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You've made a great argument for a lighter laptop. Your 2017 laptop is a whopping 36% thinner than your 2015 laptop but only 11% lighter. This modest differenc

You've made a great argument for a lighter laptop. Your 2017 laptop is a whopping 36% thinner than your 2015 laptop but only 11% lighter. This modest difference in weight is mostly due to the reduced battery size that a more efficient chipset allows the newer laptop to have. The total weight of the 0.8mm thin ribbons of plastic and aluminium shaved off the plastic keys and edge of the aluminium case (the difference in key travel), is negligible compared to the weight of the laptop. Apple could have made a laptop that was within 1% of the weight of your 2017 laptop, had a normal keyboard with good travel, and was just about 0.8mm thicker.

smolder 7y ago
Pursuing thinness at some point even comes at the expense of higher weight, to maintain adequate rigidity. I do feel the newest MBPs gave up too much for the sake of thinness already. (The keyboard is unpleasant to use, on top of being unreliable.) I wish Apple would be so bold as to Think Different here and prioritize usability.
_hardwaregeek 7y ago
There’s the problem of feeling cheap however. If you make a laptop that’s thicker but lighter, you run the risk of having a laptop that feels weirdly light and cheap. Also thickness does matter! If you’re gripping a laptop in one hand, a thinner body is easier to hold. And it’s just plain beautiful. It feels futuristic. Which, yes, is nonsense. But it’s also how you make a product that people want.
- tspiteri 7y ago
  > If you’re gripping a laptop in one hand, a thinner body is easier to hold. Is it though? If you're trying to hold six closed laptops in the same hand, thinner might be better, but when holding one laptop in one hand, it's weight not thickness that matters.
- jtcruthers 7y ago
  Has the product not been thin enough to easily hold one handed for years? We're talking about shaving millimeters off a 1.5 cm thick product. Not inches off something a foot thick
  - Izkata 7y ago
    There's a difference between thin/light and holdability. My prior Asus[0] actually had a part sticking out the back (where the battery was attached) that provided an amazing grip. Flat macbooks, like my current Asus, I'm more afraid will slip out of my grip (or, held from the side, flex and damage something), especially pushing against it with the other hand while using the keyboard. [0] https://www.asus.com/Laptops/U46E/ https://www.asus.com/Laptops/U46E/
- Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
  > a thinner body is easier to hold. And it’s just plain beautiful. It feels futuristic IMO, a thinner body feels fragile. It feels like they've chosen aesthetics over durability to a detrimental extreme. Thinner also means less room for cooling and a smaller battery. If I see a super-thin laptop, I'm going to assume it has low performance to compensate for inadequate cooling. > But it’s also how you make a product that people want. Is anybody asking for a thinner laptop? Or is Apple just creating a benchmark and advertising it? This whole thing just re-affirms my belief that Apple isn't a tech company, they're a fashion company. They have absurdly inflated pricing and over-emphasis on aesthetics over performance.
  - _hardwaregeek 7y ago
    > This whole thing just re-affirms my belief that Apple isn't a tech company, they're a fashion company. They have absurdly inflated pricing and over-emphasis on aesthetics over performance. I don't disagree! If you don't understand fashion, you won't understand Apple. I'm always mystified at how people are seemingly disgusted at Apple's business model of selling products that look good. Well, yeah, people will want to buy products that look and feel good. That's why people buy expensive clothes. They don't buy clothes for the features. They buy it because it looks and feels nice. You can certainly wear clothes that have more "features" like cargo shorts or pants that unzip to shorts. But don't be surprised when people eschew them for clothes that are objectively less practical but more beautiful. It actually stuns me how other companies don't understand aesthetics at all. Windows laptops are shockingly ugly. Thinkpads are truly the cargo shorts of laptops. Sometimes they're slightly slimmer, slightly better cut cargo shorts, but they're still cargo shorts. Microsoft's laptops are probably the closest to beautiful, but they're still not that good. And when they're good, they're suspiciously close to Apple's products. That being said, Apple's laptops aren't as bad for the money as you'd imagine. Try finding a cheaper laptop with a unibody construction that feels as durable, as well built as a Mac. Try finding a cheaper laptop where I can speak to an actual, physical person about getting it fixed. Try finding a cheaper laptop with as fast of an SSD^[1]. Try finding a cheaper laptop with as good of a touchpad. It's not as easy as you'd imagine. [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastest-laptop-ssd-ever/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastes...
api 7y ago
I would prefer the same size as 2015 with the same battery and much longer battery life from reduced power consumption. It seems like Apple is spending the gains from better circuitry in the wrong way.
clairity 7y ago
yes, weight matters much more than thinness, when it comes to portability and usability. my 15” 2008 macbook pro weighed 5 1/2 lbs and hurt my back and shoulders carrying it all day. the 2012/2015 was 4 1/2 lbs; better but not great. somewhere between 3-4 lbs seems to be where the threshold is for portability/usability. with that said, these discussions on mbp keyboards and thinness always miss the reason apple strives for thinness in the first place: to drive the market in a direction where apple is always perceived to have the lead/the best products. thinner products are harder to design, harder to manufacture, and really lean on the supply chain and operational focus/excellence of apple. that gives them their enviable market position, and most of the industry’s profits, so that’s why they do it. it’s really that simple.

smolder 7y ago

Pursuing thinness at some point even comes at the expense of higher weight, to maintain adequate rigidity. I do feel the newest MBPs gave up too much for the sake of thinness already. (The keyboard is unpleasant to use, on top of being unreliable.) I wish Apple would be so bold as to Think Different here and prioritize usability.

_hardwaregeek 7y ago

There’s the problem of feeling cheap however. If you make a laptop that’s thicker but lighter, you run the risk of having a laptop that feels weirdly light and cheap. Also thickness does matter! If you’re gripping a laptop in one hand, a thinner body is easier to hold. And it’s just plain beautiful. It feels futuristic. Which, yes, is nonsense. But it’s also how you make a product that people want.

tspiteri 7y ago
> If you’re gripping a laptop in one hand, a thinner body is easier to hold. Is it though? If you're trying to hold six closed laptops in the same hand, thinner might be better, but when holding one laptop in one hand, it's weight not thickness that matters.
jtcruthers 7y ago
Has the product not been thin enough to easily hold one handed for years? We're talking about shaving millimeters off a 1.5 cm thick product. Not inches off something a foot thick
- Izkata 7y ago
  There's a difference between thin/light and holdability. My prior Asus[0] actually had a part sticking out the back (where the battery was attached) that provided an amazing grip. Flat macbooks, like my current Asus, I'm more afraid will slip out of my grip (or, held from the side, flex and damage something), especially pushing against it with the other hand while using the keyboard. [0] https://www.asus.com/Laptops/U46E/ https://www.asus.com/Laptops/U46E/
Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
> a thinner body is easier to hold. And it’s just plain beautiful. It feels futuristic IMO, a thinner body feels fragile. It feels like they've chosen aesthetics over durability to a detrimental extreme. Thinner also means less room for cooling and a smaller battery. If I see a super-thin laptop, I'm going to assume it has low performance to compensate for inadequate cooling. > But it’s also how you make a product that people want. Is anybody asking for a thinner laptop? Or is Apple just creating a benchmark and advertising it? This whole thing just re-affirms my belief that Apple isn't a tech company, they're a fashion company. They have absurdly inflated pricing and over-emphasis on aesthetics over performance.
- _hardwaregeek 7y ago
  > This whole thing just re-affirms my belief that Apple isn't a tech company, they're a fashion company. They have absurdly inflated pricing and over-emphasis on aesthetics over performance. I don't disagree! If you don't understand fashion, you won't understand Apple. I'm always mystified at how people are seemingly disgusted at Apple's business model of selling products that look good. Well, yeah, people will want to buy products that look and feel good. That's why people buy expensive clothes. They don't buy clothes for the features. They buy it because it looks and feels nice. You can certainly wear clothes that have more "features" like cargo shorts or pants that unzip to shorts. But don't be surprised when people eschew them for clothes that are objectively less practical but more beautiful. It actually stuns me how other companies don't understand aesthetics at all. Windows laptops are shockingly ugly. Thinkpads are truly the cargo shorts of laptops. Sometimes they're slightly slimmer, slightly better cut cargo shorts, but they're still cargo shorts. Microsoft's laptops are probably the closest to beautiful, but they're still not that good. And when they're good, they're suspiciously close to Apple's products. That being said, Apple's laptops aren't as bad for the money as you'd imagine. Try finding a cheaper laptop with a unibody construction that feels as durable, as well built as a Mac. Try finding a cheaper laptop where I can speak to an actual, physical person about getting it fixed. Try finding a cheaper laptop with as fast of an SSD^[1]. Try finding a cheaper laptop with as good of a touchpad. It's not as easy as you'd imagine. [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastest-laptop-ssd-ever/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastes...

api 7y ago

I would prefer the same size as 2015 with the same battery and much longer battery life from reduced power consumption. It seems like Apple is spending the gains from better circuitry in the wrong way.

clairity 7y ago

yes, weight matters much more than thinness, when it comes to portability and usability. my 15” 2008 macbook pro weighed 5 1/2 lbs and hurt my back and shoulders carrying it all day. the 2012/2015 was 4 1/2 lbs; better but not great. somewhere between 3-4 lbs seems to be where the threshold is for portability/usability. with that said, these discussions on mbp keyboards and thinness always miss the reason apple strives for thinness in the first place: to drive the market in a direction where apple is always perceived to have the lead/the best products. thinner products are harder to design, harder to manufacture, and really lean on the supply chain and operational focus/excellence of apple. that gives them their enviable market position, and most of the industry’s profits, so that’s why they do it. it’s really that simple.