iLounge

New for Mac, Expressionist Classic + SeeThru Satin

As mentioned in the Backstage entry below, I’m fresh back from a brief vacation, and as of this afternoon, finally finished digging through the huge pile of iPod and iPhone items that arrived while I was out of town. That brings us to the smaller Mac pile, specifically, two new accessories from Altec Lansing and Speck.

We are especially interested in Altec’s new offering. Expressionist Classic ($80) is a pair of three-inch speaker drivers inside of translucent clear and opaque black plastic frames. The reason this grabbed us isn’t the simple, two-channel audio, but the combination of an attractive price tag and legitimately cool industrial design. Expressionist Classic looks a lot like the other components on our main glass and metal Mac desk, except for one surprise: the plastic is for some reason smoke gray rather than completely clear as shown on Altec’s web site. We’ll have more to say on this, and the previously-released Expressionist Bass, soon.

SeeThru Satin ($50) is Speck’s entry into the soft touch rubber-coated plastic hardshell game, following similar designs from Incase. New versions have just been released for the late 2008 MacBook and MacBook Pro models, and we’re currently playing with a black one on the 13” aluminum MacBook. For reasons we’ll share in an upcoming Backstage piece, the InvisibleShield has been removed from the MacBook after a few weeks of service, making some form of protection again desirable. Interestingly, Satin came with an orange cleaning cloth and instructions to remove the sand and debris that Speck apparently knew would be found inside its own packaging after the shell was opened.

More pictures of both of these new items can be found by clicking on the title of this article, or on Read More below. Details will soon follow.

Expressionist Classic

SeeThru Satin