Munk Bogballe turns MacBook into luxury "Workstation"

It's far from the first to turn a standard issue Mac laptop into entirely different, but Munk Bogballe has gone a bit further than most with its new Workstation laptop, which turns an otherwise modest MacBook into a full-fledged slab of excess. That includes an anodized aluminum surface, European aniline leather on the underside, and even a specially designed leather bag (which costs a hefty $640 on its own if you want a second one). As for the hardware itself, you get a standard 2.4GHz MacBook under that shiny exterior, right down to the MagSafe adapter, although it is at least topped off with 4GB of RAM and it apparently comes with Windows XP pre-installed for your convenience. If that sounds like the laptop you wish Apple had made, you can get your order in now for £3,500 (or just over $6,700), which also generously includes a donation of one OLPC XO laptop to make you feel a bit better about your ridiculous purchase.

[Khris @ May 14th 2008 1:05PM]

Because it looks SOOO much better now!

[dj-kenpo @ May 14th 2008 2:38PM]

it looks like balls.
that thing is ugly.

[futurepastnow @ May 14th 2008 1:09PM]

That's very... unfortunate looking.

[OneLove @ May 14th 2008 1:12PM]

Monkey BoyBalls What?

[helloUser @ May 14th 2008 1:14PM]

That looks pretty sexy. Much better than a macbook pro, i dont think apple should be meddling with brushed aluminum, sony does that best.

[Jordan @ May 14th 2008 1:15PM]

Wow... special... It looks worse, costs more. A lot more.

[zunq @ May 14th 2008 1:16PM]

Fail.

[darkstar @ May 14th 2008 1:17PM]

how do you right click in xp with a mac's one button?

[Beau @ May 14th 2008 1:21PM]

Two finger tap.

[Joachim Bengtsson @ May 14th 2008 1:23PM]

Two finger tap.

[Jason @ May 14th 2008 1:23PM]

Which one button mouse? If the mighty mouse you can have each side of the rollerball be touch senstive to give you a 'left' and 'right' button. If your talking the very old hocky puck... press the command key + button.

Though it may be time to upgrade your mouse. =)

[Kizorblade @ May 14th 2008 1:36PM]

I think it's time for him to upgrade his rants. They're waaaaay outdated.

[darkstar @ May 14th 2008 1:44PM]

im confused. how on earth does windows xp knows two finger tap = right click? i guess i'll have to install windows xp on the mac to see

[John @ May 14th 2008 1:44PM]

Instead of doing some excessive fancy Control click on the one button to get a right click, wouldnt it be easier to just make a second instead? I mean come on.. this isnt the early 90s anymore..

[Joachim Bengtsson @ May 14th 2008 1:53PM]

darkstar: Boot Camp drivers.

John: Two finger tap. I haven't done a ctrl-click in many years.

Also, I didn't just copy Beau, I just watched the image gallery before I looked in the comments :P Very neat that we happened to type the *exact same message*, down to punctuation :)

[CraigW @ May 14th 2008 1:55PM]

@darkstar - the technology is in the hardware, not the operating system - the touchpad detects the difference and sends the appropriate signal to the operating system. It could also be drivers or a combination of the two.

[Ian @ May 14th 2008 2:08PM]

@John

actually i find it much easier with only one button on the mouse pad. plus on a laptop i pick up my fingers so much that a PC laptop always registers them as double clicks which drives me freakin mad

[absurdio @ May 14th 2008 3:46PM]

Not that another defense of the one-button-trackpad is really necessary (or totally relevant) here, but I've also heard it said (and it makes some sense to me) that basing the system around one button instead of two puts less emphasis on right-click-contextual menus and more emphasis on usability without those menus. Something like: less availability of right click = less dependence by developers on contextual menus = better gui. (?).

Of course, I can see arguments against that, too...

[dsfdsdsf @ May 17th 2008 1:14AM]

@absurdio:

I think the context menu is one of the best usability ideas ever: A menu that always offers you the relevant choices of operations relative to the object on which you want to apply that operation.

How can you say not using context menus makes better GUIs? I can't follow you, sorry.

[Paul @ May 14th 2008 1:18PM]

What? Why?

[Jon Acheson @ May 14th 2008 1:18PM]

Clunky laptop: $6700

Getting people to stop griping about the MacBook Air: Priceless.

[Low Ranked @ May 14th 2008 1:26PM]

Well put.

[TomWBrowning @ May 14th 2008 1:26PM]

It looks like someone glued a notebook to the top of a MacBook. For what reason, at all, does this exist?

I'm all for 'luxury' redesigns of existing technologies, but not when they are as shite as this. If you're going to meddle with design, make sure you're improving it.

[a random John @ May 14th 2008 1:29PM]

Note the lack of an actual keyboard:

http://munkbogballe.com/mb/typo3temp/ce_gallery/d_42_900_400_100.jpg

[Ian @ May 14th 2008 2:10PM]

wait so its a touch-board? wtf, just doesnt work in my mind

[Ken @ May 14th 2008 2:15PM]

No, the entire keyboard is one button. This was done to match the design function of the mouse.

[w00t @ May 14th 2008 2:37PM]

Wow that's just naaaaaaaasty.

Then again anyone stupid enough to buy one of these deserves to realise just how stupid they are when they try typing on it!

[Tamer Brad @ May 15th 2008 9:18PM]

are you fucking serious

[Cole Mitguard @ May 14th 2008 1:35PM]

No VISTA!!! Well thats a deal breaker for me... if im going to spend 6000+ on a notebook which should cost 1500, I want to make sure that I wont break it by actually using the thing...

[Eric @ May 14th 2008 1:33PM]

Why does the screen have a border effectively shrinking it from 15.4 to 12.1?

Horrible.

[Mabedan @ May 14th 2008 1:40PM]

this thing is badly ugly...

[Lein @ May 14th 2008 1:41PM]

Something about having the word "Work" in the same sentence as the word "Mac" is just not adding up.

[qrius @ May 14th 2008 2:01PM]

do that many people have money to throw away like that?

How about some contributions to Red Cross in light of the recent events in China and Myanmar instead?

[Björn Olsson @ May 14th 2008 4:54PM]

Sounds like a phoney name. In swedish, Munk Bogballe (or Bögballe) means "Monk Gaypenis".

[eggothewaffle @ May 14th 2008 2:19PM]

...Workstation?

Hell, it doesn't even make any sense when you put workstation in quotes.

[Jeff Lewis @ May 14th 2008 2:21PM]

Good lord.

I may not care for the MacBook's design - but wow...

I mean.. wow...

Were they trying to make a square UFO? Really. Let's take a nice, compact laptop and make it really big and ugly and clumsy... then make it six times more expensive!

If it MUST have leather - why not just take a MacBook Pro, which is around the right size for all that added aluminum, get some leather and glue it to the underside and lower edges of the case?

There.. saved you $3500.

Sheesh.

Proof that more expensive doesn't mean 'better'.

[farfisa @ May 14th 2008 2:24PM]

The only way for that to look cool would be if you sunk the whole macbook bottom into the desk. Sure, no access to drives or ports, but if you're enough of a reject to buy this thing, you probably can't use a computer anyway.

[w00t @ May 14th 2008 3:14PM]

Unfortunately even the stupidest rejects manage to use computers, just have a read of some youtube comments you'll see what I mean :)

[bobartig @ May 14th 2008 2:43PM]

With a name like Munk Bogballe, is this a joke?

[Jeremy K. @ May 14th 2008 2:43PM]

That is FUGLY.

[crho85 @ May 14th 2008 3:34PM]

I agree, it doesn't even border on Pug-Fugly

[sotec_productions @ May 14th 2008 2:54PM]

I don't get it. They up the RAM, lash some leather shoebox to the underbelly install XP and suddenly it costs $6700?

No thanks. My computer beats the hell out of this thing and I paid $415 with shipping.

Maybe I should check the READ link...brb

Yea, nothing special about this laptop. I'd rather waste my money on the $1,000,000 gold Apple laptop if I had that much disposable income.

Why is this news again?

[Alex @ May 14th 2008 2:59PM]

I'll just take the MacBook Pro regular please!

I wish I had a Mac... :(

[absurdio @ May 14th 2008 4:00PM]

...and I wish I had a BMW.

[Tony @ May 14th 2008 3:29PM]

This thing ruins the perfect form factor of the Macbook while adding NO functionality. Who would want a 13.3" laptop that is as bulky as a 15.4"? I would consider this dumb if they had just tacked aluminum and leather onto a Macbook, but in fact they've made it worse with that huge aluminum platform.

[YoMomma @ May 14th 2008 3:33PM]

that thing is uglier than the macbook itself. Apple needs to hire some designers instead of using the same design on ALL they produce.

[absurdio @ May 14th 2008 3:53PM]

1. This is hideous AND idiotic.
2. Munk?! Bogballe?! ...seriously?! This has to be an April Fools joke.
3. Johnny Ive FTW!

[Simon @ May 14th 2008 4:06PM]

That thing better not have "Munk Bogballe" written anywhere on it or it's not going to sell a single unit to Sweden, Munk Bogballe would translate roughly to "Monk Gaydick".

[ric @ May 14th 2008 4:20PM]

...the fuck?

"Monk Gaydick" sounds a perfect name for it.
What fool would buy this instead of a Macbook Pro? If you're going to pimp an Apple laptop, surely you'd pick the top of the line?
It's the Nokia Vertu of the laptop world...

[wasabi @ May 14th 2008 5:59PM]

yea... get a macbook, take a dump on it... the outcome would be the same.