Modbook is Awesome…and Expensive
January 2nd, 2008 by Ed Lau |
I’ve always been intrigued by Mac laptops but I’ve never been much of a Mac user. Sure, Photoshop and Premier run great and I could get work done on one but there are about three games that run on OS X, and they all start with The Sims. I almost made a purchase when I first saw the Macbook Pro since it was just so stylish and when they announced that you could run Windows on one (albeit Vista…ugh), I was almost sold. However, the 15.4″ one was too big for my tastes and the 13.3″ Macbook, which is rather perfectly sized, isn’t powerful enough and lacks a real video card as well as the metallic housing.
Well, the dark side is tempting me once again as I saw this Macbook tablet today, by a company in California called Axiotron. Called the Modbook, it’s essentially a Macbook converted with a Wacom tablet and it looks fantastic, even if it does have a little two-tone action going on like some kind of busted Toyota pick-up truck.
Unfortunately, this means that it still doesn’t have a real video card and only packs standard Macbook guts, which don’t pack enough of a punch for me. However, there is an option for a built-in GPS, which is always useful.
All this awesome comes at a price, though and it’s a little scary. The standard Modbook goes for $2,279, or more than double the retail of a standard Macbook (this is based off the $1099 2.0GHz base model) with the faster version ringing up at $2,479. Both these include the GPS unit but still, that’s more than $1,000 for a tablet screen. Even though it is very nicely integrated, that’s probably a bit too much for all but seriously hardcore Mac users.
If anyone from Apple is reading here, make a 12″ widescreen Macbook Pro and you’ll have my money.
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Your wish (or some variation thereof) might come true at MacWorld in a couple of weeks. There are plenty of rumors swirling about a sub-notebook and/or ultracompact MacBook. Admittedly, it will probably be too gutless for your tastes, but it’s going to more portable that the 15.4-inchers.
ASUS is making a tablet for Apple. The iTablet might surface at MacWorld.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind having a MacBook Pro in 12 inch. That would be sweet.
Even if the tablet is so expensive, it really depends on the buyer’s taste.
-Mike
It is really beautiful, but the price… argh….