Attention to detail. That's what I love about the hardware design of the Messagepad 2000; heck, that's what I love about all Apple products. I got into a really short debate with an industrial design student (recent grad?) about what he thought were some flaws in the design of the Messagepad 2000. He made some good points but to me the design is dead-on. Everything feels "solid" and complete. Most importantly, everthing seems geared toward ease of use. No surprise there.
Hold the unit in your hand and you'll instantly feel like you are holding something valuable. The feel of the case is slightly "grippy". Not exactly rubbery, but not like smooth metal or plastic. The weight is pretty impressive too (pick your own definition of "impressive"). 1.4 pounds if you believe the Apple literature. If you own some smaller handheld you may say "wow, that's heavy". On the other hand, if you are used to lugging around a 5+pound notebook computer you'll be stunned at how light it feels. For me, the weight isn't much of an issue. Sure, I would love it if it were lighter, but I wouldn't want to give up any features in the interest of saving a few ounces.
Some people feel the Messagepad 2000 is too big. In comp.sys.newton.misc here are lots of requests for a "pilot sized" newton. While I won't debate the need for a smaller newton, I will state that one of the things I like most about the Messagepad 2000 is it's size. I don't want a smaller newton. To be able to write naturally I need a little bit of room, and the display of the Messagepad 2000 gives me that room. Much smaller and it just wouldn't be as useful to me.
Speaking of the display... wow. The Apple engineers really did a great job with this one. Half-VGA (320x480) with 16 shades of gray, and an impressive 100 dots per inch make this perhaps the finest display of any portable device. Some people say "sure, but color would be nice". Color would be nice, but it would require more power and not really aid usability that much. It would certainly demo well though.
Speaking of batteries, Apple claims that under "normal" use (whatever that means) the batteries will last three to six weeks. Me? I'm getting two to three weeks. But this is with an off-the-shelf set of AA alkalines. Let's see a laptop last two weeks with normal use. Let's see a laptop last two days with normal use... And the fact that the Messagepad can use ordinary batteries is another stroke of brilliance on the part of the Apple engineers. Perhaps they could have squeezed out a little more battery life or trimmed some weight with a custom battery, but I love knowing if my batteries are low I can just go to the local quick-shop or airport gift shop and be up and running in no time.
There's more to the hardware story that what I've presented here. Eventually I want to address the PCMCIA slots (two, thank you very much!), the interconnect port (for the record, I like it), the processor (can you say 'fast'?), memory (enough for most purposes) and storage (enough to get started). But I'll save that for another time.