Would you buy a 20-inch PowerBook?

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in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Say Apple made such a portable. Would you buy it? Would it be practical?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 62
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DHagan4755

    Say Apple made such a portable. Would you buy it? Would it be practical?



    no. no.
  • Reply 2 of 62
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    No. And no.



    But you just KNOW it's coming...







    Just saw the 17" PowerBook quite a bit yesterday while in Atlanta and honestly...that's big ENOUGH, people. Jeez...



    Anyone chuckleheaded enough to truly want a 20" "laptop" needs to re-examine their priorities and expectations about "what makes a portable a portable...and why the hell don't I just buy an iMac or G5 already?"







    [not throwing the "chucklehead" label your way, DaveHagan...not at all. Just speaking in general terms about anyone happening to suffer from that degree of Terminal Delusionary Specwhoritis Syndrome - TDSS]



    The 17" is nearing the edge of the cliff as it is! A 20" would be gunning the engine and driving straight over it and crashing on the rocks below...
  • Reply 3 of 62
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pscates

    No. And no.



    But you just KNOW it's coming...







    Just saw the 17" PowerBook quite a bit yesterday while in Atlanta and honestly...that's big ENOUGH, people. Jeez...







    I always thought why go any bigger than 15? I owned a 17-inch (before it overheated and returned it). The 17-inch is literally as big as a laptop should ever go. But you know -- who ever thought we'd see a 17-inch?



    What would a 20-inch PowerBook even begin to look like? How would the keyboard be placed in relationship to the speakers, etc. It would be a monster. Should they put a handle on it, like you're carrying around a set of illustrations?
  • Reply 4 of 62
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    Well, yeah. You can do the math and realize it would indeed be like carrying one of those medium sized art portfolios!







    No thanks, handle or otherwise. There's a point that gets crossed, and a laptop that big is just a desktop suffering from an identity crisis, accompanies by painfully higher price and a built-in keyboard.







    I was absolutely shocked when Steve unveiled the 17" last January. I had no idea one was in the works, or that they even existed (or needed to)...and that they pulled it off so well. But that's about as far as I think they could truly get away with it without getting ridiculous.



    But I'd bet $5 one of these dumbass companies (Dell, probably) will attempt it by 2005 and it'll be horrifying in every way. And we'll gather here to laugh our collective butt off over it.



  • Reply 5 of 62
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Some of the PC 17" notebooks are already precariously close to this. Anyone who can haul a 10- or 12-pound machine around probably wouldn't mind a midsize art portfolio. At least you know Apple's solution wouldn't be 2 1/2 inches thick or nearly as heavy.



    I can't imagine what sort of work Apple would have to do to get around case flexing issues. It would look pretty silly, too, to have that keyboard floating in a vast sea of aluminum.



    I wouldn't buy one, and I don't see how it would be practical. I agree that it's a colossal exercise in missing the point.
  • Reply 6 of 62
    My 17" PowerBook is so large, the screen sits at the rear of my desk. I find myself staring down at it, which gets irritating.



    My 15" iMac, on the other hand, lets me position the screen near the front of my desk, at eye level (not to mention the base is at the back, so I get all kinds of desk space back).



    The upshot is that I would rather look at a 15" screen that's close, and at eye level, than a 17" screen that's low, and far away.



    I can imagine it would be even worse for a 20" PowerBook. Heck, imagine typing on that - your elbows would probably rest on it.
  • Reply 7 of 62
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pscates

    I was absolutely shocked when Steve unveiled the 17" last January. I had no idea one was in the works, or that they even existed (or needed to)...and that they pulled it off so well. But that's about as far as I think they could truly get away with it without getting ridiculous.



    But I'd bet $5 one of these dumbass companies (Dell, probably) will attempt it by 2005 and it'll be horrifying in every way. And we'll gather here to laugh our collective butt off over it.







    I had to use a 17-inch to appreciate its size -- downfalls and upswings. But you know some whack job, trippy hippy artsy fartsy Johnathan Ive wannabe has one sketched up somewhere. Whether it will see the light of day or not remains to be seen. I'm just trying to imagine who out there would actually buy one of them if they ever came out. It seems to me that the interest in the 17-inch is narrow, and if not for the fact that by getting a 17-inch I thought I was avoiding heat issues, I would have gotten another 15-inch. I'm truly awestruck by how many people love their 17-inch, I thought given the new large iMac, it begged the question.



    And PS: Yes, some dumb ass company like Dell or probably Sony will make one that will look like a frigging bed pan, and we'll be here to tear the ass of the company who makes it. Hopefully, it won't be Apple!
  • Reply 8 of 62
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    I realize that me coming from 18 months of 1024x768 (and 2 years of 800x600 before that) makes my giddy love of this 15-inch's 1280x854 a bit more amplified than it would otherwise be, but I think this thing (the 15" I'm currently typing this on) is absolutely the cat's meow!







    I've got room I've never had before (particularly horizontally) and I truly dig it the most. I open palettes in Illustrator and Photoshop that I never used to just because they'd obscure my work.







    I can imagine the 1440x900 of the 17" is even cooler. But this 15" sure strikes a great balance between "feeling big, but being small" or however you want to phrase it.



    To its credit, the 17" doesn't look as big and obnoxious as it ought to! The only way I knew for sure - from a distance - that I was looking at a 17" PowerBook yesterday at the Atlanta Apple store was noticing the two lid latches above the display instead of the 1 latch used on the 12" and 15". Apple's 17" PowerBook is thinner and sleeker in every way than lots of other company's 15" models...by a HUGE margin.



    Quite impressive.



    Still...I don't know how in the world they could do it with a 20" and not make us slap our heads in disbelief (the bad kind).
  • Reply 9 of 62
    we'll see the 20" powerbook, when 20" OLED screens are cheap enough.

    then we'll have the 20" folding origami powerbook! hehehehe

    it's really funny that you guys mentioned this though, i was looking at the 20" imac today thinking the same thing! b.t.w that is one damn big screen for such a little base, kinda like some fake boobs on a skinny little girl! hehehehe
  • Reply 10 of 62
    chipzchipz Posts: 100member
    A 20" laptop is just too much to even think about. The weight would not lend the unit to much portability and the sheer size of the unit would limit where it could be used. You can forget on airplanes unless you purchase two side-by-side seats. The same goes for trains, busses and any other form of public transportation. Use in a car would also be practically impossible. I think the 15" unit is a great compromise between practicality and portability. Even if you planned to use the 20" laptop as a true desktop replacement, it would probably require more room than the computer it's replacing. Leave well enough alone!
  • Reply 11 of 62
    yes and no..
  • Reply 12 of 62
    satchmosatchmo Posts: 2,699member
    The upshot of having a 20" PB is that you could truly have a full sized keyboard complete with numeric pad!
  • Reply 13 of 62
    rageousrageous Posts: 2,170member
    If Apple's goal is for more people to use laptops in place of traditional desktop models, then a 20" is not so far fetched. It's portable enough to take with you when you need to, but would primarily be a desktop computer. I'd buy one for sure. I can always use something bigger for Photoshop/Dreamweaver/BBEdit/Flash/Illustrator authoring.
  • Reply 14 of 62
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    I have the 17 inch pb : and it's the maximum size for a laptop. The 15 inch is more a classical laptop.



    20 inch is too much. The only place for such a product is in the Guiness book.
  • Reply 15 of 62
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DHagan4755

    Would you buy a 20-inch PowerBook



    No.
  • Reply 16 of 62
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DHagan4755

    Say Apple made such a portable. Would you buy it? Would it be practical?



    If it would sport 2 CPUS (e. g. Dual 1.33 GHz G4) and a strong (!) frame (i. e. very rigid) i would buy it. It's just not a portable anymore. It may be a transportable
  • Reply 17 of 62
    jadejade Posts: 379member
    the media center powerbook:



    20" screen

    video inputs and integrated VCR! integrate your home movies into imovie and export back to VHS (for your old school friends)

    all weighing only 15 lbs
  • Reply 18 of 62
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DHagan4755

    Say Apple made such a portable. Would you buy it? Would it be practical?



    Absolutely Not x 2!



    However, if you're question was reframed as:



    "What if there was a Mac AIO (not the iMac though) that used portable styling/engineering cues - thus making it more transportable than an iMac, but not a laptop in the classic sense!"



    I could imagine that having a market for the truly space-constrained, or for those whose living/working environment changed regularly (i.e. weeks in city/long weekends in country), without having the requirements for a laptop.
  • Reply 19 of 62
    jamiljamil Posts: 210member
    Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!



    Even the 17 is too big to lug around.
  • Reply 20 of 62
    Though it would probably not have a place in the traditional notebook market, I imagine there is certianly a niche of video and audio pros who currently lug around cinema displays that would love such a product, particularly if it had two hard drives. I used to do work for a PBS production unit that carried around a HUGE dual 450 MHZ Xeon with a massive external SCSI RAID on wheels and twin 19" CRTs. For jobs like that, a 20" PowerBook with a 1600 x 1024 display would be a real lifesaver. Hell, I'd build it out of diamond plate stainless and bill it as a mobile production studio. It may not be the best looking or ergonomic "portable" but some people would find it invaluable.
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