We knew it seemed too good to be true. Given that this summer's MacWorld Expo got moved from our own home in Boston to the Big Apple, we look forward once again to trying to produce AtAT from the decidedly un-TV-studio-like environs of a cheap hotel room. That challenge alone isn't necessarily a big deal, provided one has the hardware to make the process go smoothly. Unfortunately, AtAT's mobile unit consists of a PowerBook Duo 280c, which we love-- but which is really better suited to keeping in touch via email and playing some basic games than it is to producing the daily content that you all know and love. It lacks the RAM, stability, modem speed, and screen real estate (especially screen real estate) that make the production of AtAT a fun and rewarding project. That's why we were so jazzed to hear that Apple's new consumer portable, code-named "P1," might be shipping as early as late April. Plenty of time to pick one up, configure it to our liking, and work out any quirks before we piled into the AtATmobile and drove to New York for the big show this July.

But that "late April" rumor always sounded a bit fishy to us, and now Mac OS Rumors is throwing some new info into the mix, stating that Apple may be releasing its new professional PowerBook at that time instead. Apparently the new pro model, code-named "Lombard," is closer to completion than the P1 is, and the P1's release may now have been bumped back to our originally-predicted MacWorld Expo time frame, according to O'Grady's PowerPage. Which is a big ol' bummer for us, because it means that we'll be Duo-ing it again, unless perhaps P1's are available on the show floor during the Expo itself. We don't particularly want to sink any more money into this Duo, since the P1 is just around the corner, so we figure we'll just tough it out.

As for the option of picking up a cheap PowerBook G3 Series or a spankin' new Lombard instead, well, we've considered it. But one of the things we absolutely love about our antiquated Duo is its teensiness-- it's both small and light. The G3 Series is a behemoth by comparison, and we're also holding out hope that rumors of the P1's super-long battery life will come true. (Plus, we want our next laptop to be purple.) Leave it to Apple to release a consumer laptop that fits our professional needs better than their professional system does-- which is more a function of our decidedly unusual "professional needs" than any kind of miscalculation on Apple's part. In the meantime, perhaps we'll paint our Duo a lovely shade of Grape...