Apple subnotebook needed

If blogs are any indication, there's a clear and strong demand for an Apple subnotebook/ultra-portable which is popularly defined as a notebook computer weighing less than four pounds typically without an optical drive.

In addition to the almost constant rumors about a new Apple subnotebook, Apple enjoyed strong sales of the 12-inch PowerBook G4 - which is still revered by many as one of Apple's best portable form-factors. Although technically not subnotebooks, the PowerBook 100 (5.1 pounds), the PowerBook 2400 (4.4 pounds) and the Duo 2300c (4.8 pounds) are some of my favorite Apple notebooks because of their sleek lines and, more importantly, their light weight.

Apple Insider most recently recussitated the Apple subnotebook talk, saying that the project is real and coming soon to an Apple store near you:

people familiar with the initiative now have the chic notebook tracking for the latter half of the year [2007], with a contingency plan in place to transition the device into a Macworld 2008 product should engineers require the additional time.

As long as I can remember, people have been begging Cupertino to build a sub-four-pound notebook and Apple has never quite delivered. Apple could easily capitalize on its large purchase of NAND flash memory and strong market demand to deliver the machine that everyone wants.

As far as I'm concerned an Apple subnotebook is the computer that people want and the Santa Rosa MacBook is the computer that people expect. What's your take on an Apple subnotebook?

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