Slice-only Ultrabook?

This is one of those wouldn't-it-be-cool threads.

I'm researching for a new notebook purchase this summer and I've been consistently disappointed by poor battery life in ultrabooks and similar thin-and-light offerings - manufacturers often cut down on size and weight by cutting down on the battery, which is unacceptable to me. What if an ultrabook were offered with only a tiny internal battery, maybe ten to fifteen minutes worth of power (for hot-swap capability), while utilizing a slice battery for its primary off-grid power source? Externalizing the battery would provide options such as the ability to carry multiple batteries for your ultrabook as well as possibly the option to choose a thinner battery for portability or a thicker battery for maximum battery life. They could even create a stackable slice battery so you could buy multiple thin batteries and customize your battery weight, thickness, and life to whatever your needs were at any given time.

Okay, the stackable slice battery thing is probably not workable, but a slice-only ultrabook would definitely have an advantage over current ultrabooks. They could either use the extra internal space for things like a second mSATA drive, a dGPU, and dual-channel, user-upgradeable RAM, or make the system itself even smaller, while the basic slice battery would get it back to regular ultrabook size (or maybe marginally thicker), but with better battery life and flexibility.

Any thoughts beyond the obvious, "you're dreaming, it's not going to happen?"

 

It's a great idea, especially given how slice batteries have been very well received on the few notebooks that have utilized them. Problem is, none of the PC OEMs are even remotely interested in doing anything innovative

I can't even remember the last time a PC OEM did something that revolutionized the notebook market. It's been an extremely predictable mix of "copy what Apple's doing", "cut costs and quality" and "same tired old design with a faster CPU/RAM/whatever" for at least the past 10 years.

 

It's a crappy idea, because a) a notebook should be portable to begin with and b) a slice is heavier than a built-in battery or even a replaceable battery. Sony's approach is really the only sensible one in the circumstances. Give your machines reasonable runtime with the lightest possible config of built-in battery, then allow it to be expanded.

 

Yeah, it's kind've a silly idea now that you mention it. The problem is that most ultrabook manufacturers are hitting us with the double-edged sword of minimal upgrade- and replacability as well as crappy battery life. If they used the space saved by removing the internal battery to add two user-replaceable RAM slots and an mSATA drive and then added a one-pound, half-inch thick external battery with 6-8 hours of runtime (and hot-swappability) I would be delighted to accept the extra weight. Then again, I'm looking for an ultrabook to replace my Envy 14 that has wide bezels and weighs about 7 pounds with the slice, so a 13" ultrabook that weighed 4.5 pounds would bother me less than some people.

 

So basically what you want is a normal 13 inch laptop with upgradable components and a removable battery and not a "thin 'n' light" 13 inch laptop.

 

Careful with those propositions before manufacturers decide to incorporate 15 minutes battery life but no slice...
"but they asked for it!"

 

Is there such a thing as a "normal" 13" laptop anymore? The Envy 14 was called "thin-and-light" when it came out and now people make remarks to me on how big and heavy it is (whether or not I'm using the slice). I got a little hands-on time with a Sony S13 and it's easily big enough to have two sticks of swappable RAM and ten hours of on-board battery life, but I would still consider it a thin-and-light laptop. It's bigger than the ASUS UX32 I saw today, but still both thin and light by my standards. Not my ideal laptop for a number of reasons, but size isn't one of them.

 

That's what it sounds like to me as well. The pursuit of ever thinner form factor is not needed or wanted by everyone.

 

Lenovo Helix. It's neither of the three above.

 

imagine this, if you remove all the coolers on the desktop and place all the circuit board (only) in layers they should measure just under 2-3 cm's which is obviously thinner than the cooler itself, now propose a suitable cooling method to cool these components under full load, in layers. In your question I see the case which needs modding in order to make a slice on removable battery plus an internal battery , I can see the reason behind but by adding a slice on battery you cover up its air intake vents, and made an extra layer of material that blocks the heat from escaping through the bottom casing, where the bottom casing is heat dissipative in powerful ultrabooks to prevent shutdown during full load. for laptop manufacturers, all hardware problems can be fixed by software patches or replacement, but thermal throttling due to normal usage is fatal as the casing needs to be redesigned to another shape, the hardware that sits in it needs to change its shape too, which means a creation of a new ultrabook which is, well, not very cost effective

 

Really? The Helix is based on Asus's Transformers series of Android tablets, which themselves are based on the HP Compaq TC1000/TC1100 series. And those are Windows XP Tablet PC Edition era devices.

While none of this makes the Helix itself any less impressive as a device, the fundamental idea of a slate-style tablet that can be attached to a keyboard dock is nothing new. I'm going to have to say it falls into the "same tired old design with a faster CPU/RAM/whatever" bucket.

 

This thinness trend is getting out of hand. I had to resort to a "gaming" system to get a 14" notebook that was reasonably powerful (6.5lbs is not really heavy, at least if you're a large man like me). At least the battery life is ok now that they have that "Optimus" crap that turns off the descrete GPU.

They need to spend more on screens and less on thinning everything down. Sure the MacBook Air is great but not everyone wants one.