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Comment by vacri | Hacker News Reader

> 18 mm ... versus 15.5 mm

On a tangent, weight I can understand, as folks physically haul around a laptop, but I've never understood shaving a millimeter or two from the thickness of a laptop. I've heard genuine complaints about heavy laptops, or too-large form-factor (big screen or overly large bezel), but thinness seems to be just bragging rights. I've known people who bought a laptop to fit in a leather bag they already liked (rather than the other way around!), but I've never heard anyone complain that laptops are just too thick.

Am I missing something here?

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In addition to what others have said here and elsewhere, I think some of it is also internal competition gone too far among mechanical designers to make the thinnest edge or the most subtle bezel. When I worked with product designers in the past, there was always a lot of oohing and ahhing whenever they'd come across a competing product with tighter tolerances than they'd seen before. Its like the product design version of needing to use the latest pre-alpha NodeJS framework or transpiled front-end language; it doesn't necessarily have a direct effect on the end user experience, but it satiates its creators own need for new and shiny.

This is like what Philippe Starck calls 'narcissistic design' - design to impress other designers.

And I get the impression that Apple has been doing a shit ton of that over the years...

I agree, but I just bought a 15" MBP 2015 and 15,4-inch (2880 x 1800), ~2 kg, plus the battery life feels just right to me (YMMV). Its ~2/3 of my previous 15" MBP 2010, the battery life is ~25% better, and the screen is noticeably brighter and crispier (partly due to the old screen being matte and 6 years old).

I didn't have to go to extremely low weight device. I didn't have to go to small battery. I didn't have to go to low or high resolution extremes. Sure, the GPU isn't great, but I decided to not play games on it from the get go. I wouldn't have my gaming equipment for it anyway (mechanical keyboard with binds, Naga mouse, headset, etc).

Well, he would know about it!

There's a video[1] that has some history of the calculator in Japan that kind of mirrors this. There's a race to get the smallest and thinnest, but it ultimately ends with the calculator not being particularly good to use.

[1] https://youtu.be/1_GVkR0SITo?t=17m25s

Laptops sitting on desks are nicer to type at when they're thinner, because the difference between the arm on the desk and the palm on the laptop is minimized. Thinner also usually correlates with weight.

This can be at least partially mitigated with a trapezoidal laptop shape, thicker towards the hinge. Though I will admit that a trapezoidal profile is much harder to fill with components than a rectangular one.

You're typing wrong. You should never rest your palms on the laptop.

Well, I don't type on laptops as a rule anyway. My dev machine may be a laptop, but it sits on a stand plugged into an external display and external keyboard.

In any case, if you do the ergonomically correct thing and keep your palms off the keyboard, it's still probably easier to type on a slimmer laptop.

Agreed and if your doing any typing at a desk for extended periods (> 1hour a day) you should really be using a separate keyboard.

I used to not care until I stopped using workstations and desktop replacements, 2.5mm doesn't feel like much until you switch from one to the other and it fits in your hands that much better when you're moving with it. That was one of my favorite things about the Spectre

Pure marketing ploy, same as with phones, which nobody wanted thinner versions of ever since we got thin-enough smartphones.

It's hard to market an intangible quality like "increased battery life", but a thinner laptop has an immediate visual, futuristic, visceral appeal.

The new MacBook Pro looks sleek, and immediately makes the 2015 model — once the slickest laptop around — look dumpy and old hat.

On the other hand, there is such a thing as a laptop that is too thick and heavy, obviously. Many PC models still are.

Battery life and increased battery life are almost always a feature that is marketed by laptop manufacturers. On the Macbook Pro one of the key features being marketed is "up to 10 hours of battery life". I guess you may mean that making it thinner increases the "sleek look" and visual appeal?

While a lot of people clearly care about it, I'm just saying that the selling power of visual, tacile aspects of these products is much greater than almost anything else.

Thickness matters when you're carrying without a case. E.g. Walking down to a meeting. Also means you can fit more papers in a bag with your laptop.

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