Dell's new Z: I am throwing away my Mac when this... - Robert Scoble

I can't tell you how I got this photo and I can't tell you why I am dumping my Mac when this comes out but this is the first Dell that has me slobbering in a very long time. - Robert Scoble

Really?? - Gerry Realtyman Bourgeois

Hey, T'row it ober here! - Gary Etie

Still Windoze-infected, right? - Bill L

Can you give us more details on the configuration and the size factor? - Amit Nangare

Instead of throwing your Mac away, can I have it? - Victor Ganata

The Dell Z looks awesome - johnny2009

I'll buy your Mac....uh, you take checks, right? - Mike Lewis

problem with Dell computers, is they still run Windows. Unless you want to deal with Linux - Andrew Lombardi

I agree with John - Mike Brewer

Er, okay. Does it run OS X? - Grant Goodale

well good luck with that! :-) - teymur madjderey

Didn't you say something similar about the Nokia N97 a few months ago? - Beau Giles

You've got to tell me more than that for me to believe why you might throw your Mac away?? - Aaron Myers

Really - with the build quality they are renown for!! - Ian Lewis

If it runs windows 7 then at least there is some reason for this madness. Anything else and you've completely lost your mind! - Devlin Dunsmore

Amit: I can't explain why, sorry, but this will get a lot of attention and Apple will have to react to it. Why do you think Apple has been attacking Windows 7? - Robert Scoble

Yes, it looks sleek, but it's still a Dell. - Bob Young

Dude! You're getting a Dell! - Andrew Lombardi

From the keyboard, it looks like a 15.4" or 17" widescreen that's super thin. (keyboard is chiklet-style) - Eugene Hsu

You can't throw out your mac! You'll eventually be crawling back. - Matt Ruiz

Yes, I got excited by the Palm Pre but I don't think I said the Pre would get me to throw away my iPhone. Of course we don't know what Apple will do but this will make Apple guys at least raise their eyebrows. - Robert Scoble

Throwing away your Mac is a bad idea. - Louis Gray

May I suggest to sell The Original Scoble MacBook Pro on ebay and hand the money in for charity? - Ralf Rottmann

NokiaN97 does widescreen videos with new Qik, by the way. iPhone doesn't. - Robert Scoble

Don't throw your Mac away!! Keep it as 'backup', you might need it ... ;) ;) - Ronald

Asgod: believe me Engadget will be all over this. - Robert Scoble

This was rolled out to selected laptop users 4-5 months ago, wasn't it? Lots of drooling, if I recall. But you should keep your Mac as a backup. And so far as "I can't tell you how I got this photo ..." is concerned, what's with the name tag on the fellow doing the Vana White? - Bob Young

Louis: I will give away my Mac instead of throwing it away. - Robert Scoble

i will take it robert :) - Allen Stern

Robert, how about donating it to JHTC (for auctioning) to help us launch our charitable arm? - Bill L

Looks kind of clunky, seams don't match, build quality doesn't look near the Mac so there must be something that's not obvious. - PXLated

I will fight Allen for it Robert - Jesse Stay

BTW, that looks like the NYSE - sounds like you met a Dell rep on the floor? - Jesse Stay

Ya, in the pics with the black and gape-looking seams - PXLated

I'm a Mac and nothing Dell does could change that - Dean Kakridas

Hmmm..."throw away"...does that mean Dell's going eco-friendly like Apple? - Jesse Stay

Um, if you're going to throw it away I'll take your Mac!! - Mona Nomura

Looks real thin though - PXLated

Mona you have to fight Allen and I for it first - Jesse Stay

I'm thinking full solid state, very fast - Jesse Stay

Nooo... I wanted a Dell 15' with nice reso but no HD. Not avaliable in Europe. I had to buy a MacBook Pro. Received today. Nice but I loved my Latitude. - Jérôme

BTW, nice tattoo's Robert! When did you get those? - Dean Kakridas

And with that very light and low on heat - Jesse Stay

so what's the specs on it ? intel T9900, DDR3? - Khaled A

over at notebookreview there is a huge thread about it already http://bit.ly/pp83N - Ronald

touch screen? that doesn't seem mac-trash-worthy. flips around like a tablet, with touch screen? nah. super battery with built in wimax or 4G connectivity? maybe. - Chip Ramsey

Dean, per the nametag that's @rockmanusa, Robert's producer/photographer - Jesse Stay

WOW! - hollyrae

I'm intrigued by the google map you have attached with it ... battery park city?! Sounds quite interesting indeed, but I won't be interested, unless it can polish my shoes, feed the cats, and wash itself every 3 hours :) Ohh I wouldn't mind if it has a proper multi-touch trackpad. - Shivanand Velmurugan

^^ :D ^^ - Ronald

found a page with more pictures http://www.pclaunches.com/noteboo... - Khaled A

PXlated: I think I beat Engadget with a photo. It is an early prototype. - Robert Scoble

mona vs. jesse vs. me = steel cage match for robert's laptop - Allen Stern

at photos: make,make plz !!! - Ronald

Allen: count me in if you want to upgrade to a steel cage, ladder match - Shivanand Velmurugan

I know, I was kidding :) - Dean Kakridas from email

i need a mac so i can make an iphone app for cc - unless someone wants to make one for me :) - Allen Stern

Allen: CC? Creative Commons? - Shivanand Velmurugan

Robert the suspense is killing me!!!!! - Chris Henderson

Other pics still don't turn me on - But, I like my Mac/OSX, have gotten great support at the Apple stores, there's more than just the box. - PXLated

cc = cloudcontacts my startup - Allen Stern

Asgod: I broke all sorts of rules to get this photo. Photography is expressly not allowed where I am. It is geek heaven though. - Robert Scoble

robert - you might want to crop out the person's name who is in the photo :) - Allen Stern

Robert: So how did we get a photograph then?! (good ol' don't give a crap about the rulez eh? :) ) A lot of hype, it better be seriously good :)\ - Shivanand Velmurugan

it was leaked a few days earlier on another site though :> - Khaled A

specs: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpos... - Brian Hill

Good luck with that. Whatever helps you get the job done efficiently is OK w/me. - barl0w

Allen I'm in - we'll do it when I'm out there in July. I warn you - I don't play by the rules though. - Jesse Stay

"Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead" (Pulp Fiction) - Andrew Eglinton

jesse - i will use all the social networks against you! i think mona's finisher is the fail whale - Allen Stern

Allen, careful, I know the "Twitter Game" - Jesse Stay

Allen & Jesse: Blood, gore .. is what we are looking for (throw in the ladder, and ustream it! ) :) - Shivanand Velmurugan

And what about the Techcrunch Crunchpad? - Francine Hardaway

to be the twitter you gotta beat the twitter - Allen Stern

intel U9300 1.2GHz? that's not a very powerful cpu... what's your mac, scoble? an iBook? - Khaled A

Eh... - iTad from fftogo

but a 2 pounds 16" notebook? that's interesting ... - Khaled A

holly plant the Dell seed! thanks for the heads up.game changer? - Jeff Marmins

that's according the specs posted by Brian Hill: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpos... - Khaled A

Who's the bigger sucker here ... Scoble ... or those sucked in by this post - Don Strickland

are you serious? c'mon, it's a PC! The main component of any computer is not the hardware, it's SOFTWARE. - Konstantin

Don: it does a few things your Mac doesn't. - Robert Scoble

Konstantin: really? Why don't you use a Mac Classic then and why do all Mac fans slobbering when new hardware comes out? Finally you should try Windows 7 on your Mac. You might be surprised. I am running Windows 7 on my Mac. - Robert Scoble

Francine: I am buying Crunchpads for a different reason. - Robert Scoble

Can I just point out did a search for "scoble 'Palm Pre' 'throw away'" to see what you said back at CES... and Google already has the comments on this thread indexed? - Ken Sheppardson

Jeff: I think this Dell will help Microsoft poke Apple in the eye again. - Robert Scoble

I saw the specs, and it just doesn't *seem* that spectacular. Maybe it makes waffles and prints money... - Carlton Prest

Ken: Google is getting faster, huh? - Robert Scoble

so what will they call this new class of notebooks? under powered under 10" are netbooks. U9300 based 16" would be called .. hmm wafflebook - Khaled A

Robert: Yeah, it's not Track, but I suspect it's certainly getting close enough for 80%+ of the population. - Ken Sheppardson

Carlton: they have kept a few things secret. - Robert Scoble

... the 80%+ who haven't used Track, that is ;-) - Ken Sheppardson

As I expected. Do you have any idea as to when they'll officially announce this? - Carlton Prest

Carlton by when Microsoft ships Windows 7. - Robert Scoble

facial recognition - that's a strange rumor. - Chip Ramsey

I should expect Dell middle east to make a crappy keyboard print: http://twitpic.com/6o2rc redundancy fails - Khaled A

finally: it is a Dell... - Ronald

Nice, thanks for the heads up Robert. Don't mind the fanboy's calling you a heretic. ;) - Arawak

Has me curious. I'm not going to be so bold as to claim in an Apple "fanboish" way that nothing can possibly beat Apple. - Angus Burton

19 hours of battery is impressive if true - Brian Hill

"I can't tell you how I got this photo" -- Perhaps by standing next to Rocky as he held one on the NYSE floor yesterday? :-) - Ken Sheppardson

100+ comments later... mission completed. You won't throw or give away your Mac for a Dell w/ Win 7 - Jonathan Brown

You'll hurt your shoulder carrying that thing around, but man, what a great screen!! - RobinDotNet

Looks like picture was taken at the New York Stock Exchange. Maybe it's a multi-touch screen? - Steve de Mena

Steve: all I can say is it has stuff Apple doesn't yet do. - Robert Scoble

Robin: I have a bag with wheels for my Mac so my shoulder is OK. The photo was taken tonight. - Robert Scoble

Microsoft Bing: We did not find any results for "tell you why I am dumping my Mac when this comes out but this is the first Dell" ~ giggle - Don Strickland

must have a oled display - Jim Posner

I'm guessing it loads the Building43 site 10% faster, or it has Building43 bookmarked out of the box. - Steve Wright

Im guessing touchscreen - Kashif Khan

I'm glad you have a wheelie bag, now you can buy it with impunity and wheel it through airports all over the world, feeling happy about your awesome laptop. :-) (How much does it weigh?) - RobinDotNet

@Robert "Steve: all I can say is it has stuff Apple doesn't yet do...." TBH, there has been a lot of things the Macbook line hasn't been up to par feature wise for a long time. This isn't nothing new. My 1yr old XPS has eSATA, "F/W", "ExpressCard", 10in1 MMC, Biometrics, HDMI, Blu Ray, 4USB and integrated 3G all of which would be 'show stoppers' if Apple announced them. So its all relative. - Arawak

Only two factory stickers, not bad! - Onar Vikingstad

"has stuff Apple doesn't yet do" ... hmmm ... when placed on a Microsoft Surface it transforms into a puck for Microsoft Surface Hockey, played by waving your hands at the built-in Natal controllers. - Don Strickland

@Christopher...touche. ;) - Arawak

Say it ain't so! Looks way cool. - michelle lamar

Will it run Pro Tools. It seems as if I need to use it for digital editing of raw audio. - Mathew A. Koeneker

Mathew: I would imagine it would, but I don't have it to try that, so will have to wait to tell you definitively. - Robert Scoble

Thanks, Robert. Being out of the music & video biz since '97 has me playing catch up. The KDHX studios where I will be working are a mac house. - Mathew A. Koeneker

Since it looks like a shell.. I will assume its the touchscreen with MS Surface on Windows 7 :) - Tim Hoeck

http://www.engadget.com/2009... - Don Strickland

When does this come out Robert? - Amit Nangare

looks like old black macbook to me! nothing new at least not in image! whats so special? - matjeka

To back Robert up, I got to try this bad boy right after him. And I can agree, this will make me switch too (after 25 solid years of Mac OS) Holy crap, Dell must have a secret time machine in the basement if 1/2 of these "special" features are true. WOW WOW WOW, and price...WOW!!! - sean andersen

Robert, Honestly I am not really impressed by the picture, as some mentioned before it most likely is not Mac OS X, is it? And what about battery life, does it match the MBP 17 inch battery life time? - Peter Simoons

If this feels better to use than a mac, then it will do well. A shopping list of new features won't matter if it doesn't do the core things that make people love Macs. - Sam from twhirl

I don't believe you :) Let's revisit this thread when it comes out and see if you follow through - Bwana ☠

So this is going to bring beleaguered Dell out of the doldrums? Apple did that, but I'll not hold my breath because of Dell's basic build-em-cheap philosophy. - Rick Cogley

there's claims it is sporting a Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD, Series 4 for video.. if so, that's one giant missed opportunity! - alphaxion

touch screen would be great, there is a big need in netbooks because of the improvement of usable input area - Mike Chelen

ok, I'm also intrigued. I can't figure out what is so special about this new notebook. - timepilot

Robert: Can have your Mac when you're done with it? :) - John Fox

Hmmm ... I am thinking Dell beat Crunchpad to market with a touchscreen running Win7... If so, Yay for Dell, way to go!!! I will definitely want a Z if so!! *Looks around for @RichardatDELL* :) - Susan Beebe

The way things are going my mom will never get her new computer. I keep telling her something better is just around the corner. - ChiliMac

^^ so true! - Ronald

that thing looks massive. but I bet you don't actually switch to it when the time comes. - felix

Yeah, do want to know what makes it so compelling over the Mac. - Karma Martell

I have a MacBook Pro, and wouldn't drop it for anything. - Geoff Peterson

Surely the OS is what's key? The hardware must be good but it can't make up for any deficiencies in the OS. - Mayuresh Walke

Isn't this just another one of the Adamo line? - JA Castillo

JA: nope. - Robert Scoble

I'm assuming it's windows 7 multi touch and gestural support. The surface code that's now part of windows 7... - mikepk

mikepk: there are more features than that that Apple doesn't yet have. Gotta wait, though, I promised not to leak. - Robert Scoble

Dont throw it away! Im sure there are plenty of people that would love to have your old mac! - James Hague

If it doesn't run OS X it's pointless. - Peter Kruit

Peter: it runs it, but you can't buy OSX legally for use on non Apple computers. I totally disagree with your thesis, though. I'm running Windows 7 right now on my Mac and it works VERY NICELY. - Robert Scoble

I'm sure Windows 7 is working nicely, but Windows just doesn't compare to OS X. Mind you, I've only been using OS X for a year now. Before that I was a Windows/DOS user. - Peter Kruit

Peter: again, I totally disagree. It's clear you haven't tried Windows 7 out on your Mac yet. There are many things in it that are nicer than Apple has. Especially the toolbar and especially Google Chrome. - Robert Scoble

I have tried Windows 7. It's the same registry and DLL hell that it's always been. - Peter Kruit

Agree with Scoble... Win7 has many things nicer than OSX. - Adnan

Peter: I haven't had a problem with DLL hell and the registry for years. I guess you still trying to run VB 2.0 apps? ;-) - Robert Scoble

1. Never put anything into the registery unless it will affect another part of the system. 2. DLL hell ended in Win98. WinXP/2000 added a way to solve all DLL problems with no rebooting, but the coders have been lazy/ignorant (see #1). - xero

hehe ;) - Peter Kruit

I'm a poor geek on a fixed income and the only thing I ever wanted in the whole wide world is a Macbook Pro. :) - JCunwired

Still a Dell though ;) - Peter Kruit

Yes, case in point- and that's a deal breaker for just about any Mac user. - Dean Kakridas from email

I switched to Macs 3 years ago but I have to say Windows 7 will make me rethink that decision. It is much more than a "Vista Service Pack". - Steve de Mena

My husband has a Dell laptop and it's really nice, so I am definitely gonna check the Z out... - Susan Beebe

Peter: It is possible to install MAC OSX on your Dell thanks to the OSx86 Project: http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki... Although it may not be entirely legal this is still going to happen and Apple should roll with it and embrace the hacker culture. If this Dell can run Boot Camp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...), and give users the option of running either Mac or Vista that would be awesome! - Garin Kilpatrick

Garin: that's possibly the ultimate manifestation of "lipstick on a pig"! - Dean Kakridas from email

Dean: No way, Sarah Palin is the ultimate lipstick pig and Mac OSX on a Dell is cool! - Garin Kilpatrick

Garin: that she is and might be the ultimate candidate for a Dell actually. - Dean Kakridas from email

Is there some new synchronization feature using Microsoft's Mesh technology or something? Win7 is suppose to have some Mesh tech built-in. - Jeff Weber

Dean: Haha! Jeff: Mesh is probably windows only syncing, but I have not investigated. I use http://www.getdropbox.com/ for syncing my files between my PC and Mac, and it works great! - Garin Kilpatrick

interesting! Windows 7 indeed rocks... and yes - i own macs and pcs - andy brudtkuhl

Jason: it doesn't have Vista. Thanks for playing. - Robert Scoble

any idea if this is a joint effort with the alienware talent they acquired? - Trey Philips

Jason: let's talk after you see it. You might still be a Mac fan but you will at least pause after you see the secret stuff this does. - Robert Scoble

Jason: You are right on. And furthermore, many have not even really "tried". Nothing out there that claims to even compete with Apple products have put close to the level of time, resource, and dollar investment in design and software that Apple has. Anyone who has been in the tech industry for the past 10 years now knows that there's Apple and then a bunch of pretenders and bad imitators. - Dean Kakridas from email

That's like saying I am throwing away my Mercedes for the new Chrysler. You still get Dell support and service which has forced me to find new vendors. Wish windows server products ran on os x server. Then we could go all mac hardware. - Dan Douglass from Nambu

You're joking, right? - Steve Council

I've never had a single problem with Dell support. Apple's on the other hand is useless. 10 working day repair time for a machine, compared to next business from Dell. Had to repair a failing disk ourselves because Apple wouldn't replace it, if tech tools said it was bad, 'tech tools isn't any good', and when disk utility said it was bad, 'tech tools is more accurate'. Wouldn't put anything important on Apple hardware or support. - Russ

Is this the laptop you saw? http://content.dell.com/us... - Robert

No, Robert, it's this - http://www.engadget.com/2009... - Ken Sheppardson

But I am the Z-man.. this is my brand... http://www.zoliblog.com/2007... I'll fight for it unless Dell wants to corrupt me by sending a Z-thingie :-) - Zoli Erdos

I'll throw my Mac out for this ... when it's running OS X. C'mon Dell & Jobs! Stop competing and own the whole market! :) - Robert J Taylor

I've been dreaming of a laptop that wirelessly charges for years. Although they need to get it like WiFi so it don't have to sit on a "dock"... - Jon