For a long time now I have been wanting to switch to a Mac. But all the Mac laptops were way too heavy. My laptop goes with me whereever I go and every extra pound counts. Then came the Air. At first I was very excited at the prospect, but then there were simply too many compromises. Having to send my machine in to replace the battery is a non-starter. I have had my current laptop – a Panasonic Toughbook W2 – for about 5 years and am on my third battery. With a relatively new battery the Toughbook can run for an honest 6 hours on a fully charged battery. And for really long flights I can take a second battery along.
I am really intrigued by the new MacBooks. They look great and are lighter and thinner than their predecessors. Unlike the Air, you can swap the battery and almost as importantly the harddrive. And there is an SSD drive option. But, they still clock in at 4.5 pounds, don’t have 3G support built-in and as chronicled by Bijan, I will wind up having to run Parallels or Fusion so that I can have Outlook and Excel (would have to get rid of Exchange at the same time).
Now I just discovered that Panasonic is about to come out with the Toughbook W8, which is the much updated version of my current laptop. There are a bunch of awesome things about it, starting with the fact that it comes in at 3 pounds (including an internal DVD player) and optionally has Qualcomm’s Gobi which gives you 3G broadband around the world built-in! Panasonic has awesome support. If you ever have a tech problem with your laptop (and given the many miles I put on mine it does happen), you call the Toughbook tech support number and after just a few rings speak to a human. No phone tree. The only downside on the W8 (other than not being a Mac) is no SSD option.
So now I need to decide. Do I want all the greatness of the Mac but lug around an extra 1.5 pounds and deal with two OSes or should I stay faithful to Panasonic?
P.S. James Siminoff opted for the Voodoo Envy, which admittedly is a pretty cool machine, has an SSD option and a built-in camera, but I would be worried about this being built in very small series and hence poorly supported.
