A chance to play around with a shiny new MacBook Pro made me think about what a laptop should be, and why. The MacBook in question is certainly a fantastic piece of hardware. Unfortunately, Apple is also asking (and getting) cubic dollars for these machines. The price tag on this one came to something north of $3k, on academic discount, no less. That’s quite a bit more than my first car cost. Still, the MacBook’s owner intends for his new acquisition to be his only computer, and wants it to last him through a good portion of a 10-year M.D./Ph.D program. Amortized over 5 years, that price tag looks more reasonable.

Oh, did I mention he’s going to be taking his new machine back and forth to school every day? And that said school is in the middle of downtown Detroit?

Which is, to me, the problem with most laptops sold today. They’re too expensive, too big, too heavy, too power-hungry, and too fragile to be truly portable. Let me define “portable” here: I’m talking about a machine you’re not only physically capable of carrying with you all the time, but one that you *don’t mind* carrying with you. I want a machine I can throw in a backpack or messenger bag without worrying. I do not want to worry about: loss or theft of a machine I can’t afford to replace, how much charge is left in my battery, where the nearest power outlet is, whether anything got broken when I accidentally dropped the computer while reaching for a beer, or if I’m further screwing up my already-screwed-up spine by lugging a dozen pounds of laptop & accessories with me all day.

And before anyone starts writing a comment about this: no, a PDA is not a substitute for a laptop. I don’t care if it’s a Crackberry, a Treo, an old-school Palm, whatever. I spend 90% of my computer time looking at a word processor, Bash shell, web browser, or instant messaging client. I need a *real* keyboard that can actually be used for *typing*, as well as a monitor that’s large, clear, and bright enough to not further hasten my descent into blindness.

Here’s what I want:

3-pound laptop with a 12″ screen of at least 1024×768 resolution. Integrated video is fine.

Low-power, preferably x86-compatible processor. Maybe a Via, an AMD Geode, a Transmeta Efficeon, whatever. I won’t be transcoding video or playing games on this thing; if it can come close to a 500 Mhz Pentium III, I’m happy.

Gobs of RAM. At least a gig; two is better. Plenty of RAM offsets the low speed of the processor and basically eliminates the need for swap, which is relevant in light of the next point…

NO hard drive or optical drive. A true zero-spindle machine. Instead, build in at least 8 gigs of flash memory, maybe 16, and throw in a couple USB ports so I can plug in a thumb drive. Flash is now cheap and reliable enough that this isn’t an insane idea. No spinny parts means more reliability, less power consumption and less heat.

A case, keyboard, and hinges designed by the ThinkPad design team. They have their shit squared away better than anyone.

A true all-day battery. Between the low-power processor and the lack of drives, getting 8 hours of *real-world use* out of a reasonable-size battery isn’t asking too much.

Power adapters for AC, cigarette lighter, and hell, maybe even USB. Charge up your computer with your other computer!

Wireless A/B/G, plus an Ethernet port.

Open, well-documented hardware throughout, so I can run whatever I want on it. No Windows of any form, thank you.

Sell it for less than $400; $300 is better.

Now, I don’t expect anyone to actually build this. It’s amazing, though, how close this is to what the good folks at the One Laptop Per Child project are trying to build. And if they actually reach production, I’d be more than willing to pay $200 for one of those machines. That way, I’d be paying for my own machine and buying one for some poor brat at the same time. Which is just the kind of thing I do, because I Am A Good Person.

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In other news, the first cold of the season is upon me. Time for bed.