A truly “mobile” laptop
It has been a while (almost two years) since I commented on the new generation of Apple machines based on Intel processors. At that time, those computers were sold as revolutionary things, that would noticeable accelerate the user experience with the introduction of new technology from Intel, and leave behind the IBM PowerPC one that made them so famous for its reliability and performance. Well, here I am with the eternal dilemma and unfortunately, almost in the same circumstances. While it is true that the hardware has evolved dramatically and the benefits are here, we are still far from achieving something really useful, fast and above all: truly mobile!
Let me explain: What is my idea of a laptop? There are two options: either it´s my main machine, for use at any time and situation, in both home and away, giving me necessary performance to avoid having to resort to a second computer in my routine tasks (mail, internet, word processing, spreadsheets, home video editing, music production, listening to music, organizing my photo libray, instant messaging, VoIP and web page editing (mainly HTML and PHP)) or to be a second team by the time I am away from home, with minimal features (mail, the Internet, word processing and spreadsheets and musical composition, in addition to managing music, photos and videos).
It appears that the trend of almost all manufacturers is to replace the desktop computer with a laptop that loses all of its advantages as a portable machine when trying to achieve this. Now we have monsters of nearly 3 kilograms of weight, with 17″ screens (Wide Screen format, which makes them useless for anything else than to watch movies), which are literally a pain to move from one place to another. The concept of “mobile” is then lost…
It´s been a long time since I decided that Windows machines were not the best choice and switched to Mac. Overall I´m quite satisfied. Their performance and stability goes far beyond anything that I have seen based on the Redmond-made software so far. They are easy to use and configure, and very secure. My first experience was with an iBook G4, which I´ve recently sold. Then I bought a Mac Mini, which is my main machine at the moment, but I am considering a laptop again as I travel quite often and I don´t like being offline when I do. Furthermore, some tasks require that media be present when inspiration strikes (like composing music for example) and having to wait to get home to write down that wonderful idea we came up contemplating that spectacular landscape is not the best way to do it (At least, I can´t do that).
What are the current market offerings? (I´m only talking Apple): Macbook and Macbook Pro. The first is elegant, slim and fast, but does not have the power or the ability to grow of its counterpart. On the other hand, the elder brother is sizlin´fast, expandable, but quite heavy (3.5 kgs for the 17″ model!) And “unpleasant to the touch” for two reasons: the keyboard is the conventional one (I love the Macbook´s) and it really gets hot, which makes it impractical to sit with on your lap.
Why do I care so much about expandability? Well, I use virtual machines that need a lot of RAM (I tried to run Windows XP with 256 Mb of RAM on my girlfriend´s Macbook , which has 1 Gb RAM, and it´s really annoying, to say the least). Additionally, the ability to change the hard drive with ease is critical, especially at this time where storage space has become a must for those ever-growing video and music collections downlo…, er, purchased on the Internet. Regarding this, the two models sport a super easy way to upgrade both components, unlike their predecessors.
However, both of them come with the “fabulous” Wide Screen (note the quotes), which I hate. When I want to watch a movie, I convert it to a suitable format understandable by my iPod and connect it to a big TV. I´m not willing to spend 2 or more hours watching a movie on a computer screen…
So? The available options are not really that hot. If we consider that hardware virtualization technology is in its early stages, the package is even less attractive. My ideal laptop is something like this: 12 or 14″ screen not wide, 1.8 kg weight at maximum, Core 2 Duo processor at 2.4 Ghz or higher, 2 GB of RAM minimum and a 160 Gb SATA hard drive, integrated webcam, chiclet keyboard (a la Macbook), at least 3 high speed USB ports, 2 or more Firewire 400/800, “real” 256 Mb video card, 100/1000 NIC, DVD-RW DL, Bluetooth, 802.11n Wi-Fi, a gesture-aware trackpad, and most important, two things: hardware virtualization, and a reasonable price (between 1200 and 1800 euros). Will this ever be possible? Manufacturers: are you listening?