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Comment by noir_lord | Hacker News Reader

I currently use a Vostro 17" beast (7lbs) as I really don't care about thinness or lightness at all, I'm a 200lb 6ft bloke so carrying it around/resting it on my knee isn't an issue.

This trend towards thin/light everything at the expense of upgrade-ability and repair-ability confuses me but I'm not the target demographic.

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Probably depends on what you do. And, I've luckily really never had to repair a laptop. Never drop my phone either, except a tragic drop of a blackberry pearl from 2 feet onto concrete that killed it.

60% or my work is through SSH, 30% writing in outlook, and 10% in various trace analyzers and debuggers. When it came time to upgrade my work laptop, I just asked for the lightest one I could get. A 15" with an extended battery I felt was irritatingly heavy to lug around.

My personal laptop is a 2009 Dell 13". Not very thin, but light.

(Irritatingly enough, outlook is probably more demanding on my laptop than the debuggers and analyzers)

Absolutely depends on what I do, I don't travel on planes and 99% of laptop usage is client meetings, sofa programming (that is in the sofa not programming the sofa though with IoT that won't be long) and coffee shops so big and heavy isnt an issue if it gets me the things I want.

I'd like to see that used on a plane in economy. Given that I travel a lot and don't always end up in business/first, this is one of the first questions I ask myself when considering any new laptop.

But how does extreme thinness help there?

I got alot of work done on planes with what passed for a laptop in the 1990s...

Not so much size, but weight. If your carry-on allowance is 7kg and you don't check baggage, having a laptop that weighs 3kg like the Vostro 17" is a big deal. If you've got a heavy laptop, you've got to either bring less stuff with you on your trip, or go through the hassle of checking baggage.

What percentage of your time over it's entire lifespan is spent using a it on a plane?

Being a 6' tall 200lb person will be worse in economy than whatever laptop you're trying to use.

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