... if I felt I needed a laptop. What I've personally seen in both private and corporate use is that most laptops are used as 'portable' desktops, a function they fill very well, rather than mobility devices. As such, most of my clients set their laptop on a desk, plug it in, and never move it from that spot; they would have done just as well if not better with a true desktop computer at the same price. Many of today's AIO PCs are proving that. So for me, I simply don't have a need for a laptop. Other views will vary.

Having been a technician (not a so-called IT professional) for almost 40 years now, I've seen technology change and I've seen what works. Cheap makes sales and are often quite easy to work on--but the cost of the repair frequently exceeds the retail price of the device (Boombox, VCR, even TVs and computers). The devices that lasted the longest without repair were the ones used regularly and yet treated with respect--usually mid-priced to higher priced components that were well-built and often harder to work on.

While technology has changed, habits--both corporate and individual--haven't. People still leave their laptops plugged in full time and then complain when they get less than half the advertised charge life out of them. That's not the battery's fault, it's their own. Computer keyboards still get grunged up with food particles, dust, hair, liquids and who knows what else and yet the users complain when, for whatever reason, those keyboards quit working. This is pretty well true of every electronic device. Which reminds me, I was just given a laptop that quit working to see if I could fix it. The keyboard looks like the user did nothing but eat at his computer and the case itself is simply grungy from his (or her) dirty hands. The real problem for failure, though, is the broken plug-in adaptor where once I clean the thing up I should be able to fix by simply re-soldering a broken connector. This is a problem Apple solved 7 years ago with its Mag-safe connector. Yet another reason you don't even NEED to go inside a Mac laptop.

I don't just look at my immediate needs when I buy something, I try to look at how it will be used over its lifetime. I didn't NEED to buy a Jeep Wrangler when I bought my mid-sized SUV, but I knew it would take me places almost no other SUV could go for the price as well as giving me a drop-top convertible on a 4-door car that will cost far less to replace the top when it finally weathers through than any other convertible on the market (well, maybe except for the Fiat 500). So really, when you buy a product do you simply go impulse buy or do you think it out. If you think it through, I believe you'll find that Apple's concept is extremely well conceived.