How well do sub notebooks sell? The first sentence in the article is Sony's latest attempt to get Europeans to fall in love with sub notebooks.
I'm no fan of them the screen and keyboard are just too small to be usable.
A Macsubbook doesn't have to be. It's an 11.1" widescreen LCD. Think a 12" Powerbook with an inch lopped off the top. The screen and keyboard could be as wide as that Powerbook. With the smaller dot pitches of today's LCDs, it could have perhaps an 1152x768 resolution, no worse than the 1024x768 of the 12", which I found acceptable. The keyboard would be unaffected, although I personally never had any real problems touchtyping on a much smaller keyboard when I owned a handheld PC. Sure, I lost about 10% of my speed, but no big deal. I, for one, would love a lighter, thinner subnotebook, even if it meant dealing with a slightly smaller keyboard.
I'm pleased to see that you think I'm an Apple apologist, because I always enjoy when others want to try and fit me into archetypes and stereotypes: it's very telling about their flaws.
But you also want all that to fit in the very same horizontal dimensions, not to mention a thinner and lighter case.
Why shouldn't what I propose fit in the "very same horizontal dimensions"? I don't really care if my MBP has nearly the same guts as an MB underneath. That should work just fine unless replacing the GPU or adding a lighted keyboard is more of a reworking challenge than I imagine.
The 12" PowerBook, after all, wasn't much more than a glorified iBook clad in aluminum instead of plastic. Just changing the enclosure wrapped around nearly the same innards resulted in a slimmer and lighter end result. The same should hold true for putting a slightly modified MB into an aluminum enclosure.
I was pretty happy with my 12" PowerBook, even if it didn't have the full range of feature of the 15" and 17" members of the PowerBook line. Since MBs are already closer in features to MBPs than iBooks ever were to PowerBooks, a "glorified MacBook" in an aluminum enclosure would suit me just fine.
Why shouldn't what I propose fit in the "very same horizontal dimensions"?
Um, because you're fitting *more* into the *same*?
Quote:
I don't really care if my MBP has nearly the same guts as an MB underneath. That should work just fine unless replacing the GPU or adding a lighted keyboard is more of a reworking challenge than I imagine.
You seem to be missing that
1) a GPU takes some space, not to mention a lot of engineering to get the cooling right. The MB doesn't have to deal with this.
2) the keyboard illumination takes some space for the light, not to mention a lot of engineering to get the balancing right. The MB doesn't have to deal with this.
Quote:
The 12" PowerBook, after all, wasn't much more than a glorified iBook clad in aluminum instead of plastic.
Yes, but the iBook had a GPU, unlike the MacBook, and the 12-inch PowerBook had no backlit keyboard, unlike what you want.
Ergo, neither difference was actually there.
Quote:
Just changing the enclosure wrapped around nearly the same innards resulted in a slimmer and lighter end result. The same should hold true for putting a slightly modified MB into an aluminum enclosure.
Except that you want more vast modifications.
Quote:
Since MBs are already closer in features to MBPs than iBooks ever were to PowerBooks
Not so. They use the same chipset, GPU and RAM, but that wasn't any different between iBooks and PowerBooks either. Yes, the iBook's CPU and FSB frequencies were lower, but that was more of an artificial limitation for business purposes than a technical challenge.
Without exact specifications, we're both obviously arguing in part in a vacuum. Neither of us really know exactly how much extra space a lighted keyboard takes up over the basic MB keyboard, nor how much extra room the ATI GPU (and any associated extra cooling) takes up vs. the Intel video chip that's already in there.
What I propose, however, hardly seems like "vast" modification. Perhaps your sense of the word "vast" is a bit different than mine.
Given the price point that the MBs sell at, I imagine there's a little wiggle room for saving a little space here and there in the design without a major overhaul. Further, suppose that a lighted keyboard has to be just a little thicker than the basic MB keyboard. The savings in overall thickness of the whole unit by using aluminum instead of plastic might balance that out, or result in only a small increase in thickness while length and depth could both still be reduced.
Why is it that so few computer manufacturers seem to understand the concept of aesthetics?
Maybe the VAIO has better specs than a MacBook, fine.
But it's UGLY!
How hard is it to make a laptop LOOK good? Not hard at ALL! I have no idea why no company other than Apple seems able to manage it. Sure, Alienware, Voodoo, Falcon Northwest; they can do a decent job at it, but a "low-end" FragBook from Falcon is $2,707.72!
I would have a hard time using something so frikkin UGLY as a VAIO.
Comments
Originally posted by TenoBell
How well do sub notebooks sell? The first sentence in the article is Sony's latest attempt to get Europeans to fall in love with sub notebooks.
I'm no fan of them the screen and keyboard are just too small to be usable.
A Macsubbook doesn't have to be. It's an 11.1" widescreen LCD. Think a 12" Powerbook with an inch lopped off the top. The screen and keyboard could be as wide as that Powerbook. With the smaller dot pitches of today's LCDs, it could have perhaps an 1152x768 resolution, no worse than the 1024x768 of the 12", which I found acceptable. The keyboard would be unaffected, although I personally never had any real problems touchtyping on a much smaller keyboard when I owned a handheld PC. Sure, I lost about 10% of my speed, but no big deal. I, for one, would love a lighter, thinner subnotebook, even if it meant dealing with a slightly smaller keyboard.
Originally posted by Chucker
I'm pleased to see that you think I'm an Apple apologist, because I always enjoy when others want to try and fit me into archetypes and stereotypes: it's very telling about their flaws.
Originally posted by Chucker
But you also want all that to fit in the very same horizontal dimensions, not to mention a thinner and lighter case.
Why shouldn't what I propose fit in the "very same horizontal dimensions"? I don't really care if my MBP has nearly the same guts as an MB underneath. That should work just fine unless replacing the GPU or adding a lighted keyboard is more of a reworking challenge than I imagine.
The 12" PowerBook, after all, wasn't much more than a glorified iBook clad in aluminum instead of plastic. Just changing the enclosure wrapped around nearly the same innards resulted in a slimmer and lighter end result. The same should hold true for putting a slightly modified MB into an aluminum enclosure.
I was pretty happy with my 12" PowerBook, even if it didn't have the full range of feature of the 15" and 17" members of the PowerBook line. Since MBs are already closer in features to MBPs than iBooks ever were to PowerBooks, a "glorified MacBook" in an aluminum enclosure would suit me just fine.
Originally posted by shetline
Why shouldn't what I propose fit in the "very same horizontal dimensions"?
Um, because you're fitting *more* into the *same*?
I don't really care if my MBP has nearly the same guts as an MB underneath. That should work just fine unless replacing the GPU or adding a lighted keyboard is more of a reworking challenge than I imagine.
You seem to be missing that
1) a GPU takes some space, not to mention a lot of engineering to get the cooling right. The MB doesn't have to deal with this.
2) the keyboard illumination takes some space for the light, not to mention a lot of engineering to get the balancing right. The MB doesn't have to deal with this.
The 12" PowerBook, after all, wasn't much more than a glorified iBook clad in aluminum instead of plastic.
Yes, but the iBook had a GPU, unlike the MacBook, and the 12-inch PowerBook had no backlit keyboard, unlike what you want.
Ergo, neither difference was actually there.
Just changing the enclosure wrapped around nearly the same innards resulted in a slimmer and lighter end result. The same should hold true for putting a slightly modified MB into an aluminum enclosure.
Except that you want more vast modifications.
Since MBs are already closer in features to MBPs than iBooks ever were to PowerBooks
Not so. They use the same chipset, GPU and RAM, but that wasn't any different between iBooks and PowerBooks either. Yes, the iBook's CPU and FSB frequencies were lower, but that was more of an artificial limitation for business purposes than a technical challenge.
Originally posted by Chucker
Except that you want more vast modifications.
Without exact specifications, we're both obviously arguing in part in a vacuum. Neither of us really know exactly how much extra space a lighted keyboard takes up over the basic MB keyboard, nor how much extra room the ATI GPU (and any associated extra cooling) takes up vs. the Intel video chip that's already in there.
What I propose, however, hardly seems like "vast" modification. Perhaps your sense of the word "vast" is a bit different than mine.
Given the price point that the MBs sell at, I imagine there's a little wiggle room for saving a little space here and there in the design without a major overhaul. Further, suppose that a lighted keyboard has to be just a little thicker than the basic MB keyboard. The savings in overall thickness of the whole unit by using aluminum instead of plastic might balance that out, or result in only a small increase in thickness while length and depth could both still be reduced.
Maybe the VAIO has better specs than a MacBook, fine.
But it's UGLY!
How hard is it to make a laptop LOOK good? Not hard at ALL! I have no idea why no company other than Apple seems able to manage it. Sure, Alienware, Voodoo, Falcon Northwest; they can do a decent job at it, but a "low-end" FragBook from Falcon is $2,707.72!
I would have a hard time using something so frikkin UGLY as a VAIO.