Notebook design fun

how many slots for harddrives do you have in there? i'd suggest at least 2, better 3 (one could be 1.8") so you could have one high-density storage disk in there (500gb hdd) and one ssd for the high performance of the system. the 128gb mlc 1.8" ssd from mtron should be available very soon (the 64gb one is listed on some sites right now), wich would possibly make a perfect system disk.

is there a joystick in this design. i love joystick control in a notebook, prefer it to the touchpad (and it would be great in conjunction with the special mouse-scroll-replacement).

 

I think there are some 16:9 Laptop displays, even if its not the norm I know they make them so if you were designing your own laptop you could use a 16:9 screen.

As for touchpad, just make sure to incorporate a switch of sorts to disable it and then use an external mouse is the best solution IMO. GOOD typing (as in the way they teach you in typing class) you do not rest your hands but rather hold them in the air, it makes you faster and also its more ergonomic.

 

There is one bay currently, but on the bright side: it is 15mm to make room for a 300GB Western Digital Velociraptor 10.000RPM drive.

You mean like IBMs trackpoint? (I love those as well, I was going to add one to the keyboard, but I didn't get around drawing one yet).

 

There will be a new norm, check out this article which mentions next generation formats:
http://www.displaysearch.com/cps/rde/xchg/displaysearch/hs.xsl/5676.asp

I agree with the switch (it's on the list) and the external mouse, If I were to design this notebook with internal pointing devices instead of my BT MX1000 I'd have gone nuts days ago!

 

Well again, my little 16:10 rant is only an "I think it's that way" thing. I'm not too sure, but I've heard that all panels on laptops are 16:10. I've never actually gotten around to measuring it lol. I'll measure mine in the morning when I wake up, time for bed.

Again, I'm not sure if laptop displays are 16:10 or 16:9, OR a mix among laptop brands/models. This is only somethign I've heard.

 

Not so long ago all laptop panels were 4:3 (eg. 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200...), the widescreens that came after that are mostly 16:10 (1280x800, 1680x1050, 1920x1200...), but there is a new generation panels coming with 16:9 ratios (1280x720, 1920x1080...). If you read the link in my previous post (#54) you'll see who is making them and why.

A quick quote:

 

Which I would never want in a laptop nor an ordinary pc. the mtron 1000 are soon out and look to be rather cheap. i'd prefer one of those and a big "slow" ordinary disk, you'll get much more "bang for the buck".

and, having two drive bays allows for much customisation and configuration options. from a terabyte notebook to an ultrafast dual mtron 7500 64gb configuration, to an asymetric small-fast big-slow disk.

Indeed, like the IBMs. It's the only option on my hp 2710p (no trackpad), and it's awesome. the only thing it lacks is some fast way to scroll (wich you solved in your design).

 

open source notebooks i like.

 

16:9 have been long rumored , and since most movies are made in the 16:9 ratio, that would remove the annoying black boxes at the top and the bottom, covering 60x1920 pixels each.

 

Personally, I'd rather have 60 pixel bars on screen during movies than bars or warped graphics in games. When (or if) 16:9 screens start becoming widespread on computers, I'd expect to see a lot of problems with software written in the 4:3/16:10 paradigm.

 

I don't know much about Ati cards but FireGL, being workstation cards, seems like a weird choice; Which Nvidia cards would it compare to? Crossfire is a really nice idea, I would buy it for that alone.

 

A FireGL version of the Mobility HD 3850 should close to or possibly better than the Quadro FX 3600M

 

Awesome so I wasn't crazy!!! I knew it had to be 16:10 for SOME reason, and that made me clue in, 1920x1200 pixels, as opposed to 1080 pixels, the different ratio, and extra 60 pixels on the bottom and top!

Well either way, I wasn't saying you had to go with 16:9 or 16:10, I was just saying that IF it's 16:10, it would need to be 1920x1200 as opposed to 1080. You probably already knew, but I just pointed that out, seeing as how we're all being a bit picky in this thread!

Yay I'm not crazy, I can now sleep at night =D!!!

 

OK, I still wonder about the choice of a workstation card though. Would not a Geforce 8800 be better?

 

For gaming it might, but Quadro's are really overpriced and overestimated (quality wise) and both FireGLs and Quadros make short work of a 8800GTX when running workstation applications (think 10 times as fast).

 

True enough, but I would still like to see the option of a "proper" graphics card for those of us who want gaming rather than workstation performance. An 8800GTX, or equivalent Ati, is still a very capable card and I doubt it would have a problem with most usage.

 

That's why I chose for the FireGL board, as a manufacturer you can just replace chip, device id resistors and driver to switch between a good gaming card (and crossfire support) and a good workstation card.