Compromises with thin laptop design

It seems like almost all of the premium laptops with high end parts outside of gaming laptops are becoming more and more thin. I like light laptops like anyone else, but light and thin are not the same. Thin laptops sacrifice a lot of functionality to be thin. It's classic form over function.

To list a few--potential throttling of CPU and GPU or only being able to fit in lower performance ULV chips, non-removable batteries, soldered RAM and SSD, short key travel keyboards, loss of actual mouse buttons, low quality speakers, removal of ports such as RJ45 Ethernet, and high temperature areas. Is this the way forward, laptop makers? I like thin laptops but when I see these issues, I wonder if that extra 5mm was worth the sacrifice.

 

Nobody likes carrying around the big bulky laptops from like early 90's til like 2010. Apple has shown with the unibody models that you can have full speed processors and mid range GPU's and still have a thin body (but not that light, minus MBA).

Thin and light is the way for the average consumer who doesn't care about gaming performance, etc. But for gamers and business professionals, I think laptops will be slightly thinner, but for the most part ignore the trend.

 

When buying a laptop:

1. Portability
2. Power
3. Price

Pick any 2 of the 3.

There are plenty of laptops that have tons of performance, if you don't care about portability. See Alienware, Clevo, Sager.

 

Except outside of gaming laptops, which I mentioned in the first post, the premium models are all trying to be thin.

Here is an example: I'm interested in one of the high res screen laptops, 3200x1800. All of them have low end or mid-range GPU's. None have removable batteries. And take the Haswell XPS 15 for instance--they removed the RJ45. So all the hi-res laptops that have 3200x1800 are like this.

And let me make one thing clear: I'm not talking about big Alienwares' vs Macbook Airs. Things don't have to be so either-or. There is a middle ground of high end specs and relatively portable that's not being met by the Dells, Samsungs, and HPs of the world. You have to go to gaming laptops to get that power.

 

Well, it depends how you define "premium".

A laptop manufacturer's definition of "premium" is something that is expensive that customers are willing to pay extra for. The thing is that a laptop manufacturer wants their high-priced laptops to include features that nobody else can replicate. Examples of these features are:

* Thin design (a product of their engineering / design team).
* Parts / features to which they have exclusivity (e.g. AlienFX lighting, Bigfoot NICs, Steelseries keyboards, premium-brand speakers, etc).

Most laptop manufacturer will not create a "premium" laptop based purely on specs, because anyone can replicate that. Suppose Brand-XYZ created a drool-worthy laptop with an Intel Haswell-generation quad core CPU, dual GeForce 780M GPUs, and a high-res 1800p screen that they source from LG. They can sell that laptop for 6 months before someone like Sager / Clevo, Acer, or Asus comes out with a similarly-spec'ed laptop for a cheaper price. Because when you don't care about space, heat, or battery life, then all you have to do is source your parts and shove them into a chassis. Then it's a race to the bottom to compete on price.

But if a laptop manufacturer can create a design that is thinner than the competition, then they can remain competitive on specs and still charge a higher price. That's because a me-too Taiwanese brand like Sager / Clevo, Acer, or Asus can source the same parts as Brand-XYZ, but would not have put in the same engineering investment to get those parts into a chassis that is as thin as possible. This is why Razer can charge $2000 for its Razer Blade laptop (ultra-thin design), despite being able to find laptops with similar specs for $1100. Razer can charge a higher price for its product (and therefore get a higher margin), without having to race-to-the-bottom.

 

BTW, if you look at laptops, they all try to be as powerful-as-possible within a certain price point; or as portable-as-possible within a certain price point.

Nobody wants to create a 15" laptop that weighs 8 lbs and costs $800. There are literally hundreds of laptops that fall into exactly that category, and they all end up being sold at Costco.

They want to create a laptop that is 15" and weighs 3 lbs, and charge far more than $800. Or create a laptop that is 15" and can melt your face off with the amount of processing power they crammed in there, and charge far more than $800.

 

Yeah this whole "let's make everything as thin as possible" trend is quite annoying. I like smaller and portable, but people fuss over tenths of inches. To me weight and overall footprint size are more critical, but don't compromise thickness or weight for performance, please.

 

Let's not use these extreme examples. That's a strawman. Also width != weight. Thicker notebooks can weigh less than thinner notebooks.

A premium quality notebook can be reasonably thin (1") and powerful but the mainstream companies are so focused on thin with this Ultrabook initiative. The Dell XPS 15, Lenovo Yoga 2, and Samsung Ativ Book 9 all are the respective company's premium laptops with high res screens but have middling GPU's or iGPU's and no removable battery. I would rather they allow a few more millimeters and have a removable battery and allow for higher end GPU's than be super thin and make compromises. But those millimeters seem to be more important to them. Why is a 1" notebook so bad?

 

That sounds all good but when that laptop dies or battery fails your going to find your going to spend a hefty amount to fix or replace the laptop. That is what they are planning and if you don't think so your missing the boat. There will be times one needs a VGA/DVI port or HDMI which some thin laptop removes why I am not sure as that basically rules out its functionality. I like to replace dead batteries and keep it running not having every two years buying a new laptop that to me is a waste of money. Also I still use DVD/BD drive as well so my mid 1525 works perfectly well light portable without having to buy those new tech just to have the latest fabs. There are sacrifices when one goes thin but they fail to notice it til they need something of which it no longer has. The laptop has to be functional yet be user friendly for their usage and utilitarian usage.

Actually it is either or and you can't run PC program on Mac or Mac on PC so there is a clear choice on what one picks and why. Middle ground only work if you going either PC or Mac Laptop then you can pick and choose otherwise you can't just go PC to Mac and back and not expect users confusions. Those two are different O/S and different operations with different programming.

 

While thinner and lighter is marketed by manufacturers as a premium laptop segment, all it does is line their pockets. When you're talking about squeezing high-performance components with narrow thermal envelopes into a tightly integrated environment, you're lowering reliability, repair-ability, and upgrade-ability of the system. There is no escaping the compromises that kent 1146 mentioned. When you compromise these particular qualities, the customer ends up paying a higher total cost of ownership. Want to upgrade the RAM? Too bad, its soldered - buy a new laptop. Want to replace the battery or clean the cooling? You need to pay extra to get the manufacturer to do it.

The whole point of this reduced product life cycle and increasingly integrated product is simply to encourage consumption of more products and services. The notion that Apple's "no-compromise" designs are somehow a great thing is just marketing nonsense.

 

Yes. Shame on businesses for trying to make money.

 

The downsides of thin laptops (and why i don't buy them):

1. Price
2. Heat
3. User-Serviceability
4. Performance
5. Just like Netbooks, it is surely a fad
6. Lack of useful ports/expensive proprietary dongles
7. What? No 2.5'' bay?
8. I still use optical discs.

Gimme a W530 over an X1 Carbon anyday. Agree with HTWingNut's post.

 

But I sure love me dat X1 Carbon doe...

So not everyone feels the same way you do. Great thing is, there's enough choices to appease (almost) anyone! :thumbsup:

 

I can compromise when it comes to performances vs mobility. I'll take a 6-6.5lb 15inch with a 765m as a perfect meeting line.

What I can't stand is when laptop brands can't see that you have to compromise. Like how Alienware can't decide whether it wants a 15incher with power or a 14incher with midrange power so they create a Frankenstein 14incher. Or how MSI really want's to compete with Razer so they stuff a lot power into a thin 17inch chasis even though they have absolutely none of the technical know-how that Razer does so it ends up being a overheating deadweight.

 

Yes, way to oversimplify.

Take a look at a pre-Lenovo ThinkPad or a serious business laptop and then look at the products sold on the market today, in particular note how features that contribute to a shorter product lifespan (integrated batteries, soldered RAM, glued CPU, etc) are basically advertised as a feature. Nearly all the laptop manufacturers are following the marketing mantra that if a product has a drawback, you feature it.

The purpose of these features is not to deliver a consumer need, but to satisfy a want while at the same time lowering the product lifecycle and encourage more consumption of more short-lived products. Its the new pattern of consuming laptop hardware when the market is already saturated. Its not about businesses making an honest dollar, its about lowering the quality of a product so that consumers have to buy more often and actually desire that lower quality product.

 

shh....your letting the secret out... lol.....

 

It's also a good way to lose customers, so how is this new business model supposed to work? Most consumers aren't that dumb enough to continue buying low quality products from the same greedy company.

 

One forgets its about bottom line dollars......customer service comes a distand 3rd.....after share holders.....IMO

 

Just one question. How well was IBM doing with their Thinkpads before they were sold to Lenovo?

Note that IBM today is no longer the giant it was.

 

This is a clear example of poor business management and lack of market know how and not thinking ahead just like their PS/2 machines that were so IP that others cloned their PC and left them in the wake of those companies dust. That is what IBM didn't learn and what would cost them dearly now and their excuse we left to concentrate on the Server aka Cloud/Software business meaning they didn't have the know how or future thinking to make it. They didn't put the resource in the emerging market and do proper R&D to keep themselves ahead instead tried to use IP to keep others down but failed and now they reap what they sowed.

 

The market votes with their money. And ultrabooks have been winning those votes. Well, so says Intel http://seekingalpha.com/article/1078351-intel-ultrabook-sales-will-surprise-in-2013 I do admit thin and light looks cool, if only it could play Crysis on ultra...

Besides, most people have way more power then what they need or use. I am NOT talking about most people on this forum.

 

This i 100% agree with. You can buy just about any laptop from 2008 with 2-4 gigs of RAM and a Core 2 Duo, throw in a SSD and your non-techie wife/husband/friend/mom/dad/grandparents will think it is blazing fast, assuming the bloatware is cleaned.

 

Razer started a small trend for thin gaming laptops from its Blade, now Gigabyte and MSI are following it with their own.

 

The Blade isn't a true gaming laptop, neither is the 2nd generation, it's good for the average gamer and casual gamers, but if you want to play the latest and greatest, Blade is only mediocre.

 

I don't think anyone can really say, "most people have way more power then what they need or use" because that's only for the end user to decide. This is one of the problems... manufacturers presume to know what is best when they don't really have a clue. What they are really doing is conditioning consumers into believing what is best for the manufacturers is what consumers need. The trouble is, most people go with the flow, do what their friends think is cool, and believe most of what they see and hear instead of using their brain.

As Steve Jobs once said, “people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” The is a great example of the flawed, self-serving mentality that exists among the manufacturers because consumers let them get away with it. If it is a shiny object, chances are great that most consumers will go for it whether it is good or not. And, because it is a shiny object, they jump to the conclusion that it means the product is good. When it is shiny and inexpensive, they are even more inclined to take the bait.

I love my gigantic laptop. I consider it to be completely portable. It follows me everywhere I go, traveling coast-to-coast on business trips. I bench and game in hotel rooms just the same as I do in the comfort of my own home. Despite the fact that it holds numerous records in benchmarks, it's not more power than I need and I extract every ounce of power that it can give me. But, I need more, LOL. No such thing as too much muscle from my personal perspective, and I'll be darned if some mush-brained group of social engineers designing the new thin and light garbage are going to convince me otherwise.

I already know what I want, and whether they think I need it or not is irrelevant. Long live super-bikes, muscle cars, SUVs and 4x4s, assault weapons, and massively overclocked portable beasts like the Alienware M18x and Clevo P570WM dual-GPU gladiators with unlocked CPUs! :thumbsup:

I couldn't agree more, Brother HTWingNut... those terms are completely unacceptable to enthusiasts.

 

You are oversimplifying a situation that was way more complex than most people will ever understand.

IBM wanted out of the whole hardware portion of its business *long* before the PC Division was sold to Lenovo. For a slew of good reasons, may I add - and lack of vision (or "future thinking" as you call it) - was most certainly NOT one of them.

 

I got asked recently why I got something as big as my M6700, the answer was simply: I like having the physical real estate of a 17" display on a notebook as well as that afforded by its resolution. Then there's the fact that it won't die of heat when I use it fully for a couple of hours. Being able to game on it is just a bonus for me, but it's there nonetheless.

 

Sums it up nicely.

 

Next time just say, " Because I'm awesome. What are you?"

Agree... talking heads. OK team, all we have to work with is lame hardware... let's go thin and light and pretend it's special... yeah, that's the ticket.

 

How weak are people that 6-8lbs in a backpack is deemed heavy.

 

Maybe they are just unhappy because it is too big to fit in their purse.

 

Just get a tablet, it'll fit perfect in that super cute clutch.

:/

 

But, you can't chop wood with it...

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And it can't blend or do barrel rolls.

 

Lenovo is a Chinese manufacturer that produced ThinkPad components for IBM before buying the entire ThinkPad brand. I'm not sure why IBM sold ThinkPad (it may be because IBM wanted to leave the personal computer business), but there is a strong consensus whenever I meet ThinkPad enthusiasts that the quality and design of the brand became compromised when Lenovo took over and started the consumerization of ThinkPad. The IBM ThinkPad was a premium brand during its time with a legendary reputation among consumers. IBM ThinkPads were all designed by a Japanese team within IBM and manufactured largely in Japan. The T model had features and a quality that other brands simply didn't have, such as the ThinkPad TrackPoint, modular SATA bays, superior connectivity, a rigid magnesium alloy roll-cage, and of course the unmatched keyboard. These were laptops built to run for many years, and that was done with a modular, durable, reliable, and practical design that didn't have the compromised integration of today's laptops. Today, Lenovo has introduced lower-quality keyboards, removed the TrackPoint, and generally made a mess of the ThinkPad brand.

 

My laptop is both small and heavy!

I prefer the T430 to the T410's keyboard. Personal preferences.

Name me one Thinkpad that does not have a Trackpoint. Exactly. None.

Unless you are referring to the Ideapad line, which is *not* affiliated with IBM.

View attachment 103897

Sorry.

 

If you have to walk 2-3 miles over college campus, along with 50-60 pound textbooks, any extra weight adds up. Now if you are biking, or driving, there is no excuse. Don't get me wrong, I love my Alienware, despite the weight, but I don't move it around that often, and I bought a great Swissgear 17" bag.

 

This, there are reasons to want thin an light:

• You are moving around often and always carrying the laptop with you, we're talking very often
• You have a lot of other stuff to carry
• You don't need the performance and favor the portability

Equally good arguments can be made for larger laptops too. I won't go in details since they've already been made.

 

What on Earth were you studying to be dragging around that amount of textbooks on a daily basis?

 

When I was studying chemical engineering as an undergrad, I sometimes had to carry 4 to 5 textbooks a day, we're talking large hard cover textbooks. 4 or 5 was rare, 2 or 3 wasn't. That didn't prevent me from carrying 6 pounds of laptop, but still if I could have had a system like the Precision M3800 back then...

Now is another matter, I basically carry my notebook from home to my Office where all my textbooks now rest, except one I may bring back home once in a while, so having something larger no issue.

 

How bout of shape are people these days? Also, why in the world would you have 60lbs of books? Plan better.

A two mile walk witha llittle weight is nothing, if you can't handle that, then I suggest a diet.

That being said, if you know you have that ccommute on a daily basis, shopping for a gaming laptop is ignorant. Get a netbook and build a desktop when/if finances allow.

 

In my comparison of ThinkPad design I was referring to the differences between IBM and Lenovo ThinkPads.

To clarify, the TrackPoint buttons have been removed, leaving just the joystick:
ThinkPad T440 Ultrabook Laptop | Lenovo | Lenovo (US)

 

I carry my notebook since 8am to 11:30pm when I arrive home. I don't own a car nor will own a car in such a city, commute is done by subway and in the end I walk daily according to my iPod 10-15km

Im not really passionate about thin, actually I can't care less, but the size and the weight are the factors that will make my back hurt at the end of the day, given that people don't only carry the notebook, they carry a lot of other stuff as well.

but being thin and light are by logic not mutually exclusive

 

I think that sums it up very good poor management and poor business know how and poor consumer teaching leads to a downward company trend. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out if you want to succeed you need to know your base and interact with them not think you know what is best for them. And business that can do that will succeed take ahem... Apple....Jobs.....they came at the same time as IBM and guess what....they are still around evolving and growing and stocks are higher then ever and you claim I am simplifying the situation? You didn't look hard enough to find a example of a company that started in 80's and look where they are know. They are bullish but they got the following now.

 

Be honest, Apple has been going downhill since Jobs passed away.

 

You most certainly are oversimplifying the situation. IBM was there long before the 80's and that was a part of the problem, but not the way you see it. I would strongly suggest that you talk to people who worked for Big Blue when the business was at its peak which is when IBM started downsizing, laying people off and selling divisions...long before 2005.

I wasn't talking about other companies at all, was I?

 

be honest nothing is pointing it out

 

I would have to say, that with the new thin and light gaming rigs coming out I am exited. I have been hauling around my m17x r4 for a while and I am ready for something lighter but that can still play LOL and run my 3d software. They might not be as powerful as my m17x but they still do the job..

 

Downhill but yes but any other company with higher stock or equal to Apple...IBM is not one of them....

 

This was called making money for CEO and shareholders.....bad management....as the employees they fired to give themselves bonus for keeping money for themselves...still true now as it was back then.....

There is no difference either you got it or you failed badly at management.....