Not Today
I’ve been thinking of replacing my now geriatric Hewlett Packard laptop for some time, and the idea of getting a nice Unix laptop has been getting more and more attractive.
So I spent an hour in the local Apple dealer today picking out some hardware. “I’ll take one of those”, finally.
“Oh, we don’t actually have any in stock, sir. Besides, you wouldn’t want to buy one today of all days.” …and the salesguy looked at his watch.
I guess everyone except me knew that Steve Jobs was giving his famed New Things keynote at MacWorld in a few minutes. D’oh.
[Updated: turns out Apple didn’t update the Powerbook line after all. The new Mac mini is pretty cute, though, and worth looking at for a small headless Unix box.]
I have to admit that I used to lust after the Tadpole laptops, way back when I thought Solaris was really cool and innovative. These days, now that I’m spending my own money, I tend to shy away from people who say “call us to order” instead of putting prices on their web site.
To me, less than a grand (ex VAT) for a 12-inch screen, five hours battery life, two kinds of wireless and a proper shell is a pretty good deal. And you can dual-boot Debian, they tell me.
— iay on January 12, 2005
Yeah, the tadpoles are totally out of my price range (even the one they do list the price for, the economy, entry-level, hobbyist style thing). Mind you, the macs are, too :( If I bought either, I’d most likely end up sticking Debian on them (or whatever I’m using in x years time)
— Jon on January 12, 2005
So did you finally buy a Powerbook / iBook? As a proud owner of a 15” powerbook, I would highly recommend it. And as far as price is concerned, I think it is worth every penny
— Vivek on April 4, 2005
Yes, Vivek, I bought one of the 12” Powerbooks and I am very happy with it. It is slightly heavier than the HP Omnibook 600 that it replaces, but other than that it is perfect. The only thing I’ve missed on the software side so far has been Java 5.0, which I will have to buy the Tiger upgrade to get, but I knew about that.
Of course, I bought very soon before the day they increased the standard memory shipped with the machine, put in the new trackpad and bundled iLife ‘05. I wasn’t too offended by this, though, as I always knew anything I bought would be obsolete as soon as the courier delivered it…
— iay on April 6, 2005
A nice UNIX laptop? I could hardly believe what I was reading, and then, ‘oh, you mean a /mac/’ ;)
You want one of these: http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/html/products/mobile/
— Jon on January 12, 2005