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Except it seems like any time there is a nice drop in power consumption Apple says "oh look at how much thinner we can make it by shipping it with a smaller bat

Except it seems like any time there is a nice drop in power consumption Apple says "oh look at how much thinner we can make it by shipping it with a smaller battery!"

haswell 10y ago
That may be so, but it doesn't invalidate the point made by the parent comment. What Apple chooses to do with that improvement in power consumption may be up for discussion, but the fact that there is fair criticism about the fact that they didn't wait is not.
mulmen 10y ago
Yes and then they will make the battery thinner than the CPU cooler and instead of solving that one foot will sit slightly lower than the other three and the whole laptop will wobble on a desk. The iPhone6(s)/7 camera lens is such shockingly bad design I still can't understand how Apple justified it to themselves.
scarlac 10y ago
A physically smaller battery usually translates into a weight reduction. I'd even argue that it's the point of laptops: A mobile/light computer. But how you balance the two is a matter of opinion. If you look at the amount of battery-saving features they have been working on, it's obvious that they focus on lowering consumption instead of engaging the spec numbers game.
- twic 10y ago
  > But how you balance the two is a matter of opinion. I guess. But i do wonder if there isn't some framework for thinking about the tradeoff in a quasi-objective way. Is it possible to make any kind of general statements about the marginal utility of improvements in weight/thickness and battery life? One hour of battery life lets me take my laptop to a meeting, or sit on the sofa for a while. Two hours lets me watch a movie on the battery. Eight hours lets me work away from a power socket all day. Twelve hours lets me do that and read HN in the evening. Twenty-four hours is longer than i'm ever away from a power socket. It feels like there's steadily increasing utility up to that "as long as i want to be sat in front of a screen in one day" point. A 15 inch, 2.41 cm thick, 2.54 kg laptop rests comfortably on my thighs, goes in a padded envelope, and fits in my satchel without taking up much space. A 15 inch, 2.79 cm thick, 2.5 kg laptop somehow did seem a lot more ungainly. A 15 inch, 1.55 cm thick, 1.83 kg laptop fits in a bag just as easily, and is comfortable to hold in one hand. Given that i don't often hold a laptop in one hand, that seems like a small increase in utility. Are there other reasons why that 0.86 cm of thickness and 0.71 kg of weight are a real improvement? What does it let me do that i couldn't before?
  - arximboldi 10y ago
    I don't know about thickness, but there is a reason I prefer light laptops: carrying them in a backpack. If I have a 20min commute by bike every day in which I carry the laptop, it really does make a difference. Your back will thank you for those 0.71 kg you took off it.
    - untog 10y ago
      Or you could put the whole weight of your laptop in a bike bag.
      - jbergens 10y ago
        I had to do that, the MacBook Pro is very heavy
    - twic 10y ago
      I have panniers. I rode a bike for years with just a rucksack, and i look back now on those wasted years and despair at my foolishness. If you get panniers, your back will thank you for much more than 0.71 kg!
  - majewsky 10y ago
    > A 15 inch, 1.55 cm thick, 1.83 kg laptop fits in a bag just as easily, and is comfortable to hold in one hand. Are you sure that's "kg" and not "pounds"? I could not imagine holding a 1.83 kg laptop in one hand for longer than a minute or so. (I assume you hold the laptop by its side while the screen is open and active, which creates a surprisingly high torque on one's fingers.) I'm typing this on an 2012 Asus Zenbook that weighs 1.3 kg, which is quite near the sweet spot for me. The only thing I don't like about it is that it has no replaceable parts whatsoever, and the 4GB RAM is starting to feel a bit tight. So if I ever decide to get a new notebook, I might choose something a bit heftier if it offers replaceable RAM, battery, etc.
    - EpicEng 10y ago
      It's kg. You can't imagine holding ~4lbs for more than a minute?
eigenvalue 10y ago
That's what customers seem to want, so that's what Apple is giving them. I can say that one of my favorite things about my new iPad Pro is how thin and light it is, which makes it comfortable read in bed in a way that hasn't been true for me in the past.

Except it seems like any time there is a nice drop in power consumption Apple says "oh look at how much thinner we can make it by shipping it with a smaller battery!"

haswell 10y ago

That may be so, but it doesn't invalidate the point made by the parent comment. What Apple chooses to do with that improvement in power consumption may be up for discussion, but the fact that there is fair criticism about the fact that they didn't wait is not.

mulmen 10y ago

Yes and then they will make the battery thinner than the CPU cooler and instead of solving that one foot will sit slightly lower than the other three and the whole laptop will wobble on a desk. The iPhone6(s)/7 camera lens is such shockingly bad design I still can't understand how Apple justified it to themselves.

scarlac 10y ago

A physically smaller battery usually translates into a weight reduction. I'd even argue that it's the point of laptops: A mobile/light computer. But how you balance the two is a matter of opinion. If you look at the amount of battery-saving features they have been working on, it's obvious that they focus on lowering consumption instead of engaging the spec numbers game.

twic 10y ago
> But how you balance the two is a matter of opinion. I guess. But i do wonder if there isn't some framework for thinking about the tradeoff in a quasi-objective way. Is it possible to make any kind of general statements about the marginal utility of improvements in weight/thickness and battery life? One hour of battery life lets me take my laptop to a meeting, or sit on the sofa for a while. Two hours lets me watch a movie on the battery. Eight hours lets me work away from a power socket all day. Twelve hours lets me do that and read HN in the evening. Twenty-four hours is longer than i'm ever away from a power socket. It feels like there's steadily increasing utility up to that "as long as i want to be sat in front of a screen in one day" point. A 15 inch, 2.41 cm thick, 2.54 kg laptop rests comfortably on my thighs, goes in a padded envelope, and fits in my satchel without taking up much space. A 15 inch, 2.79 cm thick, 2.5 kg laptop somehow did seem a lot more ungainly. A 15 inch, 1.55 cm thick, 1.83 kg laptop fits in a bag just as easily, and is comfortable to hold in one hand. Given that i don't often hold a laptop in one hand, that seems like a small increase in utility. Are there other reasons why that 0.86 cm of thickness and 0.71 kg of weight are a real improvement? What does it let me do that i couldn't before?
- arximboldi 10y ago
  I don't know about thickness, but there is a reason I prefer light laptops: carrying them in a backpack. If I have a 20min commute by bike every day in which I carry the laptop, it really does make a difference. Your back will thank you for those 0.71 kg you took off it.
  - untog 10y ago
    Or you could put the whole weight of your laptop in a bike bag.
    - jbergens 10y ago
      I had to do that, the MacBook Pro is very heavy
  - twic 10y ago
    I have panniers. I rode a bike for years with just a rucksack, and i look back now on those wasted years and despair at my foolishness. If you get panniers, your back will thank you for much more than 0.71 kg!
- majewsky 10y ago
  > A 15 inch, 1.55 cm thick, 1.83 kg laptop fits in a bag just as easily, and is comfortable to hold in one hand. Are you sure that's "kg" and not "pounds"? I could not imagine holding a 1.83 kg laptop in one hand for longer than a minute or so. (I assume you hold the laptop by its side while the screen is open and active, which creates a surprisingly high torque on one's fingers.) I'm typing this on an 2012 Asus Zenbook that weighs 1.3 kg, which is quite near the sweet spot for me. The only thing I don't like about it is that it has no replaceable parts whatsoever, and the 4GB RAM is starting to feel a bit tight. So if I ever decide to get a new notebook, I might choose something a bit heftier if it offers replaceable RAM, battery, etc.
  - EpicEng 10y ago
    It's kg. You can't imagine holding ~4lbs for more than a minute?

eigenvalue 10y ago

That's what customers seem to want, so that's what Apple is giving them. I can say that one of my favorite things about my new iPad Pro is how thin and light it is, which makes it comfortable read in bed in a way that hasn't been true for me in the past.