What To Expect With The New Mac Notebooks.

My PowerBook is showing it’s age, now just over five years old. I need a replacement. Buy now? Or, wait awhile?

This time I’m waiting until the next generation of Mac notebooks. Why? What’s coming? Less of the same. Much less.

Don’t get me wrong. My Mac PowerBook, one of the original 17-inch aluminum body machines has been the best Mac I’ve ever owned. Ever.

With few exceptions, this Mac notebook as been on and running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Even when I travel I just close the lid, stuff it into a bag, and carry it away.

It came with Mac OS X Jaguar, I upgraded to Panther, then Tiger, now Leopard. It runs better now than when new. When I bought it, I added an extra 512 megs of RAM. After two years of continuous use I had to replace the hard drive.

Other than that, it’s been a rock solid performer. I can count the number of crashes and freezes on one hand and have enough change to clean out a nostril or two. Oh, one key fell off but I stuck it back on.

Do I want another Mac notebook? You bet I do. Five years of use is worth a repeat. Which model? Not the MacBook Air (too small). Not the MacBook (too small, too much plastic), not the MacBook Pro (hey, it’s a five year old design!).

I’m waiting for the next new line of Mac notebooks which I expect will be faster, cooler, thinner, lighter. I know what you’re thinking. Duh, right? Right. Based on what I’ve seen of the MacBook Air, which is selling fast, Apple will make the next MacBook Pro thinner.

Not just thinner, but ultra thin, and probably wedge shaped. Wedge? Yes, the MacBook Air is a wedge, thicker in the back near the screen hinge, and very thin at the front near the touchpad.

If you think about it, what else can Apple do with the MacBook Pro models? It’s already an inch thin. It already feels sturdy and strong and dependable. It’s already relatively light.

Aluminum has shown itself to be the best case design; durable, lightweight, affordable, recyclable. I expect less aluminum in a thinner design. What else? Has Apple already created the ultimate notebooks in the MacBook Pro and Air?

Go back to thinner, lighter, faster, cooler. Cooler? Yes, both chic cool and temperature cool. My 17-inch model gets warm on the lap. The newer MacBook Pro models are faster, but arguably cooler.

What else can Apple do to improve and enhance the new MacBook Pro models? I like the MacBook keyboard better than the flimsy keyboard in the MacBook Pro models, so I expect something along the lines of the MacBook Air keyboard only improved.

Except for the expected wedge shape, battery life could be improved, so I look for the latest and greatest backlit LED display, and options for solid state drives, as found in the MacBook Air.

Wireless. More and faster graphics. Fewer ports. iSight. New keyboard. Wedge design. Blah, blah, blah. Those are all evolutionary features but don’t say anything about ‘next great thing.’

Over half of all Macs sold these days are notebooks. In many cases, a Mac notebook in one flavor or another is the only computer that many Mac users have or need.

What does Apple have to do to get me to plunk down my hard-earned money for another notebook that I expect to last a full five years? What’s missing on the evolutionary chain? What can Apple do to set the world’s collective hair on fire?