When will the drop-back hinge design END!!!???

My god I cant tell you how much I HATE the drop-back hinge design may Mfr use today. Toshiba is the worst offender. HP pavilions and Lenovo Ideapad Y510 have a flavor of this design also.

When will this STOP! Whats the point in having such a stupid hinge design? It lowers the screen and makes it sit back further away from you. This is the OPPOSITE of what you would want. You would want the screen being higher and closer to you for easier visibility.

Who started this STUPID senseless and illogical screen hinge design and when will this stupid trend END!!!

Please lets all joint together and vaporize this stupid design once and for all!

 

I am going to wholeheartedly agree with this, I hate the hinges on my XPS M1330.

 

My HP nx9420 can have the screen open up to 180 degrees.
I`ve used my laptop on the wall,so it`s a nice feature.
Don`t see a problem here

 

For me, I actually like the drop-back design mostly on HP's. The hinge on the HP's look nice and it doesn't really make the screen lower. The hinges like on the Dell XPS and Apple Macbook make the screen noticably lower but, The design allows for a bigger hinge and thinner design, as where regular hinges are small and notebook size is thicker. The only problem with this design is that the screen can't lay flat, but I can't recall a time when I would use the screen completly flat.

I don't think this design will ever stop because it's nice just like how more notebooks are becoming glossy. Probably they can improve the design to make the screen lay flat, but otherwise, I think this design will not leave.

When I look in the future, I would say notebooks will mostly be tablet PCs. That's when this design will end because I don't think you can have a drop back hinge design on a tablet. How would you turn the screen?

 

same, i don't see a problem with that design. More than that, I have a 17" Uniwill which has such hinges and i like the screen being a bit further away from my eyes

 

It will never end - its done to make notebook thinner, have a stronger hinge, and is just overall better design. Im pretty sure you are in the big minority of this one

 

I was wondering about this kind of hinge design myself. I don't think I have had a chance to see one in person. It certainly looks cool, but I have a couple of questions from the usability prospective.

1.) From your comments, it looks like this hinge design prevents the screen from being moved completely back. How far back can you move the screen?

2.) Doesn't this design cause the screen to sit lower and have the laptop body at the back actually cover the last line of the screen where the taskbar, system tray etc are?(This is assuming you are running Windows of course)

 

Its a god awful design and YES on some laptops like the toshibas you almost have to look OVER the back of the laptop chassis to see the taskbar. Its a laughable joke this design.

 

usually with these hinges the opening angle is about 160 degrees. Less on Apple.

Mine opens to 170.

By the way, just to mention, these hinges design is much stronger than traditional one. Accidently (stumbled on a wire) I smashed my laptop against the wall in opened state and it not only survived, but nothing broke! Got only a couple of scratches left. A standard design lappy would definitely not survive.

 

What Toshiba are you even talking about? All of their current line dont even have the new style of hinge

 

Let me apologize. Yes the new line of a3xx series do not suffer from this defect as much but they do still incorporate this design slightly. The worst offenders from Toshiba were the A2xx series which boggled my mind why anyone would ever buy those units.

 

Please remember this has nothing to do with how many degrees a laptop screen can open. Like others have said few to no people are going to use a laptop with the screen 180 degrees open, heck even 160 degrees open. The point is with this design the screen gets lowered from view and moved back further away from you. How ANY logical person would agree this is a good idea is beyond me and for the record I am a laptop user for 10 years.

 

I'm using varifocal lenses and have to tilt my head back to see the top part of the screen in focus. So, for me, a hinge which sets the display a bit lower is a good thing.

John

 

i like drop back hinges. i wish there were more available, especially in grimster's region.

 

Hey Grimster, post a pic of exactly what position you don`t like...