Tablet PC, Mac style: a review of the Axiotron ModBook

A solution in search of a problem?

The rumors of the Modbook's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Introduced in January of 2007 at the Macworld Expo, Axiotron's modified MacBook caught the attention of many Mac users who had been waiting for Apple to introduce its own tablet-like machine—particularly artists and graphic professionals.

Unfortunately, Axiotron encountered a number of setbacks throughout 2007 that ultimately caused the ModBook to be delayed for a year, causing some to write off the ModBook as vaporware. At Macworld 2008, Axiotron CEO Andreas Haas spoke with us about what caused the delays, why the company chose to go ahead with a Mac-based tablet, and what the future looked like for the ModBook.

With Axiotron fulfilling all of its backed-up preorders and catching up on orders from Macworld, the company is finally on track and has a shipping product. Without any official tablet-like product from Apple, the ModBook is the only machine of its kind that runs Mac OS X, and it's the perfect time to put one through its paces.

Out of the box

The ModBook comes to you in its original MacBook packaging, so the "unboxing" experience is extremely similar to any other MacBook from Apple. In addition to the machine itself, a packet of system discs, and the power supply, the ModBook also comes with one extra stylus and a small package full of stylus tips.

Since the ModBook is merely a modified MacBook, its dimensions are almost the same as the MacBook—the key word here being "almost." The width and depth of the machine remain at 12.78 and 8.92 inches, respectively, but the ModBook gains just a hair in thickness—going from the MacBook's 1.08 inches to 1.16 inches.

That 0.08 inches translates to another half pound, though; the ModBook weighs 5.5 pounds (compared to the MacBook's 5.0). In a world where machines like the MacBook Air are becoming more commonplace, a half-pound gain could be detrimental to a portable machine. Indeed, the thing did sort of feel like a brick (what can we say—the MacBook Air spoils us pretty easily), but weight may not matter much, seeing as how the ModBook cannot be used easily as a typical laptop. More on this later. 

The ModBook unit that we received is the same base machine as the Santa Rosa MacBook we reviewed in December. It has a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, although the RAM has been maxed out to 4GB.