Alu MacBook on it's way...

I just ordered an Alu MacBook 2.4Ghz yesterday. I spent November and December trying to find another option but ultimatly couldn't. I was drawn to the HP Pavilion Tx2 series, which should launch in the UK this month. These are convertable tablet pc's and this new model has a capacitive touchscreen like an iPhone. That means it responds not to pressure, like a resistive touchscreen, but to capacitance in your fingertips! This makes the user experience feel light, responsive and more precise. It also gives better image quality because there is no resistive layer in front of the screen. Another tempting feature of the Tx2 is multi-touch, the ability to use multiple fingers simultaneously to perform gestures that might zoom or rotate your view. That's a cool feature, but Windows XP and Vista aren't designed for multi-touch. Instead the drivers map gestures to a keyboard shortcut for existing functions that perform the desired action. For example; you gesture to rotate an image left, the driver sends Ctrl + Left to the app and the app responds with a function that rotates left 90 degrees. This sort of works but looks and feels rubbish, it's too disconnected from the user for them to feel any sense of direct control. Windows 7 should solve this, but that's not out yet!

Anyway, I want to summarise the pro's and cons of the MacBook in relation to the Tx2. Yes, I know it's a bit like comparing chalk with cheese but that's the real world for you!

Pro's
* Build quality & design
* Weight & size
* Battery life
* Graphics performance
* Boot Camp (it'll be a powerful Vista laptop too)
* Almost no heat
* Almost no fan noise

Con's
* No touch or pen input
* Not a tablet!
* No fingerprint reader
* More exspensive

So to conclude; it's MacWorld Monday and if Steve Job's announces a tablet MacBook with all the features of the 2.4Ghz MacBook and a capacitive touch screen for around the same price- I WILL cry!

Incidentally, it should arrive Tuesday. Given my track record with blogging- don't expect to hear from me till about June!