11 ms·

First thing that came into mind when I heard about project Ara was that, laptops aren't modular because the increased size and weight will out weigh the benefit

First thing that came into mind when I heard about project Ara was that, laptops aren't modular because the increased size and weight will out weigh the benefits. Seemed like the same situation applies to smartphones, only worse.

colechristensen 10y ago
Some people are obsessed with weight/thickness in mobile devices, but not as many as the manufacturers think there are. "modular" really comes down to "repairable" which means extra engineering would have to go in to the fact that you couldn't just glue most pieces together. It _would_ add a little size/mass overhead, but it wouldn't have to add a lot. It would just cut in to bottom lines to build and maintain a consistent form factor. Allowing people to replace parts means they'll be buying fewer new units. My last two laptop purchases were definitely due to a hypothetically fixable problem in an unrepairable form factor.
- lewisl9029 10y ago
  I also wouldn't mind slightly thicker phones, but not necessarily for modularity. I just want to see phones that can be dropped flat on their faces on a concrete sidewalk and still remain in usable condition (i.e. no shattered screen). Making the screen completely modular would be one way to achieve this, since you can just replace the screen with a new one if the old one breaks in a drop. But it can be achieved much more easily and cheaply by simply slightly recessing the screen (or by slightly raising everything around the screen) so the glass never has to make direct contact with concrete in the event of a drop. This is how bumper cases work, and my $3 bumper case has saved my $400 phone enough times that I'd never use a new phone without one. That said, I really wish this kind of resilience was built into the phone itself, so I'd never have to have to cover up the nice design and great feeling materials on my phone with a cheap, bulky, hideous case.
  - SamReidHughes 10y ago
    You could instead just make phones be cheap enough that you don't mind dropping them.
    - mosselman 10y ago
      That's the American spirit!
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - eloisant 10y ago
    Then just buy a case with a nice design. Buy a $20 case instead of a $3 bumper.
    - lewisl9029 10y ago
      Using a separate case still adds a lot more bulk than would be necessary if the protective layer was built into the phone itself. This is just yet another example of the unavoidable cost of modularity that people have been bringing up everywhere in this thread. And even the nicest and most expensive cases I've tried have never really been able to compare with my actual phone in terms of quality of material and design.
      - emodendroket 10y ago
        Yeah, absolutely. You can't buy a high-quality one if you want to.
  - JulianMorrison 10y ago
    Ruggedized phones exist. They look like childproof rubber bricks, but they exist.
  - intoverflow2 10y ago
    > Making the screen completely modular would be one way to achieve this, since you can just replace the screen with a new one if the old one breaks in a drop iPhone 4/4S did this just fine, undo two screws and the glass comes right off ready to be replaced for like $10. iPhone 5> they started fusing the glass to the sensor IIRC so this became far more expensive/cumbersome
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    My original Galaxy S was built like this. The screen was recessed slightly into the bezel.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    Slightly recessing the screen may not be enough. It's certainly not enough for asphalt. You'll need several millimeters of distance, and are probably much better by just placing some protective screen above it (although that increases the chance of something getting damaged - it'll just be the protective screen instead of the real one). I've had good luck in choosing phones with cases just elastic enough to break a bit while protecting the screen (even without any kind of cover). But I never brought into the hard-case movement by Apple.
- kobayashi 10y ago
  I'm not sure if your assertions are true, but I passionately want them to be so.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Some people are obsessed with weight/thickness in mobile devices, but not as many as the manufacturers think there are. " That's not what sales numbers say. People repeatedly buy the thinner/lighter models (which also seem more "advanced to then") over heavier alternatives.
  - intoverflow2 10y ago
    But often you don't even have the option for a thicker model... So how can anyone even claim that?
    - coldtea 10y ago
      From the times that you do have it.
  - colechristensen 10y ago
    This could easily be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Focus most of your efforts putting the good stuff into the thin phones and then run the numbers how everyone is buying thin phones!
- pjc50 10y ago
  > "modular" really comes down to "repairable" which means extra engineering would have to go in to the fact that you couldn't just glue most pieces together. I think those are quite different: a phone that screws/clips together where you can replace a damaged screen is a very different prospect from one made of pluggable blocks.
fnord123 10y ago
They used to be modular until companies started to follow Apple down the current path. I had a Dell Inspiron with removable battery, removable DVD drive, and PCMCIA slot for modular functionality. Now we have come somewhat full circle with Apple's Macbook which has meagre hardware functionality and relies on USB-C to provide the missing functionality in a modular fashion. However it means a nest of cables so it's probably not what anyone wants when they want a modular laptop.
- mmastrac 10y ago
  I had the same thing. Sure it was bulky, heavy plastic at the time, but it never had the investment to evolve into something more efficient. We didn't have to go down the road to soldering all the bits to a tiny motherboard, but Apple's vision of "small and light at all costs", including performance and battery life, killed all the other paths for the foreseeable future. I might investigate EOMA68 stuff, though it is likely years before it'll be viable, if ever (especially given their anti-intel sentiment): http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68 http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68
  - rayiner 10y ago
    > including performance and battery life Apple is the only vendor that has a 15" laptop with high-res screen and quad-core processor that gets 8+ hours of battery life. The only laptops with greater battery capacity than the Macbook Pros are the Thinkpads with extended batteries that stick out of the machine.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Apple has driven the market back to the days of 8 and 16 bit computers. The PC was the outlier that allowed for easy expansion. Now we have USB instead of Amiga expansion bays, that required a table with big enough width. Instead we scatter cables and hubs.
- delecti 10y ago
  Realistically your Dell Inspiron was only slightly more modular than most early Android phones. Battery and external storage were swappable, but the bulk of the remainder was all integrated.
nix0n 10y ago
Laptops are less modular than desktops but way more modular than phones. HDDs, SSDs, and RAM can generally be upgraded, whereas in phones only the SD card can be upgraded. (In both, batteries and screens can be replaced with OEM parts.)

colechristensen 10y ago

Some people are obsessed with weight/thickness in mobile devices, but not as many as the manufacturers think there are. "modular" really comes down to "repairable" which means extra engineering would have to go in to the fact that you couldn't just glue most pieces together. It _would_ add a little size/mass overhead, but it wouldn't have to add a lot. It would just cut in to bottom lines to build and maintain a consistent form factor. Allowing people to replace parts means they'll be buying fewer new units. My last two laptop purchases were definitely due to a hypothetically fixable problem in an unrepairable form factor.

lewisl9029 10y ago
I also wouldn't mind slightly thicker phones, but not necessarily for modularity. I just want to see phones that can be dropped flat on their faces on a concrete sidewalk and still remain in usable condition (i.e. no shattered screen). Making the screen completely modular would be one way to achieve this, since you can just replace the screen with a new one if the old one breaks in a drop. But it can be achieved much more easily and cheaply by simply slightly recessing the screen (or by slightly raising everything around the screen) so the glass never has to make direct contact with concrete in the event of a drop. This is how bumper cases work, and my $3 bumper case has saved my $400 phone enough times that I'd never use a new phone without one. That said, I really wish this kind of resilience was built into the phone itself, so I'd never have to have to cover up the nice design and great feeling materials on my phone with a cheap, bulky, hideous case.
- SamReidHughes 10y ago
  You could instead just make phones be cheap enough that you don't mind dropping them.
  - mosselman 10y ago
    That's the American spirit!
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- eloisant 10y ago
  Then just buy a case with a nice design. Buy a $20 case instead of a $3 bumper.
  - lewisl9029 10y ago
    Using a separate case still adds a lot more bulk than would be necessary if the protective layer was built into the phone itself. This is just yet another example of the unavoidable cost of modularity that people have been bringing up everywhere in this thread. And even the nicest and most expensive cases I've tried have never really been able to compare with my actual phone in terms of quality of material and design.
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      Yeah, absolutely. You can't buy a high-quality one if you want to.
- JulianMorrison 10y ago
  Ruggedized phones exist. They look like childproof rubber bricks, but they exist.
- intoverflow2 10y ago
  > Making the screen completely modular would be one way to achieve this, since you can just replace the screen with a new one if the old one breaks in a drop iPhone 4/4S did this just fine, undo two screws and the glass comes right off ready to be replaced for like $10. iPhone 5> they started fusing the glass to the sensor IIRC so this became far more expensive/cumbersome
- jschwartzi 10y ago
  My original Galaxy S was built like this. The screen was recessed slightly into the bezel.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  Slightly recessing the screen may not be enough. It's certainly not enough for asphalt. You'll need several millimeters of distance, and are probably much better by just placing some protective screen above it (although that increases the chance of something getting damaged - it'll just be the protective screen instead of the real one). I've had good luck in choosing phones with cases just elastic enough to break a bit while protecting the screen (even without any kind of cover). But I never brought into the hard-case movement by Apple.
kobayashi 10y ago
I'm not sure if your assertions are true, but I passionately want them to be so.
coldtea 10y ago
>Some people are obsessed with weight/thickness in mobile devices, but not as many as the manufacturers think there are. " That's not what sales numbers say. People repeatedly buy the thinner/lighter models (which also seem more "advanced to then") over heavier alternatives.
- intoverflow2 10y ago
  But often you don't even have the option for a thicker model... So how can anyone even claim that?
  - coldtea 10y ago
    From the times that you do have it.
- colechristensen 10y ago
  This could easily be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Focus most of your efforts putting the good stuff into the thin phones and then run the numbers how everyone is buying thin phones!
pjc50 10y ago
> "modular" really comes down to "repairable" which means extra engineering would have to go in to the fact that you couldn't just glue most pieces together. I think those are quite different: a phone that screws/clips together where you can replace a damaged screen is a very different prospect from one made of pluggable blocks.

fnord123 10y ago

They used to be modular until companies started to follow Apple down the current path. I had a Dell Inspiron with removable battery, removable DVD drive, and PCMCIA slot for modular functionality. Now we have come somewhat full circle with Apple's Macbook which has meagre hardware functionality and relies on USB-C to provide the missing functionality in a modular fashion. However it means a nest of cables so it's probably not what anyone wants when they want a modular laptop.

mmastrac 10y ago
I had the same thing. Sure it was bulky, heavy plastic at the time, but it never had the investment to evolve into something more efficient. We didn't have to go down the road to soldering all the bits to a tiny motherboard, but Apple's vision of "small and light at all costs", including performance and battery life, killed all the other paths for the foreseeable future. I might investigate EOMA68 stuff, though it is likely years before it'll be viable, if ever (especially given their anti-intel sentiment): http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68 http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68
- rayiner 10y ago
  > including performance and battery life Apple is the only vendor that has a 15" laptop with high-res screen and quad-core processor that gets 8+ hours of battery life. The only laptops with greater battery capacity than the Macbook Pros are the Thinkpads with extended batteries that stick out of the machine.
pjmlp 10y ago
Apple has driven the market back to the days of 8 and 16 bit computers. The PC was the outlier that allowed for easy expansion. Now we have USB instead of Amiga expansion bays, that required a table with big enough width. Instead we scatter cables and hubs.
delecti 10y ago
Realistically your Dell Inspiron was only slightly more modular than most early Android phones. Battery and external storage were swappable, but the bulk of the remainder was all integrated.

nix0n 10y ago

Laptops are less modular than desktops but way more modular than phones. HDDs, SSDs, and RAM can generally be upgraded, whereas in phones only the SD card can be upgraded. (In both, batteries and screens can be replaced with OEM parts.)