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Apple Touch-Screen Netbook? 291

Posted by CmdrTaco from the heard-this-before dept.
je ne sais quoi writes "The Apple rumor mill is churning today. Reuters and the DOW Jones news wire are reporting that an anonymous source in Taiwan has leaked that Apple has ordered some 10-inch touch-screens from WinTek, the maker of the touch-screen for the iPhone. It looks like an Apple netbook could possibly be in the works for a delivery date in Q3 of this year, in time for back-to-school sales. CNET and Engadget have completely unsubstantiated mock-ups."
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Apple Touch-Screen Netbook? More

Apple Touch-Screen Netbook?

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  • Touchbook (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Fri13 ( 963421 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:27PM (#27152315)

    I would not bet the "Netbook" has a keyboard. More like small 10" tablet what has virtual keyboard.

    But actually I am not believing this "inside news" at all.

  • Who wants this? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:28PM (#27152351) Homepage Journal
    Obviously I am not in the market for one of these netbooks, but, I'm just wondering, WHO is the large target audience for these small screened, underpowered computers?

    Is it for people that ONLY do a little websurfing and email? Even with that...why not pony up just a few more $$ and get a real laptop?

    This is a question in general about the netbooks, not just the Apple one.

    • Re:Who wants this? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nicolas.kassis ( 875270 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:30PM (#27152407)
      Cause they already have a laptop but it's a pain to carry the thing around for your average meeting or what not. Plus, tons of people get them for college since they are cheap. The couple hundred bucks does make a difference. And they aren't really that underpowered. 2 years ago a mini9 would have been a perfectly good laptop.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Sabathius ( 566108 )
        Exactly. And just to set the record straight, the new Asus 1000he has the new Atom 280 micro and 9 hour (advertised...probably more like 8 and change) battery life. These highly portable computers are seeming more like a viable option and less like toys all the time.

        • Re:Who wants this? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by chunk08 ( 1229574 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @01:25PM (#27153553) Journal
          I'm currently looking at getting a netbookas a college student. Not because of cost concerns, but simply because I want something to type notes on with a battery life that will work for my 7 consecutive hours of lecture. There are uses for these things, not every computer has to be able to run folding@home, Crysis, and my web server at the same time.
      • I've also heard good battery life. A friend has one and she claims it lasts for 8 hours with general use, seriously wish my laptop lasted that long.
    • Well, obviously. I mean, anyone who knows cayenne8 could tell you that!

    • Re:Who wants this? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Spazztastic ( 814296 ) <spazztastic.gmail@com> on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:31PM (#27152417)

      WHO is the large target audience for these small screened, underpowered computers?

      *cough*porn*cough*

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by FlyingSquidStudios ( 1031284 )
      Ease of portability with a keyboard that can conceivably reach standard keyboard typing speeds is a big draw along with low power consumption to people who do a lot of writing. In the pre-netbook days, I used to have a Vadem Clio [amazon.com] tablet which, despite its inadequacies (the biggest being the RS-232 port for transfer in a USB age), was terrific for taking places to write. The battery lasted for hours, it weighed next to nothing and it wasn't all that expensive compared to a full-sized notebook so I wasn't as

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      Hospital charting, Warehousing are jsut two industryies where someone walks around caring charts.
      Weight is very important.

      For home use, they could be used to allow guests to check their email quickly.

      I could us one to check my systems, a task I do not need a heavy awkward laptop to do.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by nojayuk ( 567177 )

        Hospital use -- how do you disinfect it? Will it survive being wiped down with astringent cleaning solutions several times a day?

        Warehousing -- drop it several times on a concrete floor from a metre up, landing on all four corners. Does it survive that experience and continue to function OK?

        There are portable data-logging devices that will survive that sort of treatment (and worse) and they're available today, but they don't come cheap. Any Apple netbook-type device is not going to find much of a mar

        • Re:Who wants this? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by ColdWetDog ( 752185 ) * on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @02:02PM (#27154219) Homepage

          Hospital use -- how do you disinfect it? Will it survive being wiped down with astringent cleaning solutions several times a day?

          We use the general purpose disinfectant wipes on laptops, cell phones, pages, stethoscopes, etc. all the time. A consumer quality computer product would do fine. You don't need to sterilize them. And you try to hire people that don't "drop" things all of the time. Seriously, the world isn't entirely made up of two year olds. I'd love one of these things if it ran OS X. If it were powerful enough to run Parallels or Crossover Office I'd buy a half dozen.

          You listening out there Apple? There is a giant world out there that doesn't watch videos or listen to music. They do useful things. With computers.

          We've got the money, honey, if you've got the time.

        • The most important feature for those devices is a barcode scanner. Barcode scanning is the only way to enter data from labels that is cheap, reliable and fast enough to be practical.

          The second most important consideration is ergonomic. Workers will be holding and operating the devices constantly, so they're usually built with handles.

          Without either feature, a touchscreen netbook would be worthless in a warehouse.

    • We were looking at buying a Netbook for an upcoming trip to Disney World. Taking one of our laptops is possible, but they wouldn't fit in the room's safe and would be bulkier to travel with. Of course, since Disney doesn't provide free Internet access (it's $10 per day for wired access) and since we have so much planned for our stay there (our two kids' first time at Disney World and our first real family vacation since our first child was born in 2003), we'd be unlikely to use the computer much. In the

    • Re:Who wants this? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by prefec2 ( 875483 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:42PM (#27152623)

      The good things about netbooks are:

      - They are cheap
      - They normally run hours without a recharge
      - They are small and lightweight so it's easy to carry them around
      - For most day by day tasks they are good enough
      - They boot fast, so it's more or less like using a real notebook (I mean these paper pencil things)

      The bad things are:
      - The screen is too small to do big tasks
      - They cannot be used for complex calculation problems
      - They have not enough storage for your torrented movie collection

      But the important thing is, netbooks are gadgets. They are cheap and they are good at the tasks they are designed to do. They are not fully fledged work machines. But hey, a fun car is not a truck either.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by rinoid ( 451982 )

        My iPhone is my netbook.

        It's small, cheap, fits in my pocket, makes phone calls, plays music, videos, and games, reads documents, surfs the web, checks multiple email accounts, takes pictures, posts pictures, controls my home media center (a mini connected to tv/stereo) with the Remote app.

        I never expect it to do anything but the above so the screen size does not bother me when I attempt to say log into my server over SSH, or use a CMS ... but it works in a pinch.

        My point is, the netbook niche hasn't sparke

        • Re:Who wants this? (Score:4, Informative)

          by XxtraLarGe ( 551297 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @01:41PM (#27153803) Journal
          I'd have to agree partially, but the iPhone/iPod touch does have some serious limitations. I was using my iPod Touch this past weekend to update Twitter from a high school championship sporting event--yeah, I finally found a way to make Twitter useful--and the keyboard is not very good at all when you're trying to type quickly & accurately. None of the Twitter clients on the iPhone support landscape orientation, making typing a real pain in the neck. Also, how long is Apple going to be stubborn on the whole copy/paste issue? There were some LONG URL's I wanted to link to but couldn't. Both of these issues really slowed me down quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love my iPod Touch, but I don't think it would give a small netbook a run for it's money as far as being able to quickly enter data is concerned. Even an OLPC [laptop.org] would have done a better job in this particular instance.

        • I love having my phone tethered to my netbook when I do computer repair housecalls. It lets me get onto the net, get the drivers I need, or research an issue, and it takes up very little space next to the machine being repaired. I don't use it for games, video editing, or huge presentations. Yet it will do all three of those as well sufficiently. It's the EEE 1000HA book which was about 320.00 when I got it.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Corporate Troll ( 537873 )
          An iPhone is cheap? Since when?!?

      • Re:Who wants this? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Paracelcus ( 151056 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @03:10PM (#27155369) Journal

        "They cannot be used for complex calculation problems", Huh? are you calculating an interstellar jump? They are plenty powerful enough for any normal (non gaming) activity.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by extrasolar ( 28341 )

          Exactly. I don't know what this issue is all about, people say that netbooks just aren't powerful enough...for what? Really? They are just a smaller, more portable form of the same computers everyone was using two or three years ago. Someone has been falling for the marketing, or maybe people just refuse to run anything other than Vista/XP on their computers. I run Debian on my EEE and I've been using as my main computer. There are some things I wouldn't do on it, but, you know, computers are quite a

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Andy Dodd ( 701 )

        I disagree on your last con - If you get an SSD netbook this is the case, but you can store quite a few movies on a 160GB hard drive if you get one of the $300-400 HD versions. (As opposed to the $200-300 SSD ones)

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      Funny I thought the exact opposite.

      I wonder who is the target for large over-powered laptops. I mean, they don't have enough power to do real work, they're big and bulky too.

      Use a desktop when called for, and a small thing you can cart around should be a netbook.

      • "I wonder who is the target for large over-powered laptops. I mean, they don't have enough power to do real work, they're big and bulky too."

        Hmm...I consider them to be powerful enough to do real work. I'm looking to get one of the new macbook pros, the 15" model.It is powerful enough to run windows in VM (I really only need windows for a few things like Quickbooks), and any other real computer applications I need...some coding, scripting, etc.

        I guess another thing I don't see about the small netbooks, a

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ogdenk ( 712300 )

          Hmm...I consider them to be powerful enough to do real work. I'm looking to get one of the new macbook pros, the 15" model.It is powerful enough to run windows in VM (I really only need windows for a few things like Quickbooks), and any other real computer applications I need...some coding, scripting, etc.

          I think the guy was talking more about the 17" monstrosities with testicle roasting GPU's and built-in RAID people buy to make up for their small penis. Like the huge 17" Macbook Pro or the even less portable Toshiba Qosmios and the like.

          Everything you want to do there with the Macbook Pro I do quite easily on a standard Macbook. I can even play Windows DX and OpenGL games through Parallels. Even with a lot of mac apps going, Parallels doesn't really slow me down until I start running low on RAM.

          The Pro

    • Because even a 12" laptop is too heavy and unwieldy to carry *everywhere*. A 9" laptop is another matter.

      • Indeed! I've had two Sony ultraportable notebooks (10" screens). Being able to easily take it everywhere is practically life-changing. Allowing that a few functions were limited (i.e.: serious gaming), computing became available to me wherever a regular notebook (and certainly desktops) couldn't. Pricy, yes, but worth it.

        Marching technology forward, prices have dropped and general use requirements have plateaued, leading to the sudden discovery by manufacturers that there is, in fact, huge demand for small

    • My lady wants a tablet PC with a Wacom tablet built into the screen, so she can use Painter with it. Anyone know how cheap these get on one hand, and how big they get on the other? It explicitly does not need to be a Mac; it does explicitly need to be a Core 2 Duo (or similar) and have support for 4GB memory, and a SATA-II interface (I intend to install a SSD, if we don't purchase it with one.) But she is an artist. Otherwise it seems like you don't need a very powerful system with your touch screen in most

      • My lady wants a tablet PC with a Wacom tablet built into the screen, so she can use Painter with it. Anyone know how cheap these get on one hand, and how big they get on the other?

        Have you looked into this? It's pretty much what you are looking for - but not the 'cheap' part. If I were Axitron I would be quaking in my Teva's at this point. I have almost bought one of these a couple of times, only to hold off - waiting for the "real" Apple tablet.

        Seems like these rumors circulate every six months or

        • Have you looked into this?

          Have I looked into what? I suspect you forgot to preview.

          If I were Axitron I would be quaking in my Teva's at this point.

          I'm shivering in mine, right now. Time to stoke the fire.

          I have almost bought one of these a couple of times, only to hold off - waiting for the "real" Apple tablet.

          I don't think I want an Apple tablet, but I'm willing to consider the possibility. Apple machines seem to be coming at a substantial price-premium again.

    • I'm not necessarily in the market for a "netbook," but I'm very very much in the market for a touchscreen/tablet Mac. I have a friend with a tablet PC and I would LOVE the freedom to switch between typing, writing, and drawing at will. I've been wanting that for a very long time. I've definitely considered saving up the extra $1000 for a ModBook [axiotron.com], but I'd prefer a solution straight from Apple. Though, it looks like the modbooks have gotten a little bit cheaper than last time I looked...

    • They're cheap, light, and draw very little power. All good things, depending on what you are using it for.

      We got my sister an MSI Wind for Christmas. It works great for what she uses it for - communication, school papers, web browsing, occasional movies or music, and that's about it. She can take it anywhere quite easily (it's small and light), it a while even with the included 3 cell battery, etc. And, frankly, while I don't particularly care, it is pretty nice looking ("cute" if you're female...). Pr

    • Re:Who wants this? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by onefriedrice ( 1171917 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @01:09PM (#27153229)
      This may not apply to you, but most of us don't use our mobile computing devices to simulate weather patterns or crack encryption algorithms. We have beefy desktop or server machines for that, and if we need that power while out and about, we can always just ssh or remote to the powerful machine. Otherwise, a netbook is perfectly capable of everyday tasks with the added benefits of increased mobility and better battery life (i.e. the new eeepc 1000he can get 7-8 hours realistically). As a developer, a netbook isn't my primary machine, but it's perfect for my mobility needs. I'd expect it would be an equally good mobile device for a network admin or student.

      You may not be in that target market, but at least now you know who they are. For many (most?) of us, the extra computing power of traditional laptops goes grossly underutilized, so why buy more than you need and get a less mobile computer in return?
      • "You may not be in that target market, but at least now you know who they are. For many (most?) of us, the extra computing power of traditional laptops goes grossly underutilized, so why buy more than you need and get a less mobile computer in return?"

        I guess I'm thinking from the standpoint of why buy another computer, spending more money on less...when I can get a great 'compromise' (I personally have never had problems toting a 14"-15" laptop around) with spending good money on one machine that will do

    • These are not just for web surfing and email. They are for anyone who run lightweight local apps or who works mostly on remote systems who just needs a client. That client might be a web browser, email client, Citrix client, ssh, rdp, vnc, or something else.

      A 1.6Ghz processor and 512 MB of RAM was a top-shelf runaway just a few years ago, so I'm not sure why people get the idea that an office suite, ticketing system, warehouse tracking package, contact database, to-do-list, fairly light graphics editing, an

    • My sister plans to get a notebook in the next two months.
      BUT... it should be way smaller than dad's, cause that thing is just too huge to carry around.

      Notebook in question - 15.4" ACER Aspire.

      And yes, she does use her desktop PC just for typing, surfing, e-mail and music.
      So, a netbook is about just the right size portable computer for her.

    • I got an iPod touch recently instead of a netbook, because I already have a decent (and small) laptop. If I was going to go ultra-portable, might as well make it a little more than an incremental jump.

      Now, a 10" screen is nice, but to me, something like the iPod, with something like a 6" or 7" screen, would be perfect.

    • Obviously I am not in the market for one of these netbooks, but, I'm just wondering, WHO is the large target audience for these small screened, underpowered computers?

      Is it for people that ONLY do a little websurfing and email? Even with that...why not pony up just a few more $$ and get a real laptop?

      This is a question in general about the netbooks, not just the Apple one.

      For many users web, email, and word.excel/powerpoint tasks can be done quite nicely on a netbook; and the savings in size and weight are very worthwhile; especially for people who travel a lot. The only down size is the small screen size in terms of larger spreadsheets or presentations.

      I would seriously consider a MAC Netbook to replace my MacBook.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sootman ( 158191 )

      WHO is the large target audience for these small screened, underpowered computers? Is it for people that ONLY do a little websurfing and email? Even with that...why not pony up just a few more $$ and get a real laptop?

      What I really want is a really good second computer. Something as thin and light as a MacBook Air, but with an 8-10" screen and a price around $800-$1000.* (I tried my friend's Eee but it's too small.) There are times I don't want to lug around a "real" laptop. It's got nothing to do with not

    • We bought Acer Aspire One's for our over winter break interns. They completed their projects and got to keep the devices for the start of the spring semester. And they all love them. One had their laptop crash and burn (HDD failed) and while he didn't like the 8.9" screen at first, as it turns out the netbook had the same speed processor, more ram, and better video card than the laptop he was using plus a webcam.

      Quickly, they started taking their netbooks to class because they were just easier to carry,

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by jaavaaguru ( 261551 )

      Underpowered adjective: driven by an engine of insufficient power.

      The power of my 1.6GHz Atom netbook with 2GB RAM and a 16GB SSD is more than sufficient for doing normal office tasks, web surfing, video watching, and using development tools such as Eclipse and Komodo. Definitely not underpowered.

      The small screen is a bonus... my 12" laptop is too big to fit comfortably on the tables in many planes, whereas I can fit a snack and a drink next to my netbook while having the screen fully opened without touchin

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ubrgeek ( 679399 )
      Maybe people interested in the Verizon Hub [infopackets.com] but want one that actually does something and doesn't cost a gazillion dollars?

    • There are lots of people interested in loading Mac OS X onto existing netbooks and people who only use notebooks for travel/email/presentation delivery are pretty ideal candidates for this product.

      But one thing is for sure -- it will be over-priced. At $500 for a fully loaded Dell Mini 9 (a favorite among those loading Mac OS X onto netbooks) you can bet Apple will target $999 as the price which will be just enough to discourage a lot of people who would want this... but that's just the way Apple works. T

    • Obviously I am not in the market for one of these netbooks

      Why is that obvious?

    • I dont understand the craze much myself, because I cant stand those tiny keyboards and I dont want to work with a screen smaller than 12 inches. That said, most of users of netbooks Ive seen are women. Considering the netbook is too big for a pocket but just right for a purse, it makes sense. Dudes who carry bags around are in the same category, so you can chalk in people who take public trans and students.

      If I still took public trans and carried a bag Id probably have one, but now I drive and really am wel

  • Dirty Screens (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Spazztastic ( 814296 ) <spazztastic.gmail@com> on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:30PM (#27152383)
    Now you can have a netbook with smudgy fingerprints all over the screen to match your iPhone.

  • hold the keyboard please, need replacement Newton (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WillAdams ( 45638 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:31PM (#27152409) Homepage

    Or at least do something interesting like having a second display function as a keyboard.

    Above all, update InkWell and provide good support for use as an ebook reader which could do .pdf annotations (adding a .pdf preview of all documents to file bundles would be ideal if such annotations could then be synched back into the document when it was opened in the originating app).

    William

    • Oh, a dual-screen Mac with two touchscreens and a pop-up touch keyboard on either one would be freaking awesome. I'm more of a Linux guy, but that product would open my wallet in a heartbeat.

  • And so the cycle begins anew... (Score:5, Funny)

    by aftk2 ( 556992 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:37PM (#27152533) Homepage Journal
    The Apple Product Cycle [misterbg.org]:

    "An obscure component manufacturer somewhere in the Pacific Rim announces a major order for some bleeding-edge piece of technology that could conceivably become part of an expensive, digital-lifestyle-enhancing nerd toy."

  • The Apple Product Life Cycle (Score:3, Funny)

    by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:37PM (#27152535) Homepage Journal

    ... an anonymous source in Taiwan has leaked that Apple has ordered some 10 inch touch-screens from WinTek, the maker of the touch-screen for the iPhone. It looks like an Apple netbook could possibly be in the works for a delivery date in Q3 of this year, in time for back-to-school sales.

    Yet another example of how this [misterbg.org] is so true.

  • The real question: Little laptop or big iPhone? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wisebabo ( 638845 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:41PM (#27152615) Journal

    So will it be a computer running a "traditional" OS with the whole Windows, Icons, Mouse Pointer interface or will Apple make it a big iPhone like device that hides a lot of that stuff under a (relatively) minimalist user interface?

    Part of me wants the WIMP paradigm because of the additional control I have over files and folders but part of me wants to see how far you can take an interface based from the ground up on a purely touch interface (like the iPhone). [I think the advantage of a iPhone interface is that it is even simpler than a WIMP interface, no need to explain about files or directories etc. Great for the rest of... err.. them, like my mom!]

    Speaking of user interfaces, did anyone catch the new "Voice over" feature in the new iPod Shuffle? It seems this might be another (relatively) unexplored user interface design where a visual user interface is not available. Will this be incorporated into other Apple products (like multi-touch was transported from the iPhone to the MacBook touchpads?).

    I say "relatively" because obviously voice/audio cue interfaces are not new (every voice mail system uses them) but this is the first time I've seen it in a portable device.

    • Semantics.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Late Adopter ( 1492849 )

      So will it be a computer running a "traditional" OS with the whole Windows, Icons, Mouse Pointer interface or will Apple make it a big iPhone like device that hides a lot of that stuff under a (relatively) minimalist user interface?

      A friend and I were arguing over this the other day. We agreed we really wanted something about the size of a Kindle but with a capacitive touchscreen, an LCD display, and a full suite of Internet apps.

      The argument was whether this would happen earliest by scaling up cell phones (iPhone, etc) or by scaling down netbooks. This makes a difference in terms of what audience is being targeted, and what style of interface/control is acceptable, even if the base hardware is exactly identical.

      I'm starting t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PJ1216 ( 1063738 ) *
      I don't want a larger iphone, but a smaller computer. I'm already pissed that my iPhone can't run more than one app at a time. This makes virtually all messenger clients useless. I have a feeling messenger clients are going to be popular on netbooks (though this would require research that i don't have nor am i certain if anyone's done it... like i said, its just a feeling). I'm also upset that I can't install third party apps (well, i *could* but i'm not risking the operational condition of my cell phone t

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by joh ( 27088 )

      So will it be a computer running a "traditional" OS with the whole Windows, Icons, Mouse Pointer interface or will Apple make it a big iPhone like device that hides a lot of that stuff under a (relatively) minimalist user interface?

      If you take a decent resolution and a 10" screen, the OS X interface will *need* a stylus to make it usable and Apple won't release anything that needs a stylus. This is a very simple fact: Full OS X on a small touchscreen is just the wrong OS with the wrong UI. Period.

      So it will

  • No clamshell... (Score:3)

    by Tibor the Hun ( 143056 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:44PM (#27152681)

    It's going to be a 10 inch touch tablet. Essentially like a 10 inch iPod Touch. For say 800 bucks. It's going to be quarter of an inch thick, it'll be sweet, it won't be a "netbook" (hence the reason for the higher price) and it'll probably be missing something obvious like GPS.

  • AxioTron : Modbook [axiotron.com]

    • One of my compadres uses the Modbook and really, really likes it. Seemed pretty worthwhile to me.

  • Yeah I expect the "iPad" (for want of a better name) to be more like an iPhone than a MacBook.

    See Crystal Ball: Apple's $599 "iPad" Netbook (with pictures) [samj.net] for more.

    Sam

  • Please mash the screen with your palm. (Score:4, Funny)

    by CompMD ( 522020 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @01:24PM (#27153535)

    Its an ipod touch for fat people! Multitouch on a small screen must suck for them.

  • The question is... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Opinari ( 603868 )
    What will the price point be on this device? If it's in the $499 range, it might be worth a look. However, when I can buy a Dell Mini with a 16 GB SSD and 2 GB of memory for less than $350, and install Leopard on it [gizmodo.com] for $85 + the cost of a couple of USB flash drives, why would I want to pay much more than that?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mevets ( 322601 )

      And a pimped civic is way better than a mini. Why would I buy an iPOD when a roxio is so much better? Hell, why pay the "Dell tax" when you could strap a beagle board into an altoids can and duct tape a surplus touch screen to it? Ever hear Eddie Murphy's routine about his moms hamburgers...

  • in stores. In the meantime I bought one of those wee ickle Acer Aspire Ones for two hundred and forty-eight euro pounds. My lecturing day has had a huge weight lifted from my shoulders and with the supplementary purchase of the bigger battery, it runs for almost eight hours. One day I am sure it will become a very, very small server although I suppose by then a blade server will be smaller than the connecting socket and use less power than a Gnat on speed.

  • NETBOOK CONFIRMED (Score:5, Funny)

    by Deanalator ( 806515 ) <pierce403@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @02:10PM (#27154377) Homepage

    I checked on the Internet, and can confirm that this is true.

    On a side note, can slashdot have a special place for articles with titles that end in a question mark?

  • What it may look like (Score:2, Interesting)

    by qazwart ( 261667 )

    Apple has a way of completely rethinking whatever category they go into, and then revolutionizing that category in such a way that all other contenders now play catch up.

    Look at the iPod that entered a market already dominated by other MP3 players and became the market leader. Look at the iPhone that entered the smart phone market and created a device that everyone has tried to copy.

    If Apple is entering the netbook market. I would assume that their "netbook" won't look like a typical netbook. Nor, will it o

  • that apple is just going to have a small notebook that happens to have a touch screen as opposed to a 10 inch tablet. Although I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to get an apple tablet. I've been waiting to see if they would ever create one.

  • not for a netbook (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sarin ( 112173 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @03:46PM (#27155943) Homepage Journal

    the 17inch MacBook Pro has a lot of room beneath the keyboard.
    Instead of a keypad, there could be room for a 10inch touchscreen.
    It would add some extra value to this relative expensive member of the MacBook family.

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