Rumor: Ultraportable "NanoBook" to be flash-based

Don't you just love it when two rumors dovetail, creating a single more feasible rumor in the space between? Think about the "true video iPod" and the iPhone rumors--which ended up being about the same device. If you recall the recent rumors of a NAND-flash sporting MacBook and the mythical tales of an ultraportable Mac laptop...well, you see where I'm going with this. Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research, thinks that Apple will launch a laptop later this year that uses flash memory instead of a hard drive. That's right, unlike the HHD machines that are all the rage these days, the rumored "NanoBook" would ditch the spinning drive all together in favor of faster flash memory. Of course, that's going to place some storage limitations on the device, so it would have to run a scaled-down version of the Mac OS, what some are already terming "OS X Lite". The advantages of a flash-based notebook would be many: it would boot faster, use up less energy and boast a longer battery life. And Apple is in a unique position to pull it off, as the company already has flash purchasing agreements with all of the major manufacturers that it uses to supply its iPod line. Could the first company to dispense of the floppy drive do the same with hard drives?

For more on this rumor:
- see this ZDnet story
- as well as this Ars Technica story