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Modbook Pro gets priced at $3,500, as pre-orders begin
No one ever said a modded MacBook Pro was gonna be cheap. Last week Modbook announced that it would be going ahead with pre-orders on the Modbook Pro today, but didn't really touch on pricing. As ordering begins, the company's attached a $3,500 starting price tag for the honor of controlling your 13.3-inch Mac with a pen. The Modbook Pro, which is set to start shipping in the middle of next month, runs Mountain Lion and features a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 processor (upgradable to a 2.9GHz i7) and memory and storage up to 16GB and 480GB, respectively. If you're aching to get your hands on one of these Frankensteinian tablets, you'll have to plunk down a $500 deposit.
Modbook Pro to launch with SSD storage, up for pre-order October 3rd
It wasn't all that long ago that Modbook Inc's CEO, Andreas Haas, made the mac-in-tablet Modbook Pro official, now we're learning that the super-slate will launch with high performance SSD storage. So, as you wield your MacBook Pro come tablet, you'll be free from spinning disks. Great, but what impact will this have on capacity? Well, according to the firm, storage will start at 64GB as standard, with upgrades possible all the way up to a, not-unreasonable, 480GB. Pre-orders go live on October 3rd, along with the all important reveal on price. Regardless of cost, if that void between the iPad and full-fat Windows 8 slates had been irking you, here's your answer.
Modbook introduces the Modbook Pro
Who remembers the Modbook? We looked at an early iteration back in 2008, and today the company has introduced the Modbook Pro. It is a tablet, but the Modbook Pro does not run iOS. It's essentially the hardware of a 13" MacBook Pro inside a tablet case with a touch screen, running OS X. The company notes that the screen uses a Wacom digitizer for "512 levels of pen pressure sensitivity," which it claims is more than any other tablet. As for the screen itself (1280 x 800 pixel resolution), the Modbook says it's "etched" for a paper-like feel. So what's inside this beast? You'll find a 2.5GHz dual core Intel i5 processor ( 2.9GHz dual core i7), up to 16GB of RAM, a 2.5–inch SATA drive (up to 1TB HDD or up to 960GB SSD), DVD burner, an Intel HD Graphics 4000 chipset, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. On the outside you'll find a Gigabit Ethernet port, one FireWire 800 port, one USB 3.0 port, one Thunderbolt port, one SDXC card slot and one audio line in/out. The device ships with a digitizer pen, which can be tucked away inside a magnetic "pen garage" when not in use. The company hopes to ship the Modbook Pro in "fall of 2012," and has promised sales info within the next few weeks.
The Modbook Pro gets official, CEO Andreas Haas talks success in an iPad world
You'd be forgiven for assuming that the ModBook dream died with release of the first iPad. After all, the first version of the hacked notebook predated Apple's announcement by a couple of years. When the iPad finally hit in 2010, it did a lot to address the desire for a slate device running Apple software. Since then, things have largely remained silent on the Axiotron front. In fact, the last time we heard a significant peep out of the company was back in 2009. Its former CEO Andreas Haas assured us, however, that the real reason for the company's silence is a bit more complicated than the story of yet another product falling victim to the Apple steamroller. "Axiotron itself was a great company," says Haas. "Back in 2008, I took the company public, everything was really great. There was one little thing that turned out to be a huge problem, which is that the company was largely bank-financed and 10 days after it went public, Lehman Brothers went belly-up and put the whole financial market in a tailspin. After that was mostly spent on trying to somehow restructure the company, and ultimately there was just nothing that could be done about it." As the newly reborn Modbook Inc. teased via its Facebook page yesterday, however, the name lives on. This week marks the return of the tablet in the form of the 13.3-inch Modbook Pro, a device slated to ship early this fall. Can such a device survive in a world that's been downright flooded by tablets in the years since its predecessor's release? The company clearly feels it can -- that its new product is unique enough to set itself apart in amongst the deluge of slates, calling the new Pro, "the world's most powerful and largest-screen tablet computer." And in a space where hardware and software are relatively neutered, it's understandable how the company might be inclined to make such bold claims about the converted notebook.
Axiotron's Modbook goes and Modbook Pro to get projected capacitive screens
Resistive touch-screens are great when you have a stylus in-hand, capacitive screens offer more finesse when you're going at it with fingertips, and both are about useless when you're wearing gloves (for now, anyway). That changes with the projective capacitive screen, able to offer responsiveness to a bare fingertip and also react to non-conductive objects like styli, and it's that type of screen that Axiotron's MacBook-based Modbook tablets will be seeing in the near future thanks to a partnership with Touch International. Starting next month, Modbook buyers will be able to add a Synergy Touch screen as an option, while those going for the 15.4-inch Modbook Pro will receive one as standard. No word on what this accessory will cost, but we think it's a shame the two couldn't get these things to market before the end of glove season.[Via Gadgets.TMCNet.com]
Video: Modbook modded in stop motion
Although Axiotron's Modbook and Modbook Pro look like they're relatively simple creations -- take off the original screen, install touch screen backwards -- we've always assumed the process was much more complicated. Turns out we were wrong -- if this Modservice video from TechRestore is to be believed, a normal MacBook will actually do most of the work for you, as long as you're willing to provide the appropriate high-tech sound effects. Seriously, the DVD drive just reinstalls itself! Video after the break.
Macworld 2009: Axiotron Modbook Pro
Simply stated, it's the fastest tablet computer on the planet, and it's a Mac.Axiotron surprised everyone in 2007 by demoing a tablet Mac, the Modbook, made by transferring the inner workings of a stock Apple MacBook to a new chassis with a touch / pen interface. At Macworld Expo 2008, the Modbook actually shipped. Now Axiotron has raised the bar for all tablet devices by announcing the Modbook Pro, a new model made with the 15.4" MacBook Pro electronics.I talked with Axiotron's CEO and Chief Engineer Andreas Haas this afternoon. Andreas was with Apple's Newton group and said that he always wanted to get back to a pen-based device. The new device is impressively fast and powerful, and Andreas was willing to show us the insides of the new box. Enjoy the video after the break.Update: One of our readers asked about VESA mounting points for the Modbook. We believe there are holes in the Modbook to allow mounting, but we'll double-check with the product managers and let you know shortly...
Axiotron's Modbook Pro: when the Modbook just isn't enough
While we sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for Apple's rumored resurrection of the Newton, we'll occupy ourselves with the latest 3rd party Mac tablet -- the Modbook Pro. Based off a 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro, the Modbook Pro has all the same ports as the standard model (including the ExpressCard/34 slot), supports both pen and touch input, and has a glossy black shell. Axiotron pre-installs Quicktouch software to aid those with fat fingers, and the screen is totally flush. However, nobody said that function came cheap -- the Modbook Pro starts at $5k, but there's a $400 discount available for Macworld.[Via Boy Genius Report]
