Farewell PowerBook

So – PowerBooks are no more – from now on it’s MacBook Pro.

Some interesting points:

• No FireWire 800… Odd.
• No more PCCards – we now get ExpressCards
• Most bizarrely, no modem! This is a laptop and the modem is sold separately. That makes sense for an iMac, but a laptop with no modem?
• I like the magnetic power connection – I have a ding in the corner of my PB from when it shot off a desk due to foot/power cable entanglement – and just last night I got my foot caught in the power cable again.

‘MacBook’ is another really bad name – what *is* going on in the Apple naming department?

I like the look of the FM receiver for the iPod though – it even has RDS.

I almost forgot: Happy New Year

[edit 18 hours later]

Well – I’ve been following the discussions about the new laptop on the forums, and a couple of other notes:

• FireWire 800, apparently 2 port FW800 ExpressCards are the way to go here, although Apple dropping it (built-in) on their pro laptop doesn’t signal a strong future for FW800. I assume the new Intel PowerMac-equivalents will have built-in FW800.
• ExpressCards – currently there aren’t that many about, but Apple always is ahead of the game on this sort of thing – e.g. USB/No Floppy on the original iMac. Some people are worried about how long until there are GPRS/G3 cards in this form factor.
• lack of modem as standard. I’m amazed by how many people seem to equate the modem with the death of floppies – lots of comments like “I can’t remember the last time I used a modem.” Do these people travel with their laptops? Have they never been to places without Cellular/broadband coverage? I suppose it’s not really a big point, since you just add the USB modem to your order, and it should last you across several laptops. However, these laptops only have two USB ports, and there goes one…
• No S-Video out – I missed this first time round – I suppose we’re all supposed to have HDTVs and use DVI->HDMI cables, or perhaps the DVI->S-Video adapter that works on the PowerMac G5 / MacMini will also work on the new PowerBooks.

It seems like we’ll have to buy and carry around a lot of extra add-on bits with these new machines…

Mind you, the speed improvement is a welcome new feature, and my two-year old 17″ PowerBook should last a while yet before I need to worry about upgrading.