didn't believe them, so they sent me pictures. At some point, probably while it was on the floor (I really abuse my machines), I must have kicked over a mostly empty cup of coffee or something.
After apologizing to them in a phone call, they explained to me that they didn't find anything immediately wrong with it at that point (it was booting), except the coffee spill. I told them about the I/O errors, and they ran a thorough scan, confirming the problem. Because the coffee was unlikely to have caused a disk failure, they offered to replace the drive, but after doing so, found that the problem persisted. It was the controller (or connector)... and, to my astonishment, I received an email later that day along the lines of: "Sir, we just need to get you back up and running. You're a long-time valued customer, so we're going to replace whatever parts need to be replaced."
3 days later, an express shipped package arrived with what used to be my laptop - 90% of the components had been replaced (except, amazingly, the original hard drive, which was fine). I was floored, and wrote a quick thank you note to the CSR's boss.
Here I am, 5 years later, with the same machine chugging away. I can't even hazard a guess to how many hours it has on it. It's starting to make funny noises, and 850mhz just ain't cuttin it anymore. :) Time for a new box.
While I did take a good look at various others (dell, hp, acer) - some of which less than half the price - I eventually settled on a refurbished t43p (2.13ghz, 2gb ram, 1400x1050). I want the trackpoint, and 3 mouse buttons. I want the rigid case. I want the support (we'll see how Lenovo does) and I want the well tested, mature components (particularly for Linux). Can't wait!
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
"If this is true, then Lenovo looks to have some heavy competition for the Macbook Air." Not really. The Lenovo thing doesn't have Mac OS X. It has a completely different target audience. It also lacks style. But is does have all the ports and stuff I would like in the MacBook Air, I'll give it that. Credit where credit is due. But what I really want is a Sony Vaio TZ with Mac OS X.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
I bought a Sony Vaio G1 about a year ago, and it beats the pants off the Air and X300 for "featherweight with features":
:) (as well as XP, came with Vaisto :P) Drop the optical, you're http://www.dynamism.com/g2/main.shtml -- which adds firewire, 2 cores (same weight, longer batt life!)
Dual-layer DVD writer, 11 hour battery (I get about 8 hrs, swappable), wifi/g, ethernet, modem, multi-flash reader, pcmcia, bluetooth, 12in screen, 80GB, phones/mic plugs, usb2, even fingerprint reader! Everything you need short of a camera (wish it had one for skype...)
In a carbon-fiber case at 2.46lbs... a year ago!
An *yes* I installed OSX on it
Don't know what all the fuss is with these "new" featherweights, they're a little late to the game, and missing some key features: no optical!? Don't see feature details on X300, but Air is also missing swappable battery (or v. long batt life), no ethernet (enjoy you're slow file transfers), no firewire, card slots (hardly any ports really).
Nice try... play again soon!
Is about obama, only hillary astroturfers.
...that's what I call it. Apple is into "cosmetic computing", which isn't actually about computing at all. It's about being able to sell someone something for little to nothing of actual design cost just by making the "thing" look more eye appealing. Steve Jobs is not into what computer science geeks are about, he's into the somewhat lucrative market of art. Steve has managed to move Apple into the upper class. He's not selling to coach fliers. He wants his products to be used by people who drink wine with their dinners, while discussing the paintings of the art scene and Prada.
I've also noticed that a lot of what Apple does now is "output only". Many of Apples latest products are all about getting you to buy media, not create it. For example, the Apple iPod line could very well have a built in stereo A/D converter for high-end audio, like the Roland EDIROL R-09 recorder, but nooo, that would be "enabling" the customer, which we just can't allow. Also, Apple it seems just doesn't want their devices to become general "computing" devices that the public can control with their own software. yuk spit.
If it has a wired NIC it already has +1 on the Macbook Air.
The game.
Is that it has both GPS and WIMAX on board. That is what makes it a more interesting and forward looking design than Mac Air. Physically, it's boring. The cornucopia of ports is boring. Laptops have these things. It looks so like every other Lenovo laptop that there's nothing 'must have' about the appearance. But I am convinced that the next killer application will be location sensitive and require ubiquitous mobile connectivity. WiFi doesn't have it and 3G isn't very fast.
Steve Jobs isn't going to lie awake tonight kicking himself because Lenovo have brought out yet another dull black corporate laptop. He's going to be kicking himself about the GPS and the WIMAX.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I have the PowerBook 12" G4 1.5Ghz, bumped to 1.25 gigs. It's really the best on-the-go laptop they've produced. I put in into a memory foam slipcase and toss it into my overnight bag or briefcase.
It's almost 5 pounds, not noticeably different from 3.5. It's only an inch thick so it's slim enough, and it has every connector you'll ever need. I even used the modem (ugh) the other day. And when I shoot a wedding, the first thing I do is mail backup DVDs to myself.
My dream notebook would be this form factor with the 2.8Ghz core2 duo 4 Gig memory with a slot for a cellular Verizon modem with proper drivers. With all the connector goodness of the PB.
The Air is a bit of a deaf lead. I have no use for it.
Maybe the dock will have it (like the ones for the T-series). And by the way: what about eSata? /g.
ps: never had a notebook which wasn't a thinkpad
For everything I want to do:\
Firefox
Watch Movies
Skype
Urban Terror
Audacity
Thunderbird
Abiword
Civilization 2
Burn CDs
Play mp3s
That system is overkill. Don't get me wrong, extra horse power is always a good thing, but aside from burning a cd, a EEE will do everything I want and (I'm sure) is much cheaper and smaller, and easy to carry. I'd like to see more competition in the ultra cheap department, once I can get something of EEE functionality for $150, I'll be considering lots of extra fun little projects.
I mean, other than running Vista (why would you do that to yourself, anyway?), is there a point to spending more for that much horse power? Ubuntu runs well on a pentium 3 and does 99% of what most people need!!!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Everyone seems to be missing that the X300 is including WiMAX capabilities.
http://gizmodo.com/photogallery/x300/1000528021
This could be a HUGE market advantage over the Apple AirBook - a REAL Broadband experience.
And to those naysayers who think "WiMAX doesn't exist" or "it won't work" - you are WRONG.
WiMAX is currently rolling out across major cities, it works VERY well, and will be commercially available on a widespread basis in 2008.
Apple made a MAJOR mistake in not including WiMAX in the "Airbook"
I also have to ask what the point of including a touch pad is, when you have one of those "keyboard nipple" trackpoints. The trackpoints are so ridiculously and unambiguously superior to a touch pad, that it just seems like a waste of space.
I've used the windows laptop nipples before, and Apple's trackpad implementation is far superior eve when you can only use it for two finger scrolling and panning - never mind the additional gesture controls Apple added to the Air. If you want superior how about instead of two buttons where one is always rather hard to reach and another is too easy to hit, you have a single large button and use the fact that your hands are sitting right there on the keyboard to mac use of the trackpad or keyboard chording to active a second button? Oh that's right, Macs already do this.
I never did use a single Windows laptop that didn't drive me to external mice in the end. After several years of Mac laptops I can say they offer a better system for extended use.
Calling the nipple "ridiculously superior" as you struggle to scroll is a joke.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is even more important now that the TSA in USA does not allow spare laptop batteries on board.
Unless you fly in the cargo hold, you are completely wrong. The TSA is wanting people with lithium batteries to CARRY THEM ON. You know, the bit of the airplane where you normally sit.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm surprised nobody mentioned that this apparently has a DVD-RW built-in. That makes it, in something a little thicker than the Air, less weight, a swappable battery, an optical drive and a heck of a lot more ports.
- i mean, a modem is like an optical drive on an Apple Mac Air!
Love the pointing stick. Hate the touchpad... very much.
It's simple really... I get much more accuracy and dexterity out of the pointing stick. That and you don't have to move your hand to switch between it and the keyboard. And I don't accidentally hit the pointing stick causing the mouse to jump or click like I do with the pad.
I'm thinking more speed + better accuracy + better dexterity - annoyances = win
I would NEVER buy a laptop without a pointing stick.
A Windows laptop is only competition to a Mac laptop if you install Windows on your Mac laptop.
It's not so much competition, but choice.
LED backlighting ought to fix the brightness problem, but if they put the same bad screen in front of it, contrast will still be a deal-breaker.
If we get out of the realm of special purpose laptops, I don't think the current low cost SSDs are up to snuff. Try working off a fast thumb drive if you don't believe me. There's good points and bad points but the bad point is very bad: very slooow write times. Finding the information is great, getting into the SSD (and to a lesser degree getting it out) is not so great.
It's not that I'm against SSDs, but I'd prefer to have both flash and regular hard disk, or a hybrid disk. I've been experimenting with fast thumb drives and CF cards up to 166x, which is rated just like a CD-ROM drive: 1x = 150kb/second, so 166x is 24 MiB/sec. You can go higher form more $$$, maybe 40 MiB/s? Not shabby for flash, but orders of magnitude below a cheap hard drive.
I'm considering going with a SSD for booting and most static data, a nice hunk of RAM with 64 bit linux to avoid much swapping, then a very modest hard disk for thing where there's a writing, including swap space. Why wear out your flash drive to experience frustration.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Except nobody cares about Thinkpads any more, now that it's not made by IBM.
Just get a MacBook Pro, Air etc.
That would be the same Museum of Modern Art that proudly displays cans of shit in its collection? Gee, I'm not sure that says much. This is modern art you're talking about, which pretty much represents the purposeful antithesis of pleasing aesthetics (to the point that I'd say it supports the GP's position; ugly is ugly).
The appeal of the Thinkpad (to me at least) is the complete lack of any gimmicky styling. It looks like a thinkpad. My thinkpad from 5 years ago looks like a thinkpad and the one I buy in 5 years will also just look like an f'in thinkpad.
Also I love the 'nipple' pointer. So much nicer to use than a trackpad (although mysteriously I find myself in a greater minority on this every day). If I want to move the cursor across the screen, it's easier/faster and doesn't leave me pawing away like a cat at a window.
Or maybe just the Lenovo mass market takeover of Thinkpad has become obvious, or, Thinkpad quality is a lot crappier than we own up to. In any case our Thinkpads have been dropping like flies, requiring motherboard, fan, powersupply and battery replacements. I get an employee discount and a) the discounts are not that great and b) I wouldn't get one anyway. It's too risky, it will probably break. On the other hand I have a great little Lenovo branded Lenovo which, as a low cost low feature machine is great and solid. But I think the great era of Thinkpads is over.
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Yes, a 166x CF card is *slow*.
/s.
I just got an 8GB 300x CF card with a CF-SATA adapter.
It works beautifully (and I've used mostly 10000RPM and 15000RPM hard drives before!).
I get around 43MB / s read speeds on the CF SSD, while my 10000RPM WD Raptor HDD gets 53MB
I'm running my OS on the CF card (SUSE 10.3) on it as I write this.
There is no part of the MacBook Air where 0.6 or 0.7 of anything will fit, no matter the width. Remember, the MacBook Air is 0.16 to 0.76 inch thick, including the screen. I measured the base, the thickest it gets is 0.35 inch, near the hinge. On both sides of the computer these spots are already taken; on the left by the power connector, and on the right by micro-DVI, minijack and USB.
By the way, MacBook Air doesn't want to be your next "dull work notebook" or "corporate workhorse". The MBA is a computer for people with smooth hands. If you need a tricked out notebook meant as desktop replacement, try the MacBook Pro. Just don't compare that ThinkPad to a MacBook. The MacBook is a $1100 consumer laptop, the ThinkPad X61 is a $2000 mammoth tanker.
Does it have any moving parts at all?
The X300 has a 2.0 GHZ core 2 duo...is that the standard processor or is that the top of the line option? My concern is that the airbook seems to be handicapped in terms of its processor. Graphicswise - is the intel 3100 integrated gpu any good? And what is the lenovo packing graphics wise?
There is no security when liberty is sacrificed.
I would rather be dead than to use anything from Apple. They are simply an evil company. I think they actually care less for their users than Microsoft (maybe).
I'd hardly call holding down the scroll button with your thumb as you use your index finger to scroll with the nipple a struggle
Then you've obviously never used variable speed two finger scrolling (horizontal AND vertical at the same time, thanks) on a Macbook. Like someone who grew up using an outhouse, you don't know what you're missing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What a waste!
no 2.5" hdd, no mini pci-x, no firewire - so, no new portable audio workstation for me, i guess i will stick with my good old x31 a little longer - or maybe the x61 prices slump a bit..
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my G4/700 eMac runs Xubuntu.
So there? I guess?
+++ATH0
Two buttons? Three buttons is the absolute minimum, anything less is completely and utterly useless.
Kludges that make the mouse buttons keyboard buttons are just that -- kludges. The mouse buttons for the nipple are already perfectly accessable without taking your hands from the home row, and hitting the correct mouse buttons is trivially easy.
Nipples aren't for scrolling, that's what the touchpad is for. Nipples are for pointing, for which they are indeed ridiculously superior. As for scrolling, you simply turn the entire touchpad into a scrolling device (both horizontal and vertical), and you can scroll with your thumb on the touchpad without taking your hands off of the home row.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
I love fiddling about with that little red whatsit in the middle of the works, it's so effective.
Being straight, I just can't bring myself to get enthusiastic about having anything other than a female on my lap.
btw, Anybody know if she has any sort of relationship with Tuxie?
they forgot that all important requirement for today's generation...
How does it make you look at Starbucks.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I always have to wonder what the target market is with these.. If I am a college student or such it's out of my range. If I am a business person I am using it on planes or in airports or in a hotel. My biggest concern though is being able to use the equipment I need, (CDs, USB disks, getting online, and in my case, SD cards). So when a system sacrifices internal drives for size, it is useless. The one exception is for tablet systems which someone may be carrying with them to meetings and such. Then weight is a signfiicant factor. Still, though I have a tablet without an integrated DVD drive and it is annoying to mess with the cables if I want to watch a dvd or copy a CD someone has brought to a meeting.
What I would honestly like to see from Apple is a tablet laptop with an integrated DVD drive. I would snatch one of those up in a heartbeat. Alternately I heard a rumor about a micro portable system with 2 screens, 1 being normal and one being like an ipod touch which would act as the keyboard and mouse. The idea was it was pocket size though larger than a cell phone. I could go for one of those too to do most of my computing on during my day.
Apple is going to find it's self behind though if it doesn't use it's multi-touch technology to come out with some tablet PCs or turn the ipod touch into a full computing environment. Most universities have tablets which people graduating will come to expect in their laptops. And the low end small end will be taken over by the nokia tablet, the Asus Eee. And true laptops will be expected to have all the media interfaces so that a businessmen sitting in his hotel can feel like he's at his desk. Not a lotta room left for apple.
I do security
But think about all those business users who want a laptop that will fit into their briefcase. They want a thin laptop with a large footprint (for a larger screen) with enough battery life so that they don't have to carry around a power adapter. This is the target audience of the macbook air. For those that want something even more portable they have the iPhone/iPod. Granted, there is some space for a in-between product but it is likely a smaller market then you think. One thing is for certain, should there be a large demand for such a product Apple will eventually deliver one.
Two buttons? Three buttons is the absolute minimum, anything less is completely and utterly useless.
Only in X-Windows, which I have used daily for over twenty years thank you very much. It's all about how the window manager and applications use said buttons..
Kludges that make the mouse buttons keyboard buttons are just that -- kludges.
It's called "chording", and game designers long ago discovered the efficiency of for many tasks. Something many OS designers and people beholden to think that just because they are used to something, it is the best way, fail to grasp. Perhaps someday you'll explore outside your little sheltered UI circle to the vast worlds beyond.
Nipples aren't for scrolling, that's what the touchpad is for.
Which I painted out was a great use, and you wanted gone. Do not fear the trackpad just because it is better than all that you have known before.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For example?
Look up, I'm not the original poster, and I never said the touchpad should go away.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
...hides fingerprints, wear & tear. But, if you want to mod the look of a ThinkPad, it also makes the perfect canvas. Just Skinit. Even Apple has a black laptop.
$2995 for a notebook.
Perhaps they will offer a model with smaller/no SSD.
$1200 and I'd be all over it.
Otherwise the old T41 is gonna have to do for another year.
Something HP95LX sized with a 512meg RAM, 900MHz processor, 30gig SSD, and lots of I/O would be sweet.