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SEkker · Sep 13, 2004, 09:01 PM

Received my Zones catalog today in the mail. On the cover is the hp NC4010 subnotebook.

1.5 GHz Pentium M, 512MB RAM, 30 GB HD, wireless LAN (original airport), 12.1" display, Windows XP Pro, ONLY 3.5 lbs! Zones special while supplies last: Get a free external DVD/CD-RW combo drive!

Only $1699.98

With the exception of the built-in Applecare like support (3 year warranty), I'll take a 12" full notebook any day.

I couldn't even find weight listed on the remainder of the laptops in the catalog.

No wonder the Cram and Jam promotion is working so well.

wtmcgee · Sep 14, 2004, 02:29 PM

those external drives are what kill those PC notebooks. how would you like to have to lug around a combo drive to use with your mac?

iREZ · Sep 14, 2004, 05:17 PM

Wha....? PC's make notebooks?

Lancer409 · Sep 14, 2004, 06:24 PM

i had a 3 lb ultraportible .. still do .. was great... really light (even compared to powerbook g4 12inch) .. but yeah .. no optical drive made it a drag to reformat (which i need to do before i sell it) ... in day to day .. i used a usb drive .. and used the laptop for webbrowsing and doing papers .. i love my new one so much more

ICD2k3 · Sep 15, 2004, 10:24 AM

I should have jumped on that cram and jam deal when I had the chance...now i really want one

icruise · Sep 15, 2004, 12:03 PM

Originally posted by wtmcgee:
those external drives are what kill those PC notebooks. how would you like to have to lug around a combo drive to use with your mac?

Actually, as long as it was a specialty product and not one of the main PowerBook models, I think it would be great to have a Mac that didn't have an internal optical drive. (By this I mean that the model with the separate drive should exist in addition to the normal PowerBook options, for people who want to minimize the weight of the computer itself). I very rarely use any kind of optical disc, and I think it would be great to have a Mac that only weighed 3 pounds!

The ironic thing is that having a separate drive would actually work a lot better on a Mac than on a PC. I have a PC subnotebook with a separate drive that uses a PC-card interface. It's possible that this has changed, but at the time it came out it wasn't possible to just plug in a firewire drive and boot from it with Windows. It was a nightmare to reinstall the operating system, since you had to make sure you had the proper boot floppy to use with your USB floppy drive, and then go through all kinds of machinations to get it to work. With Macs, you could easily make a very svelte combo drive that gets its power from firewire and that could boot the computer.

I've been talking about this for years, though, and I don't really expect to see anything like this from Apple anytime soon.

goMac · Sep 15, 2004, 03:19 PM

We actually met with some people on the Powerbook team at my old work this year, and they asked us what we wanted. We asked for a subnotebook without a optical drive actually (we're in education and want something cheap to throw at the kids).

I guess we'll see.

Oh, and they said don't expect a G5 Powerbook any time soon.

And no... this wasn't under NDA...

freakboy2 · Sep 15, 2004, 08:58 PM

Originally posted by goMac:
We actually met with some people on the Powerbook team at my old work this year, and they asked us what we wanted. We asked for a subnotebook without a optical drive actually (we're in education and want something cheap to throw at the kids).

I guess we'll see.

Oh, and they said don't expect a G5 Powerbook any time soon.

And no... this wasn't under NDA...

i think a lighter powerbook w/o optical drive would do very well. It would free up some space in the machine and certainly drop the weight a little bit.

fb

Superchicken · Sep 15, 2004, 09:29 PM

Think eBook people.

Small, white, light but durable case.

escher · Sep 16, 2004, 12:49 PM

I would buy a 3 lbs sub-PowerBook without an optical drive in a second.

See my signature.

Escher