MBP 17" : How important is thinness ?

MBP 17" users, how important is the thinness to you ?
Would you rather have preffered a slightly thicker laptop with a more powerful GPU (+ the accompanying larger heatsink/fan) ?
If so, how much thicker would be your limit ?

The current thickness is 25mm(0.98 inch)

EDIT: There is some confusion in the replys. When you post a number, please post whether its the added thickness, or the total thickness you are talking about. Eg., a 30 mm thicker laptop = a 55 mm thick laptop

 

Trying to break the forum rules are we

 

sorry,but when I entered this thread firsts time it showed nothing,thats why I left that comment...sorry

EDIT: proof!

 

Blame NBR
Actually when I posted this thread by clicking submit, it took a long time then gave a 404 error. But the thread was there when I checked the apple forum.

You must have entered the thread when it was in NBR limbo

 

see the EDIT.

Anyway,OT: I currently have HP hdx 18 t which is 1.5 inches thick and very heavy(I currently use it for flash development).It has 9600gt ddr2,which is ~ 30% weaker then ddr3,but it gets around as hot as 17" mbp.and even if it has 4 usb ports,they are not enough for me,so I still have to use a hub.so no,I wouldn't want mbp to be thicker but have more ports or more powerful gpu.

 

Well thats the tradeoff. If you want a more powerful GPU, the MBP needs to be thicker.

 

sorry,but I think my sentence is a little wrong so you misunderstood it.

I mean,as a potential costumer,I don't want it to be thicker and more powerful...then can make it more powerful by enabling hybrid SLI(would give ~ 1500 points in 3d mark,so it would archive ~ 8k+ in total)

 

What is hybrid SLI ?

 

as you know,mbp have both 9600gt and 9400g,so when they work together,it is called hybrid SLI.mbp has that feature,but for whatever reason,it was disabled by apple.we hope that they ll turn it on with Snow Leopard,since it can use GPU for processing power(like in Photoshop CS4)

 

I don't think the cooling system in the MBP can handle both of them at the same time. It's wishful thinking, but we can always hope.

 

I like my 17" just the way it is.

 

I doubt that 9400 outputs much heat...

 

I usually have mine running on the 9400 so a faster video card wouldn't do much for me. Even though the machine is very thin I believe it can handle more of a thermal load than the 15" machines. Typically, Apple runs the video cards a bit faster on the 17" machines. From the quick glance I took the other day it appears that the heatsink and fans are larger on the 17" machine, but I could be mistaken. The next time I have both machines in the same room I'll get a ruler.

 

you are right,17's fan is bigger.

 

I would have the 17" be a little thicker and have a much more powerful gpu + cooler.

 

How much is a "little" thicker ?

 

An inch at most.

 

you think that .02 inch growth would help?

 

i dont have problem with the 9600m gt, i prefer to game on desktop. i dont like gaming on notebooks.

what i want instead is a removable battery, and easy access to HDD and RAM!!! ah, and also, no warping!

maybe 25mm to 30mm thick? well, just get the feature i want and as long as it doesnt look really bad, (like desktop cpu powered gaming lugbook behemot) i dont mind.

 

so twice as thick as it is now? eek.

 

^sorry?it is 0.98 inches now!

 

There is some confusion in the replys. When you post a number, please post whether its the added thickness, or the total thickness you are talking about. Eg., a 30 mm thicker laptop = a 55 mm thick laptop

 

I personally don't care either way how thick it is. If I got more in the box with a thicker design, I wouldn't object...

I did just measure one of my laptops, and it is 67mm thick (2.66"). Perhaps it is because I don't usually use it on my lap that I don't care about how heavy/thick it is, or perhaps that I don't use it every day...

 

I don't think it really matters how thin a 17" laptop would be because it's still going to occupy a lot of space in bags anyways. I'd rather have a better graphic card and dual hard drives instead.

I also find Apple's ad funny. "The new 17-inch Macbook Pro, the world thinnest and lightest 17-inch notebook". Of course with mid-range graphic card, single hard drive and a dual core, it's going to be that thinnest. I am sure the 17" Macbook Pro is one of the very few 17-inch notebooks to have one hard drive, if not the only one. I have to say though, it sure is sexy!

 

^well,AFAIK,17" mbp is targeted to people who need laptop with big screen,which is light and easy to carry,not workhorse.

 

There are actually plenty of 17" laptops with single HDs, although most 17" laptops at the same price range of the MBP tend to have multiple HDs/better specs/etc.

Also, note that it's the battery in the MBP that takes up most of the space. The enormous built in battery provides the extremely long battery life that Apple's been quoting everywhere.

 

most of the high-end multimedia laptop uses the 9600m gt, the HP HDX18, the sony VAIO AW17, apple could fit dual drive, but this is occupied by the battery.

personally i dont like dual HDD, it just gave me more headache maintaining them, more heat and noise/vibration, power consumption, more things to go wrong. i prefer large single hdd, then uses the rest on external HDD on my laptop. i think apple should add more usb port 4 or 5 please oh now im just getting greedy .

 

^ i have 4 ports on my hdx 18t and it is still not enough!

 

As long as we're being greedy, how about more sodimm slots ?

 

well,mbp currently can support up to 8gb and there are 4gb sticks so more makes no sense ATM.but in future(with snow leopard),I would love to have 4 slots

 

The 8GB restriction is not from the OS, so if the MBP had more slots, OS X could support more than 8gb of ram.

 

I'll second this, I find it is ridiculously uncomfortable to do design work under anything 17". With the 17" MBP, I could do my design on it without using external monitor. Although I still enjoy the luxury of having huge external monitor .

 

Have you ever carried a 17" laptop? It's not easy to carry! awkward, always unbalanced, and you have to have a huge bag. I don't know why you would ever need that much real estate on the go, there's really no tasks that I would do on the go that would require that much screen.

 

no offense, but, have you?

the 17" MBP (if i'm not mistaken, 99% sure it is the correct) is the smallest 17" notebook in the market.

you can get a 15" bag and it would fit it snugly. case in point, the logitech 15.4" kinetik bag.

the difference in size between the 15" and 17" in the new unibody macbook is not by much, especially in the new unibody range. the real problem when considering 15" and 17" is mostly about the desk space, even while the difference in size is not by much, if you have small space, you will notice it.

 

yes,I have 18'4 inch hp hdx 18t which has 2 hours of battery, is 9.2 pounds and it is total PITA to carry with you.I would totally love to have 6.5 pound 17" mbp which is as lighter then my 15" dell m4400 and has ~7 hours of battery.btw,when you do code development,flash and photoshop,having hi res display is a godsend.

 

Exactly. The 17" is an inch longer, and less than an inch wider than the 15.4" MBP. Thats it.

IMHO, thickness matters less, hence this thread. Weight is important, but I think it can be bumped up a bit, perhaps to 7.5lbs if that means a more powerful laptop.

 

i want to add that really thin design also gives more ergonomics.

but, forget all the greedy feature and power for a momment;

i want a laptop that is functional and reliable.

no defective parts.
no weird hang or crashes. that require hard shutdown.
no corroded, or warp casing.

more quality assurance/control at development phase.
more quality assurance/control at production phase.

in my experience, apple hardware comes defected more often than not. lucky swapping DOA unit is very seamless and easy thanks to apple good replacement policy. it does waste time though.

 

How so ?

 

but with apple you can always check you system in apple stores before buying...YasirJ would love to have that in their country

 

i found that with my 17" MBP that the wrist rest is so long that it made me hang my arm, with no resting point. causing my shoulder to get fatigued.

if the notebook is at desk height, or at least close to it, then i can rest my arm on the desk and still type.

 

it is like in slim phones,for example iPhone vs G1-lots of people say that they prefer iphone to G1 bc of slimness.

 

Xirurg

Wow --- The G1 really does look like a "Brick" compared to the iphone.

Is that a version-1 I see there ?

 

Hmm, I never had that problem with my even thicker Dell Precision M90.

A solution for you is to put a rubber strip at the edge of the MBP to rest your arms.
The rubber strip thats meant to be used with keyboards, dunno what they are called.


@Xirurg, for phones its different as users are holding the phone. Here thickness matters. Akin to holding something with a very large circumference. Laptops dont have that issue.

 

It's perfect the way it is.

I am very surprised that it's not that different to carry around compared to my old MBP 15". This is absolutely a portable machine, and, to me, it's the most important feature.

Would not want it any heavier or thicker. This laptop fits in my small-ish Axio bag. Pretty amazing.