And the $ goes to...

Apple

I went to an Apple store (蘋果優勢, Appleuser @金華街) tonight to see if I could get to have an idea when the new intel Macbooks are avaliable in Taiwan. To my surprise, they not only have a clear answer (somewhere between Jun 10~15th), they also got one on display! Since it's not avaliable in Taiwan yet, they got one from Japan to let Apple lover in Taipei get to have a try before it's released. Boy am I impressed. Through a little sliming down, this baby look much better then the old, white, chunky iBook. It's also got a glossy wide screen, and a better looking keyboard now. But the best part is the price. People usually have the impression that Sony and Apple computers are among the most expensive models on the market. But not this one. The entry level Macbook is only 38900NTD (1211.88USD, tax included). It's got 512MB of RAM, intel integrated graphics, a 5400rpm HDD and a 1.83GHz intel core duo processor. And of course, WIFI(Airport, as in Apple jargon) and Bluetooth comes standard. No where else have I ever seen a core duo notebook under the 40000NTD price point! Also, you can now boot up Windows XP on these Macs, natively, no emulation. But the funny part here is that the infamous "Ctrl+Alt+Del" combo on PCs isn't supported on a Apple keyboard, which means no fast way out of crashs in windows :D

There are some drawback, though. In online review of the Macbook, it is said that this thing is hot and noisy (the fan). Also, it's still quite heavy, compared with the 13inch models from Sony. And it's assembled in China, which I defenantly don't like a bit. But the low price and great style justifies these drawbacks. So, I guess I'll be on the Mac ship in a few weeks. Here I come!