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Comment by snowwrestler | Hacker News Reader

There are like a dozen similar comments I could reply to, but I'll just pick yours to pipe up: hi, I'm a person who wants thinner and lighter laptops.

Why? Because I want the least possible weight, and a screen size I can use. The only way to hold screen size constant and drop weight is to get thinner.

I just got a 13" MBP, which is about the same weight and size as my 2012 Air, but gives me better battery life, better performance, and a way better screen. It's great. I even like the new keyboard better.

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I'm like you in that I only ever buy 13" ultralight laptops. But there are diminishing returns after about 3lbs.

Like yeah, going from 2.8 to 2lbs is great and all but it's not as notable as the jump 10 years ago from the 5lbs bricks to the original MacBook Air. The computer still takes up about the same space in my bag and I wouldn't really notice ~1 lbs difference, especially if I still have to carry around a 1lbs power adapter because the thin battery lasts less than 8-10 hours of moderate use.

In the meantime, the design compromises to get to 2lbs are becoming increasingly aggravating: thinner keyboards that jam, screens bonded to glass so that repair is impossible, RAM and SSD soldered onto the board, batteries broken up into pieces so that replacement is annoying or impossible, passively cooled Intel chips that throttle, weak integrated GPUs. And probably a bunch of other stuff.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that the kind of lightweight laptop you like is inherently bad.

I see the appeal of light and minimal, but I also see the idea of heavy and feature packed.

Plus pursuing thinness as end in and of itself (edit: to the point that reliability is impacted) is preposterous. Is a few millimeters thinner really going to change the way you feel about your laptop? Probably it would not impact any functional aspect of your relationship with the laptop.

After all, thicker doesn’t necessarily mean heavier. I’m fact thicker things are more resistant to bending, so perhaps it could mean lighter. If you want to understand the mechanics, check this out https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_modulus

> The only way to hold screen size constant and drop weight is to get thinner.

Or get rid of bezels. Or have a better aspect ratio.

> gives me better battery life, better performance, and a way better screen

That is be expected after so many years. Also, before apple started its "retina" branding it just had worse screens than comparable competition, e.g. sony vaio or hp and lenovo with nice high-res IPS screens while the air had a rather low res TN screen.

> I'm a person who wants thinner and lighter laptops. Why? Because I want the least possible weight

But… why?

Some of us are skinny. Or we hate lugging around weight. With something like a laptop, which you're carrying around everyday, half a pound saved makes a big difference.

I won't say I'm for thinner laptops, per se, because I'd rather that every laptop came with the maximum permissible 99 WHr battery, but I want everything as light as possible hell yes.

So get an ipad

They still need to get the job done.

I've tried them; so far I have preferred working in MacOS. I might give the new iPadOS a try.

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