Future Macs could be flash-based

The laptops couldn't get much thinner. Remember we are limited by the size of the connections upon it. The Ethernet socket and DVI connectors are quite high considering.

Marky

Future Macs *could* be flash-based?! Wow, thanks for the insight Kreskin.

How about this one... Future Macs *could* have Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Future Macs could have higher resolution, brighter screens! Future Macs could have batteries that run longer!

Can I be called an analyst now??

I could see future iPods being flash-based. They would work like a portable Apple TV, meaning they have a cache for your unwatched TV shows, your latest CDs, etc. Everything else would be streamed over your local area network, or the Internet. If that's the case, then 16GB would suffice. There's no reason why the iPhone couldn't do the same thing.

#12 - Nimrod, you are the one in the dark here. Samsung has already made a laptop with this tech in it - Bloomberg did not have to "dream" it up:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/10/samsung-shows-off-flash-laptop-drive-at-cebit/

Samsung have a 1.8" (which can be fitted into a 2.5" sleeve for an internal laptop bay) flash drive which is 32GB.

However, it costs $600 more than an equivalent mechanical hard drive. And that's at OEM prices.

But possibly Apple could use their buying power for a volume discount.

A nano might be 20% the size of a 5thG, but it's also only 10% of the capacity. I don't see this happening until the GB/$ ratio for flash gets a LOT better.

Someone at Bllomberg read about LG's new laptop prototype with NAND/HDD hybrid drive and they dreamed of a full NAND drive. Whoopie!e

Obvoiusly, we will ventually we will see sub-compact notebooks that are all completely NAND, and then eventually normal notebooks that have all NAND options, but those are still years away.

Between Toshiba's hybrid NAND/HDD drives and Intel's push for integrated NAND on the main board (which I think Apple will use) there is no reason for full NAND to take over with the cost and size limitions still where they are.

no, it cant be thinner with just flash based harddrives. if you want the cd/dvd reader to have any kind of durability you need it to be somewhat thick.

@#8

It's a 1.8" drive.

@ #4: The normal iPod (30/80 GB) is hard drive based, not flash based.