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How will my plan to build and sell aluminum unibody laptops fail?

* Aluminum unibody * Normal scissor-switch laptop keyboard * Off the shelf high resolution IPS panel * Large glass trackpad How hard could it be? # Design Laptops don't need a lot to be a world apart from plastic laptops that flex and creak and overheat. Apple seems to be the only manufacturer that knows this, apart from IBM with the ThinkPad which Lenovo is now diluting (RIP) and Microsoft lately (shoutout). Key is a sturdy unibody bottom piece made of a material with good heat conduction (aluminum). Run the fans only when you have to, avoid filling up with dust. Basically get "inspired" by Apple's Macbook Pro. Copy it's airflow design. Make it have a simple, attractive shape with flat surfaces and rounded corners. Taper off the edges to make it seem thinner and also to allow it to be picked up from a flat surface. Get a good off the shelf high resolution IPS display. Have a large glass touchpad. Sacrifice 1-2mm of "thinness" and put a proper normal scissor-switch keybard in. 75-100 watt-hours of flat lipo batteries. Put in a couple of key ports that are sorely missing from the MacBook. Don't go overboard, save yourself from the cost and complexity. # Execution Hire one or two highly experienced electronics design and manufacturing professionals. Hire a core team of highly motivated and moderately to highly experienced engineers. Start with only one model: the 15 inch. Go for a price around $1000-1500. Market at small scale to developers for the first couple batches of laptops. Iron out potential quirks in product, supply chain, and customer support. Then, if all stars align: launch at $999, same hardware features as a MacBook Pro plus some ports minus the touchbar. Create and ride the Macbook killer media hype and simultaneously run a quality "hip, cool, and happy people use this laptop" marketing campaign to build the brand. Get more funding and run more marketing campaigns. Sell a lot of laptops to people who want a great aluminum unibody laptop. Profit.

tlb 8y ago
There are a few products out there like what you describe: Dell XPS: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15/spd/xps-15-9560-laptop https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15/spd/xps-... ASUS Zenbook: https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ASUS-ZenBook-Pro-UX501VW/ https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ASUS-ZenBook-Pro-UX501VW/ That doesn't mean you can't do better. I think the machinery to make unibodies will mean a large capital cost, so you might need large volumes make the economics work.
- wmf 8y ago
  Also https://www.razer.com/comparisons/blade https://www.razer.com/comparisons/blade and https://consumer.huawei.com/us/tablets/matebook-x-pro/ https://consumer.huawei.com/us/tablets/matebook-x-pro/
- tudelo 8y ago
  I had a refurbished zenbook throughout college. Aside from the fact that the keyboard connector would never stay in, it was a great laptop for a fraction of the price of a macbook.
wmf 8y ago
The NRE would be millions, maybe over $10M and the COGS alone would probably be $1,500 so I don't think the unit economics work. An ODM model might be a better idea; ASUS is probably willing to design and build a customized ZenBook with your logo for a much lower price than you could do it as a separate company.
slipwalker 8y ago
try to pick and choose your hardware to be 110% compatible with macOS. Be a cheaper (clone) Mac, and let the users to easily hackintosh it... but with proper plausible deniability.
thiago_fm 8y ago
It will fail because building laptops isn't a profitable business as you think. The margins kind of sucks and the equipment in order to make it is very expensive. I don't believe Dell or those companies that make it, make the whole thing. They generally don't even assembly it. It makes no f. sense as companies are able to work in limited scope, otherwise they start to become very ineffective. Companies that make money with it probably make it due to having a large scale and being able to negotiate a good price for the hardware it gets in. If I would try to do so something, I would try to understand well the business and see what makes it expensive. For example, is it physically feasible to make the bodies cheaper in a 10x scale? If yes, then maybe open a company that sells only that part that you figured out and after you try to get into that market. It's a very, very, very tough market. If you think it is a good business, buy those companies stock. I wouldn't though.
- butimnotarapper 8y ago
  Do the margins really suck on a $6000 Macbook Pro? I have a strong feeling there's a significant margin on these laptops, even the $2400 Macbook Pro.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    The OP isn't Apple. They're competing with sub $1k laptops made by reputable manufacturers who spread their branding and marketing costs across a lot more products, probably by trying to offer higher-value internal components which must be acquired without access to the larger manufacturers' low cost supply chain and bulk discounts.
kitsunesoba 8y ago
I would argue more than hardware (there are decent-ish non Apple options out there), the problem lies in software. As such I think perhaps a better plan would be to start a company that owns the entire end-to-end user experience of a Linux distro, ruthlessly chasing down inconsistencies, jank, rough edges, etc and putting huge priority into responsiveness and “just working” over being interesting or novel. Some would argue that Canonical does this with Ubuntu, but I don’t think they go far enough... if they did, practically nobody would consider anything but Ubuntu for desktop usage, but that’s far from the truth. I would even go as far as forking major FOSS projects like LibreOffice and giving them the same treatment (upstreaming the more universal improvements, of course), making the apps fit perfectly into your distro. Include WINE by default along with “profiles” that are constantly updated and automatically kick in when running popular Windows programs (eliminating tedious config). Find 2-3 PC vendors to tightly couple with for day 1 support on new models and such. Essentially, you’d be reproducing Apple’s software software strategy except fully FOSS, making money off of support and PC vendor kickbacks.

tlb 8y ago

There are a few products out there like what you describe: Dell XPS: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15/spd/xps-15-9560-laptop https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15/spd/xps-... ASUS Zenbook: https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ASUS-ZenBook-Pro-UX501VW/ https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ASUS-ZenBook-Pro-UX501VW/ That doesn't mean you can't do better. I think the machinery to make unibodies will mean a large capital cost, so you might need large volumes make the economics work.

wmf 8y ago
Also https://www.razer.com/comparisons/blade https://www.razer.com/comparisons/blade and https://consumer.huawei.com/us/tablets/matebook-x-pro/ https://consumer.huawei.com/us/tablets/matebook-x-pro/
tudelo 8y ago
I had a refurbished zenbook throughout college. Aside from the fact that the keyboard connector would never stay in, it was a great laptop for a fraction of the price of a macbook.

wmf 8y ago

The NRE would be millions, maybe over $10M and the COGS alone would probably be $1,500 so I don't think the unit economics work. An ODM model might be a better idea; ASUS is probably willing to design and build a customized ZenBook with your logo for a much lower price than you could do it as a separate company.

slipwalker 8y ago

try to pick and choose your hardware to be 110% compatible with macOS. Be a cheaper (clone) Mac, and let the users to easily hackintosh it... but with proper plausible deniability.

thiago_fm 8y ago

It will fail because building laptops isn't a profitable business as you think. The margins kind of sucks and the equipment in order to make it is very expensive. I don't believe Dell or those companies that make it, make the whole thing. They generally don't even assembly it. It makes no f. sense as companies are able to work in limited scope, otherwise they start to become very ineffective. Companies that make money with it probably make it due to having a large scale and being able to negotiate a good price for the hardware it gets in. If I would try to do so something, I would try to understand well the business and see what makes it expensive. For example, is it physically feasible to make the bodies cheaper in a 10x scale? If yes, then maybe open a company that sells only that part that you figured out and after you try to get into that market. It's a very, very, very tough market. If you think it is a good business, buy those companies stock. I wouldn't though.

butimnotarapper 8y ago
Do the margins really suck on a $6000 Macbook Pro? I have a strong feeling there's a significant margin on these laptops, even the $2400 Macbook Pro.
- notahacker 8y ago
  The OP isn't Apple. They're competing with sub $1k laptops made by reputable manufacturers who spread their branding and marketing costs across a lot more products, probably by trying to offer higher-value internal components which must be acquired without access to the larger manufacturers' low cost supply chain and bulk discounts.

kitsunesoba 8y ago

I would argue more than hardware (there are decent-ish non Apple options out there), the problem lies in software. As such I think perhaps a better plan would be to start a company that owns the entire end-to-end user experience of a Linux distro, ruthlessly chasing down inconsistencies, jank, rough edges, etc and putting huge priority into responsiveness and “just working” over being interesting or novel. Some would argue that Canonical does this with Ubuntu, but I don’t think they go far enough... if they did, practically nobody would consider anything but Ubuntu for desktop usage, but that’s far from the truth. I would even go as far as forking major FOSS projects like LibreOffice and giving them the same treatment (upstreaming the more universal improvements, of course), making the apps fit perfectly into your distro. Include WINE by default along with “profiles” that are constantly updated and automatically kick in when running popular Windows programs (eliminating tedious config). Find 2-3 PC vendors to tightly couple with for day 1 support on new models and such. Essentially, you’d be reproducing Apple’s software software strategy except fully FOSS, making money off of support and PC vendor kickbacks.