• It’s an Apple product, and these days, buying anything from Apple seems to mean you’re surrendering your ability to think independently about the true quality and value of a product.
• There’s absolutely nothing I can do on an iPad that I can’t do on my laptop.
• You need one hand to hold the darn thing if you’re using it in a place without tables.  So, that means in the great majority of instances that I’d use an iPad, I would only be able to use it with one hand.  That strikes me as really, really annoying.
• There’s absolutely nothing I can do on an iPad that I can’t do on my laptop.
• It doesn’t seem to me that an iPad is nearly as versatile as a laptop because you’re forced to work in Apple’s walled-off-garden OS.  I don’t want my productivity to be limited by whether some developer happens to have created an app that I need.
• There’s absolutely nothing I can do on an iPad that I can’t do on my laptop.  Seriously, I’m not trying to be cute about this (well, maybe I am a little bit) but as I see it, the iPad simply cannot be as revolutionary as the iPhone because, unlike the iPhone, it’s really not changing mobile computing in a groundbreaking way.  There may be a very narrow niche for the iPad to fill, but really the most it brings is a fresh look to mobile computing, and functionally it doesn’t supplant laptops.

So, there you have it.  Like all of Apple’s products, it looks nice, and it has interesting uses.  But so far, I’ve only seen one of these in the wild, so maybe the masses are agreeing with me.

Now, before you burst a vein pointing out that I’ve repeatedly said I’d never purchase an iPod, you’re absolutely right. I’m not thinking about the iPod nano now, nor will I ever in the future. I do think it’s impressive that Apple finally bothered to give a crap and add an FM tuner to one of its iPods (a feature which has been on the market for years now, but which Apple was apparently to cool to bother to acknowledge) but I still just can’t stomach these things. So, the iPod is out.

The Zune HD is intriguing. In fact, I can safely say I’d probably buy this device, if it supported Ogg Vorbis. I know there are many out there who consider this a dead or dying audio format, but the truth is that it’s still technologically a superior codec to MP3 and, most importantly, a lot of my music library is in vorbis! Yes, I could undertake the monumental task of re-digitizing my collection, but that would be a huge headache and not worth the effort, because there are many other players on the market which are just as sleek as the Zune HD that do support vorbis. So, Microsoft, I wanted to give you a try, really I did, but you’re missing that one last intangible, immeasurable quality of “chemistry.” Don’t fret though; you’re getting my money on Windows 7.

So, where does that leave me? Well, certainly visiting Anything but iPod a lot, for sure. I am intrigued by the Cowon i9. It seems seems slim and light, supports a lot of audio formats (including vorbis!) and looks kind of neat. I can’t tell whether it’s actually going to be released in this country though, or how much it might cost. There are those who swear by Samsung; the M1 and R1 look interesting, but it’s not clear whether the US will ever see the M1, and the R1 hasn’t even been released yet. This is going to be tricky.

Shortly before I left for the Dominican Republic, the other hinge on my laptop went south, which means both hinges are now broken, forcing me to literally hold in place my laptop’s LCD when I’m using it. Not fun.

It’s time for a new laptop.

As I was researching laptops yesterday, I learned that there are rumors swirling on the Internets that Dell is slated to release a new ultraportable laptop to compete with the MacBook Air. There are a lot of articles about this strewn about, like this one, or this one, to name just a couple. Very intriguing. Although I don’t think any specs have been confirmed yet, thanks to a mishap–or viral advertising campaign by Dell–some Google-cached pages from Dell’s website suggest that it will have a 13″ LCD. And it may even be lighter than the MacBook Air (which is pretty darn light). This site even seems to confirm the Adamo’s weight, but it’s probably just speculation at this point. In any event, if those predictions are true, I have to say that I’m very, very interested in this laptop.

I’ve been hooked on the thin-and-light/ultraportable category of laptops for some time now. In fact, I like to tell myself that my current laptop, a Gateway 200ARC, was sort of a pioneer in the thin-and-light category. It weighs only 4.5 lbs and is one-inch thick, which is pretty much the dictionary definition of a thin and light. What’s interesting is that this laptop was released back in 2004, long before thin and light really ever became a category. Nowadays, you can scarcely find a serious laptop manufacturer that doesn’t have its own thin and light or ultraportable line. If the Adamo turns out to be a stinker, I may just consider getting the hinges repaired and getting a few more years out of my Gateway.

So, to sum up, while I was determined to purchase a new laptop before I fly back to Seattle on Sunday, the rumors about the Adamo, plus some less-than-stellar reviews about the Latitude E4300, which I was seriously considering, have made me hold off on purchasing a new laptop… for now. Just have to keep the wallet closed until mid January, when Dell (hopefully) introduces Adamo to the world at CES 2009.