I love the internet. John Scalzi stupidly left his new MacBook Air in JFK recently, and he's identified its location and locked it remotely.

What are the chances he'll ever get it back? Low, I guess: but I love that the technology exists for him to get this far with the hunt.

Me, I wouldn't know how to start, but then my laptop rarely leaves my house...

My MacBook has reached the tipping point for replacement--there's a burnt out spot on the screen (can work around that), a battery that won't charge (annoying, but removable part, eh?) and now a broken touchpad, and I don't have anywhere simple to put a mouse--I'm currently using my Wacom tablet for anything more complicated than moving the cursor or double clicking--I can't select text, for instance, with the touchpad anymore.

Anyway, weep weep. I'm out of touch, and am looking at the Apple site to see what's what. The Retina comes with only 256GB flash storage? I've got more than that on my current machine. I mean, I'm using more than that. And there's no CD/DVD drive either.

Is there more difference between normal and hi res than topping out at 1680x1050? I do like me some hi res, but that's not enough to justify the extra money.

And it's a damned shame the rest of the Retina box doesn't seem to meet my requirements, because it's thin, light, and pretty on top of the graphics.

I feel like the cool kids have already achieved singularity. I mean, they don't even seem to be on my lawn any longer.

Entirely unrelated: does anyone here run WebOS? What are your opinions? I think it's very pretty, but the lack of free app availability means it's only a curiosity to me.

The new retina MacBook Pro is clearly the way that the MacBook Pro line is heading. There is the option for a 512 GB or 768 GB SSD in them, but it is at an increased cost.

I've looked that the new screens in person and they are very impressive. The actual resolution of the display is 2880 x 1800. The version of the OS for the retina is basically resolution independent so the user no longer selects an exact resolution but rather how large or small they would like their interface elements to appear.

I've been without an optical drive on my MacBook air for a couple of years now and I don't miss it. I have one of the small external ones for the handful of times I've needed it, and that's been maybe half a dozen in the total time I've owned the machine.

If you just want the processor power, take a look at the Macbook Air line. You can now get an 11 or 13 Air with a 2.0 GHz core i7 as an option.

John Scalzi stupidly left his new MacBook Air in JFK recently, and he's identified its location and locked it remotely.

Ha, I love this comment:

My name is Ubu Wanunu from Nigeria. I work for the Abuja airport security. Yesterday an american pilot arriving from New York died here. In his possession i found an MacBook Air squawking your ID. Nobody else noticed. I will gladly send it to you, if you send me 200 US$ shipping costs upfront. Airport workers are not paid well here, so i cannot send it otherwise. Please handle this matter confidential. If official processes are involved, returning your Notebook may take several years.

Entirely unrelated: does anyone here run WebOS? What are your opinions?

I don't run it anymore, but I was part of the team that made it.

On the plus side, the cards and notification interface is still better than Android or iOS, and the way it merges things like contacts and SMS/IM still hasn't been matched.

On the minus side, the phone hardware was never quite good enough, performance in the apps wasn't great and version two of the software is pretty flawed.

The Airs don't work for me because the screens are too small.

I get that Retina is really impressive and super duper, but...my current screen is really nice too. I'm not actually feeling a lack, so it's not high on my list of things to pay for. And the 512GB is way more than I need to spend on a laptop.

The idea of a flash drive is very seductive, but the extra spend is offputting. Maybe if I'd done this with bonus money...but an extra grand right now? Can't justify it.

Is there noticeable lag between the 5400RPM drives and the 7200? What kind of usage would benefit most from that? I'm at 5400 now, and I'm trying to think of when I felt the lack.

I do use my CD/DVD drive often enough that I'm not willing to go external for it yet. I don't have space for that in the same way I don't have space for a mousepad.

Interesting, Rob. I got one of the Touchpads during the fire sales and...it's neat? I mean, I like some of the handling choices, like flipping up the window to get to what's behind it, and stuff.

But why is so much of the app store pay to play? I mean, there's stuff I can't test drive, and I'm not willing to randomly plonk dosh down for my backup tablet. I want to *know*.

Is there something about the development/certification process that makes it relatively expensive, or what?

It sounds like the best machine for you is the standard Macbook Pro then. You can still get a traditional hard drive in it, still has the optical drive, and still has the standard screen resolutions.

Before I started switching to SSD most of my machines were 5400 RPM drives and they are fine for most uses. The only time I've needed 7200 is when I'm doing audio recording and editing to the drive that has a high track count and high edit density.

Yeah--that's what I'm thinking--I'm not editing anything real time, audio or video, so really at best it's irritation, not messing things out.

SSD sounds great, but like Retina, it should probably wait until my next upgrade.

Which leaves me at 2.3GHz, 15" screen (maybe hi res?), 4GB RAM, default 500GB 5400RPM...yeah, I'll look into that.

Thanks for the perspective!

Is there something about the development/certification process that makes it relatively expensive, or what?

I don't think so. It could be less competition allows the developers to keep the prices higher.