Apple Mac has had an amazing start to the year, with profits up a massive 36% according to recent figures published by the company. The last quarter alone saw a rise of 51% in units sold compared to this time last year, and with the new 3G iPhone being released in June, the trend looks set to continue.

The change in how consumers purchase and play music is a huge part of the Apple turnover (if you excuse the pun!). Macintosh sold a staggering 10.65million iPods in the first 4 months of this year, along with 1.6million Iphones. Apple’s software package iTunes is now the biggest retailer of music in the United States, with a 58% share of the whole market in total and over 50million customers worldwide.

With the consumer slide to the digital side of purchasing music, the same cannot be said for hardware. Apple now has more than 200 official stores across the globe, and these stores alone saw a quarterly rise of 74% in sales this year. This shows that even with the general public embracing the digital age, people still like to see what they are buying first hand when spending a larger amount of money.

This is a real turnaround for the company as before the release of the iPod, there was a lot of talk of Apple going under due to poor sales in a Microsoft dominated market. But with bad customer feedback on the latest Windows Vista programme compared to the excellent reviews of the Mac OSX Leopard operating system, the tide seems to be turning.

Mac computers were always deemed more of a design tool by the general public than a home computer. With the release of the iPod, Apple Mac opened the door to a younger, savvier crowd who wanted their music on the move in a coolly packaged gadget. With more and more people downloading their music, PC users were being infected by a plethora of viruses, whilst Apple customers seem to experience almost none. With the way consumer habits have changed, so has the Apple marketing and product transformed with the times.

The Apple iPhone for instance merges the two most popular gadgets for young people today – their mobile phone and the best MP3 player on the market. Apple is now synonymous with everything that is ‘cool’ about technology, which in my mind is one of the major factors for the upturn in sales. It’s not always been this way though, as I’m pretty sure anyone who purchased the old beige G3 like me will testify!

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The latest, lightest PC laptop, the Lenovo ThinkPad X300, is causing quite a stir within the portable computer market. I’m not sure whether the boys at Macintosh will be quaking in their boots, but I’m sure they will have to sit up and take notice to the machine being bandied around as the ‘Apple Air Killer’.(read our Apple Mac Air review here)

The spec of the X300 is very similar to that of the Air book, with a weight difference of only 0.03kg per unit, whilst Apple offer a 13.3inch LED flat screen compared to the Intel 12.1inch. The X300 is also powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, which was specifically designed by the manufacturer for the Apple Air book, though it does run at the marginally faster speed of 1.83GHz.

For me though, the big difference is the X300 ThinkPad featuring an optical drive. I can understand Apple’s logic in using the Remote Disc software to ‘borrow’ another computers drive, but when you’re on the move and you need to burn a disc quickly, having your own DVD burner is vital. Also the Lenovo Thinkpad has a removable battery, meaning a spare can be carried, unlike the Mac Air’s built in power source. Plus, with the X300 having three USB ports to the Airbook’s one, the ThinkPad’s add on capability far outweigh that of the Mac.

Another major difference is the price, with the Apple Air costing $800 more than the X300. As an Apple user myself, I understand that you do expect to pay more for Macintosh hardware. The machines themselves are always amazing feats of innovative design, one of the main reasons Mac customers keep coming back for more. But, for a PC user this machine is one of the lightest on the market, practical, and comes with a reasonable price tag; surely covering all the bases when considering the purchase of a portable workstation.

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