One of the new features that MacBook users will appreciate is the new magnetic MagSafe connector for the power cord. Now when somebody trips over the cord running to your laptop, it will just pop off its little connector dock on the laptop, instead of taking your shiny new $2,000 pride and joy with it on a tragic journey down to the floor.

ThinkPads (and recently, other notebooks as well) have a different solution: they automatically park their hard disks when they sense that the machine has been bumped or is falling. This prevents damage to the hard disk--but not the screen or the case. Apple's solution is elegant and smart. And clearly it's more effective to prevent computers from flying off desks than to try to rescue them once they are already airborne.

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