If you flash back to 2007, you may remember the release of the ModBook, a Mac PC tablet by Axiatron of which by today’s standards looks much too chunky to even think of holding.

Since its announcement, there have been rumors of a new ModBook hitting the market, and today, after a years’ worth of hushed up speculation, the ModBook Pro is available for sale.

The ModBook is essentially a tablet running Mountain Lion. Before you think that it’s a new attempt by Apple to regain control of the current tablet market, think again, this piece of equipment is going to set a standard of its own.

The 13.3 inch tablet will include some impressive specs in comparison to the iPad. The base model will be powered by a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5, and 64GB full SSD storage.  512 pressure level display. The base price will be a staggering $3,499, whilst the most expensive at $4,819, will include a 2.9 Core i7, 16GB RAM, and a huge 480GB SSD.

This is probably a great step for Mac users, allowing them to customize the hardware they use their operating system on in a way that they see fit, and ModBook will even include an optional Windows 7 software installation.

The ModBook can be purchased from the new website  Modbookshop.com by ModBook Inc. where you’ll be able to choose different priced components to be placed into the new tablet.  They are asking for $500 deposit, and will ship it to you on November 16, 2012.

Obviously it doesn’t come cheap, and it’s likely Microsoft will follow up shortly with their own Windows 8 comparisons. Would you be willing to pay $3-$4,000 on a Apple tablet? How much would you be willing to spend?

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I actually remember hearing about the Modbook many years back. At the time, there was no iPad and the whole tablet market had yet to really take off, but I always thought the idea was at least kinda cool. During these days, the ModBook took stock MacBooks and took them apart, putting them back together as keyboard-less touch-tablets.

The company that did all of this called themselves Axiotron, and while this company has long since appeared, it seems that the idea hasn’t. A new company, Modbook Inc, has formed again and is now creating its own Modbook Pro. The Pro is by the same designers as the original, even if its not under the same company name, and this time takes a 13-inch MacBook Pro for the modification.

While OSX has certainly become more touch-friendly with new iOS-like features in Mountain Lion, its still no iOS, so I’m curious as to how many would actually be interested in such a device. Sure, there is likely to be a small niche of users that want a full PC experience with their tablet, and the Pro could beautifully deliver there- of course it will also have to fight off the competition from similar full-powered PC tablets running Windows 8 later this year.

Overall, there is a reason why the company shut its doors in the first place- they have a cool idea but there just isn’t a huge amount of demand, especially considering the price of using a stock device and doing modifications make the whole thing rather expensive. For now, we don’t know full details such as pricing, but it will all come down to whether or not its affordable enough to be worth it. The majority of us probably won’t want to spend $2000+ on a tablet, but I’m sure there are at least a few users out there that might have demand for such a unique device, and all the company likely needs is a few sales to at least come out even.
What do you think about the idea of a ModBook Pro?

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