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Are people really demanding thinner laptops? Who is demanding that a laptop or phone be thinner? MAKE THEM THICKER, I want more battery life and better perfor
by naikrovek 7y ago
Are people really demanding thinner laptops? Who is demanding that a laptop or phone be thinner?
MAKE THEM THICKER, I want more battery life and better performance! I am a fat out of shape need and I can carry 40lbs on my back, no sweat. MAKE THEM THICKER.
- megaremote 7y agoI am. As a developer who travels, I want a thinner lighter laptop. I loved the macbook, I want that upgraded.
- dpcan 7y agoLol, I totally agree, why not offer the thick super-long-lasting battery version?!?!? Let the skinny-jeans kids get their skinny phones and have to charge everywhere, but I'm fine with a brick in my pocket if the battery can go for a couple days.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jseliger 7y agoAre people really demanding thinner laptops? Who is demanding that a laptop or phone be thinner? Yes. Anyone who carries them around demands thinner, where possible. I could have bought a MBP and am typing this on a MBA. The latter has various advantages but the latter is fast enough and also lighter. PG uses (used?) 11" MBAs. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/740739637572997120?lang=en https://twitter.com/paulg/status/740739637572997120?lang=en
- garmaine 7y agoI carry my laptop everywhere, and whenever there is a trade-off I demand performance and quality over thin/light. I use my machine to do work. Better performance makes we work better and faster. It's my bread and butter. Less weight... is a slight convenience while commuting, I guess?
- pertymcpert 7y agoWhen you travel, especially internationally where you're probably carrying the laptop in a hand bag then the extra weight starts to be an annoyance. A lot of walking around and 0.5kg savings makes a difference.
- garmaine 7y agoI do a LOT of traveling, as I’m a consultant. I fly 2-3 times a month, often internationally. Seriously it is not a concern for me.
- pertymcpert 7y agoGood for you. You are not everyone. Some people have sore shoulders.
- leppr 7y agoThinner doesn't necessarily mean much lighter though. If weight is an issue then swapping aluminium for plastic would be more effective. But then it would be function over form.
- pertymcpert 7y agoWell aluminum also has the nice property that it's a good thermal conductor, it definitely has functional advantages over plastic. It also has a good specific heat capacity, so as well as conducting away heat via the chassis, it can allow longer bursts of high power usage before temperature limits are reached.
- isostatic 7y agoI carry two. And power leads. And clothes for upto 2 weeks (three at a push). And a 10 port mikrotik, a few cat 6 cables of various lengths, a supple of lc-xx sm fibres and an sfp. Sometimes a pi or two as well.
- AlexandrB 7y ago
- Nursie 7y agoI was so disappointed when they cancelled the little Macbook this year - just a tiny bump in specs, and upgrade the USB-C to TB3 and I would have jumped. That was a nicely sized machine.
- isostatic 7y agoI have three machines 1) desktop (Ubuntu), main daily use at home 2) laptop (t410s/Ubuntu). For work in apps rooms. Really falling to bits now, but still using it due to things like Ethernet port. The keyboard is now worse than the air so looking how beast to replace it 3) MacBook Air, for portable use Right tool for the right job. If I want a portable I’ll go for a small air. If I want a useful machine I’ll go for something larger and heavier, but with the ports I need
- mr__y 7y agothe most environmentally friendly thing you could do with that t410s is to replace the keyboard with a new one instead of replacing the laptop with a new one. This of course assumes that everything else is fine and only the keyboard is falling to bits.
- isostatic 7y agoScreen hinge is as well
- naikrovek 7y agoOn thinkpads those can be tightened pretty easily. Well, they could be tightened back when I carried a few around. I am (perhaps incorrectly) assuming that your hinges are loose and not actually breaking apart.
- isostatic 7y agoTotally gone - the long thin bits are normally connected by two robots, it’s just one. This means the plastic case is separated. While I can just about close the lid by pushing from tr base of the screen, it’s really flakey. The cpu fan doesn’t work either.
- AlexandrB 7y agoI'm "Anyone who carries them around" and I don't demand thinner. I don't mind the weight or size as long as it has the power and usability I need. I still use a "fatty" 13" MBP from 2012 for travel for this reason - great keyboard, lots of ports (no dongles needed), and durable.
- beatgammit 7y agoAnd that's what the MBA is for. The MBP should remain thicker to have more ports and a better keyboard for people that want such things.
- snowwrestler 7y agoThere are like a dozen similar comments I could reply to, but I'll just pick yours to pipe up: hi, I'm a person who wants thinner and lighter laptops. Why? Because I want the least possible weight, and a screen size I can use. The only way to hold screen size constant and drop weight is to get thinner. I just got a 13" MBP, which is about the same weight and size as my 2012 Air, but gives me better battery life, better performance, and a way better screen. It's great. I even like the new keyboard better.
- jackyinger 7y agoI don’t think anyone is arguing that the kind of lightweight laptop you like is inherently bad. I see the appeal of light and minimal, but I also see the idea of heavy and feature packed. Plus pursuing thinness as end in and of itself (edit: to the point that reliability is impacted) is preposterous. Is a few millimeters thinner really going to change the way you feel about your laptop? Probably it would not impact any functional aspect of your relationship with the laptop. After all, thicker doesn’t necessarily mean heavier. I’m fact thicker things are more resistant to bending, so perhaps it could mean lighter. If you want to understand the mechanics, check this out https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_modulus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_modulus
- CoolGuySteve 7y agoI'm like you in that I only ever buy 13" ultralight laptops. But there are diminishing returns after about 3lbs. Like yeah, going from 2.8 to 2lbs is great and all but it's not as notable as the jump 10 years ago from the 5lbs bricks to the original MacBook Air. The computer still takes up about the same space in my bag and I wouldn't really notice ~1 lbs difference, especially if I still have to carry around a 1lbs power adapter because the thin battery lasts less than 8-10 hours of moderate use. In the meantime, the design compromises to get to 2lbs are becoming increasingly aggravating: thinner keyboards that jam, screens bonded to glass so that repair is impossible, RAM and SSD soldered onto the board, batteries broken up into pieces so that replacement is annoying or impossible, passively cooled Intel chips that throttle, weak integrated GPUs. And probably a bunch of other stuff.
- LIV2 7y ago
- throwaway5752 7y agoI agree. Can't they let the Air and Pro diverge? I like them both. A Pro should live up to its name and be expandable and have a useful set of ports. As someone else noted, give extra internal space to the battery. Give it a world class keyboard. Figure out a way to keep the Touch Bar but bring back physical function keys. Let it be a great design given the tech constraints. Let the Air weigh a couple of ounces, be a centimeter thick, and be great specs given the design constraints.
- proverbialbunny 7y agoIf Steve Jobs was alive they probably would have diverged by now, and he would have never allowed the butterfly keyboard.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ntlk 7y agoI am. As it stands, the latest MacBook Pro is too heavy and bulky for me to comfortably carry. Make it more powerful and lighter and I will have a reason to upgrade.
- masklinn 7y agoAh yes, the "I want a horsey" method of engineering.
- dymk 7y agoYou've identified what "demand" is in "supply and demand"
- trymas 7y agoThere's MBA if you want light laptop that is easy to carry. Current MBPs have problems with thermal throttling already, but you want them to be even thinner _and_ more powerful??
- Nursie 7y agoIf thinner == lighter, then I am. I want something I don't even notice in my shoulder bag when I commute. Battery life is good enough, performance is good enough (and can boost a bit when the machine is plugged in). You sound like you might be in the market for a workstation-replacement thinkpad.
- UserIsUnused 7y agoThinkpads do not have OSX. Apple has 3 lines of MacBooks, the MacBook, the MBP and the MBA, why can't they have different focus?
- Nursie 7y agoIt's true that they seem to be more differentiated on price than on target market, with the MB and the Air being "entry level". Not that there is an MB any more. Particularly the Air is weird, it's not a lot slimmer or lighter than the 13" pro now, but it is a lot less powerful. It's a weird market segmentation (to my eyes).
- thrower123 7y agoI have an old HP business laptop I got refurbished for dirt cheap. It has every port you could want from the past two decades, a replacable battery, easy access bays for the multiple drives and RAM. It's probably two inches thick and eight pounds. It's fantastic and I love it. I just wish it were bigger - 17 inch laptops were a nice, but sadly almost extinct, form-factor. Particularly the 2010ish 17" MacBook Pros were rock-solid, indestructible machines.
- csomar 7y agoYes, I want thinner even at a cost. The 2015 is heavy. The 2017/2018 model is way better because carrying it is less of a hassle. If it was 1/2 thickness and 1/2 weight that would be ideal.
- UserIsUnused 7y agoWhy not both? There are 3 models, MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, why can't they diverge in focus? Sure, lighter is better, but that is if there are no trade offs. Some people accept the trade offs, other don't, but you have 3 product lines, why not letting them diverge on this question? Also, you give people reason to have more than 1 Apple laptop, one with ports and great keyboard when ultra portability is not necessary, and the other for portability above all.
- skocznymroczny 7y agoMe. Macbook 12 is one of my favourite machines ever. Every Thinkpad feels super heavy and bulky in comparison and I don't want to use those. I value mobility above all else. If I want performance, I have my desktop machine or cloud for that.
- UserIsUnused 7y agoEven the X1 Carbon?
- skocznymroczny 7y agoYes. It's what I consider a standard laptop size, I wouldn't call it thin and I don't like it. I mean, sure it's still better than some other machine.
- UserIsUnused 7y agoYou live in a weird reality. An USB barely fits the carbon, and yet you don't think it's thin. For you a regular laptop is what everybody else calls an Ultrabook.
- varjag 7y ago…and it's fanless. A difference in comfort that is hard to measure.
- sooheon 7y agoYeah, it felt analogous to the difference between HDDs and SSDs--going from a loud spinny thing to solid-state sleekness.
- beatgammit 7y agoI'm the opposite, I value typing economics above all else, and I'd much rather have more battery life than save a little on weight. For me, 14" is the perfect screen size because it gives me a decent sized keyboard, enough screen to see what I'm doing, it's small enough to fit in my backpack, and large enough to fit a large enough battery to last all day. But for some reason the most recent Thinkpads don't offer a second battery and are trying to go thinner, which is precisely what I don't want. I have my desktop for serious typing and my laptop for a mobile workstation. Sometimes I need to work while visiting family or when going to conferences, and I need a decent keyboard, battery, and performance to do so. If I want thin, I'll get something like a MBA, a tablet, or my little Lenovo Yoga (11"). But that's not enough for me to get work done on the go, it's mostly just barely good enough to take notes and watch videos. I need something capable of compiling decently large codebases and 3D rendering, and no MBA is good enough for that.
- stetrain 7y agoThe iPhone has gotten steadily thicker since the iPhone 6, and has generally increased battery size year over year for the equivalent models.
- logfromblammo 7y agoYes. I want my (non-proprietary) ports, and I want my disk media drive, I want a long-lasting battery, and I want key travel on the keyboard, and I want a power+KVM+USB3 dock with magnetic connector. I will be working and playing on this thing, not waving it around in the air with just two fingers.
- kmlx 7y ago> Are people really demanding thinner laptops? Who is demanding that a laptop or phone be thinner? yes. a lot of people, myself included.