[hadocon]

Here's the deal see; It's a thought experiment yah?

Consider this; the new MacBooks are half a pound lighter than the previous generation. In the interest of making it even lighter, what is the feasibility of removing the superdrive components? How much of a weight savings would one enjoy?

Anyone have links to a new MacBook (BrickBook?) take-apart?

[Eug]

http://www.kodawarisan.com/macbook_2...k_2008_01.html

[hadocon]

Right on brotha!

Looks easy to try - I'll give it a shot when I receive mine and report back ;-)

[hadocon]

Ok,

According to this page from Macfixit the superdrive that Apple uses weighs 0.5 pounds.

Therefore removing this component from the Aluminum MacBook bring it's weight down to an even 4 pounds, which is pretty sweet. That a full pound less than the MacBook White, and only one pound more than the Air.

I wonder if the loss of a DVD drive will make much of a difference. I've been using an Air for the past month and have not had any issues...

I'll give it a shot for a month or two... See what it feels like.

I wonder if there is any value in putting additional components where the superdrive used to be? Probably not.

Thoughts?

[que_ball]

I wonder if someone could integrate a 3G/EVDO WWAN card in there?

It would be cool to have a use anywhere Internet connection with no USB device sticking out of the side.

So take out the CD drive, then hack in a USB internet stick modem internally where the modem was. But you would need to figure out something to get a good signal to the antenna.

[mduell]

About half a pound... but it makes the weight distribution a little awkward in my Dell.

[slugslugslug]

Can any old Mac run as a Remote Disc "client", as it were, or does that software only work on the MacBook Air. If you could take the drive out of new MacBook and use another computer's drive as needed, it'd be pretty sweet.

(Though I suppose you could also just throw the excised drive into a USB enclosure and keep it in a drawer, too.)

[Simon]

The optical is now SATA so you can not only remove the SD, but you could actually replace it with a second HDD or SSD. I'm expecting a third-party to come out with a carrier pretty soon.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Simon 

The optical is now SATA so you can not only remove the SD, but you could actually replace it with a second HDD or SSD. I'm expecting a third-party to come out with a carrier pretty soon.

Isn't the optical drive thinner than the hard drive?

There's the keyboard tray that makes the enclosure less deep above the optical drive and might cause problems for an HD.

[que_ball]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Isn't the optical drive thinner than the hard drive?

There's the keyboard tray that makes the enclosure less deep above the optical drive and might cause problems for an HD.

There are the 1.8" models to consider then. Not exactly easy to find but not rare either. That is what size of storage drive the Air uses if I'm not mistaken.

[analogika]

oh yeah. Forgot about those. 250GB 1.8 inches - RAWR!