Thickness MBP Obsession

Is anyone else here obsessed with how thin the MBP's are!?!? I think it is amazing how much power is squeezed into such a thin piece of hardware that remains so sleek and solid!

Check this out:


My brother's Sony SR is WAY thicker and shaped too awkwardly while the Macbook Pro is slim all the way through!

OTHER OBSERVATIONS:
-Macbook Pro's screen is a lot better in terms of brightness and whites are more white!
-No creaks with the MBP but some creak noise with the Sony.
-MBP's webcam is a lot better in terms of picture quality

 

You're not alone. I love the MBP's slim looks. It's power is amazing too.

 

I like Mac's, but there are trade off's for being so thin. 1st is most Macbooks run hot when doing anything other than music or internet surfing etc. 2nd there not as fast as comparably priced PC's. The new Macbook's are nice though. Besides lack of more than 2 USB ports.

I would say the Macbook is one of the best looking laptops in the world.

 

It is always about trade offs. I like the dimensions of their computers too, but in general...

1) They might be more expensive.
2) They might run hotter.
3) They do not have user-swappable batteries.
4) I'm still not convinced slot loading optical drives are a good thing.

There are positives (I'm not listing them all) but those are the negatives that you have to put up with for such a thin notebook.

 

I don't think a Macbook can even compare to high end PC notebooks in terms of hardware power. This is the limitation with the thin profile, you can't fit in the top of the line hardware.

 

Well I think it is kind of pointless having a laptop that is too big like the Alienwares with high end hardware. You mind as well get a desktop.

 

It's all about the hardware power for gamers, not the profile.

 

There are tradeoffs to it being so thin. There are two main reasons that a 'normal' laptop is thicker: Firstly, they have thicker batteries, and thicker heatsinks. The tradeoffs with the MacBook are to get the same battery in they have to make it non user-replaceable, and then the cooling. Because the heatsinks are much thinner, and the fans concealed inside with a single rear vent for air input and exhaust, cooling is far worse than a normal laptop.

Both wrong, really. Firstly, the whole reason any gamer would choose a laptop over a desktop is they are looking for a portability factor, and it's exactly how much that gamer wants that dictates which gaming laptop size they go for.

Someone like me who essentially uses their laptop as a desktop, but wants the ability to take it on holiday and to LAN parties and the such, the massive 17" laptops are fine. We aren't looking to take it everywhere like a normal laptop.

chris2k5, calling the laptops "too big" is pointless as that's just your opinion. To buy a big 17" gaming laptop, you don't want true portability, but they still have a lot of purpose in being a laptop instead of a desktop. You can't take desktops on holiday or to LAN parties.

At the same time, coolguy, of course power is not the only thing we care about, otherwise we'd just get a desktop. If all we cared about is power and yet still wanted a laptop, then there'd be no point to the smaller 15" and below gaming laptops, yet they still sell.

 

:O people still have LAN parties? LOL...

 

The whole discussion was about laptop hardware, not desktop.

 

I don't see the massive appeal of ultrathin notebooks. A laptop that's 1.5" thick is barely any harder to fit in a bag than a 1" thick laptop. And there are sacrifices to make it that thin. Sure, it's definetely more stylish, but style isn't everything when you consider the downsides.

Plus, I would've thought that weight would be a much bigger concern. Now low weight IS something the MacBook line can truly be proud of, alongside their excellent screens and long battery life.

Yes they do, believe it or not. They're still as fun as ever.

Your reply blatantly shows that you have not understood and most likely not properly read or considered my argument. Firstly because your above comment shows no consideration for the point I was trying to give, and secondly because you've not addressed any of my other points.

That 'desktop' point was to prove that gamers DO care about profile. If all a gamer wanted was raw power, he'd get a desktop, because you CAN still move it. You buy a laptop because we want portability, and with gamers, it's no different (just that gamers don't usually prioritise it as much as the average consumer). Therefore, for a gamer to buy a laptop, he/she must care about profile to an extent, no matter how small that extent is.

And my point still stands that if all we cared about was power, why would 15" and below gaming laptops still be on the market? Why would they still be selling? Why wouldn't they make 19" and above gaming laptops? Because the gamers that buy laptops DO care about profile, some more than others, and all of them to some extent.

Some gamers want the added portability of a 15" and below laptop, and are willing to sacrifice power for that. And nearly all gamers don't want a 19" and above laptop, as they're TOO big even for a gamer to really be portable at all, even if we do miss out on the possible added power. Conclusive proof that gamers DO care about profile.

 

The definitions of portability for people with gaming laptops and people with mainstream laptops are very different. When gamers say that a laptop is "portable" that means that it can be moved from place to place while still tethered to an outlet. When people with mainstream laptops say that something is "portable," it normally involves being able to spend extended periods of time away from an outlet.

All laptops have versatility in common because they are both portable in some sense of the term.

 

I'm a gamer, and when I say a laptop is portable. That means I get at least 2 hours of battery life. Like my Asus G50VT-X5. It gets 3.5 hours internet surfing or 1.5 Hours MW2.

 

From personal experience, 1.5" thick is too hard to carry and hold in the hands. 1.2" is the thickest I will go.

 

That's a fair definition. 3.5 hours is probably something that I could deal with.

 

How small are your hands and how much time do you actually spend holding your laptop in your hand? The fat end of the Vaio Z is 1.3"...is that too bulky for you? I would think the 1.5lb weight gap between it and the 13" MBP is a bigger handicap than the .2-.3" thickness difference. My adamo is .3" thinner than a 13" MBP but has roughly the same portability b/c its still a solid 4lb (aluminum+glass aren't too light). I can slide my Adamo under my condo door but it doesn't mean a hell of a lot in practical use. Outside the visual effect of a laptop as thin as my cell phone, it's just a slick package that does the same thing as your avg C2D ULV laptop w/ SSD.

 

I had a 1.5" laptop and it was too awkward to use. Even the Sony SR which is 1.3" is awkward as well.

 

Too awkward to use...in what conceivable way?

 

Holding it to carry from one place to another. Thought that was simple to understand.

 

Nice work throwing out declarations that you think can't be challenged because they are supposed to be 'subjective'. I don't think anyone reading this is fooled though. Its nice to have thinner and lighter but the difference is so small that you would have to be very different from the average human to describe them as unusable. I heard someone say the MBP is so thin that its too awkward to use. See what I did there?

 

Always comes to this doesn't it? PC v Mac.

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