The Subnotebook

[fryke]

This ain't a rumour, this is clearly opinion.

I've used plenty of notebooks in the past (PB 150, 180, 180c, 520c, 540c, 5300ce, 190, eMate 300, iBook 300, TiBook 500, iBook 12" G3 800, AluBook 15" 1.33, iBook 12" G4 1.2 as well as a Sony VAIO PictureBook and a few other PC notebooks).
I'm a writer as well as a graphics designer and layouter, so my needs vary. For the graphics jobs, I enjoy the 15" PowerBook and find it has the best performance/screen size/mobility ratio. Neither 12" or 17" would do it for me.
As a writer, however, I don't care about processor performance as much, nor do I care about graphics performance or screen size. The eMate 300 with its 25 MHz processor and 6 or 7 inch greyscale (well, greenscale...) display would still do it for me today if exchanging files weren't such a drag.

An iBook mini should be done for my type. I have a "pro" machine (the PowerBook) that serves all my needs but the writing on the way part (too big, too heavy, battery power is sub 8 hours and the display doesn't really 'work' in bright sunlight).

I say... Create an iBook mini. It should have a slightly miniaturised keyboard (not too much, though), a mini trackpad and a widescreen display of no more than 9". Resolution should be 1024*600 or something like that. Page width is an issue here. It should have a transreflective display. They're not very colour accurate, but that doesn't really matter for a writer, does it. The bright side is that in bright sunlight, you can completely turn off the backlighting and actually get a better picture. This way, a LOT of juice can be saved. Those displays are used by a lot of PDAs nowadays.
Power consumption should be a key issue. 8 hours of battery time in average use, but give me 12 hours or more if I turn off the backlighting and only write on a text (harddrive can be completely spinned down in my opinion). I don't even care whether the thing uses Mac OS X or some form of Newton OS derivate. The important thing is that it wirelessly connects to my home Mac via Bluetooth and/or WiFi and that it automatically synchs my documents.

The thing could double as an iPod, of course. For that it'd have to still play sound in closed mode, but that's doable. It could have the external controls of an iPod shuffle on top of the display shell. It could use a 40 or 60 GB iPod drive. Ideally, it'd also have 512 MB of flash memory to which it writes the documents you're working on (harddrive can be spinned down, documents aren't lost when the power goes out...).

If it also sports Mail.app and Safari and can use an iSync compatible phone for accessing the internet via GPRS, it could very well be the perfect PDA, I think.

I'm sure many of you think that the PB or iBook 12" address "enough" needs and that the market for such a device would be "too small". Well: I could care less. This is my opinion and my wish. :-))

[Viro]

This sounds a lot more like a PDA, something in a Psion . I do agree that something like this would be cool, but I don't know if there is enough demand for such a thing for Apple to make one.

[Gig']

Fryke

Only one Word comes to my mind "Brilliant"

I love this idea it should be forwarded to whoever is in charge @ Apple unless they thought about it already ;-) ?

I would be buying one. I was about to get a PB 15" when I ended up getting an iMac G5 (for various reasons) and a subnotebook will definitely be filingl out the gap between speed and mobility.

So I am definitely your No 2 supporter in the opinion/wish rank

[HomunQlus]

The idea itself is pretty brilliant I have to say. However, then there's the side of how possible such a thing is. I think the Mac Mini takes it to the smallest size possible, and the mini is as a nearly full-featured computer extremely portable. Your thing wouldn't be much bigger than the mini, but it has to be thinner than the mini. I don't think that can be done. But for the rest: Brilliant!

[Convert]

But tthere wouldn't be a combo drive in this laptop, right?

I remember seeing an 8-10 inch Toshiba laptop which was tiny, it had a 40GB HD and 256 ram, but no CD drive, although it had space for one. Apple could do this.

[Chimp]

More on the PDA idea: there is a gadget made especially for writers and students with an 80 character display and full size keyboard. It's a heavily modified palm PDA, not a very powerful processor (68000) but really long battery life and the option to use AA batteries. I havn't seen one of these running, but I guess they can use the normal Palm office suites. Of course if you want something more portable, as mentioned before: the PDA idea - if you choose one with a really large screen that you can use in landscape mode with a fold-out keyboard that allows landscape typing (think the infra-red ones do that).

Oh... almost forgot - the URL is www.alphasmart.com

Anyone with any impressions? I have been tempted, but am currently happy with my palm and fold-out keyboard.

[fryke]

My idea would, of course, be a subnote/bigPDA without an optical drive. (You could still attach an external DVD-Rewriter via USB-2 or FW...)

The Alphasmart thingie (was called Dana once, iirc) has never been widely available, i.e. with Swiss German keyboard support etc., but I think it'd almost be enough for me.

However: I think Apple could do much better than those slow Palm OS clones... And also better than other people's subnotebooks, which usually lack in the battery department (2 hours of juice just ain't enough, neither are 5h...).

[Ceroc Addict]

Love the idea of an Apple notebook smaller than the 12" PB. I previously owned a Sony VAIO which was extremely portable and had a 19 hour battery.

The only problems were the slow (Crusoe) processor and Windows ME. If it had had a G4 (or even a G3) and OS X it would have been perfect.

Kap