{"id":243,"date":"2010-08-31T18:36:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T18:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/2010\/08\/31\/why-has-laptop-technology-stagnated\/"},"modified":"2010-08-31T18:36:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-31T18:36:00","slug":"why-has-laptop-technology-stagnated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/2010\/08\/31\/why-has-laptop-technology-stagnated\/","title":{"rendered":"Why has laptop technology stagnated?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I used to use a laptop every day. In my mind, the most important aspects of a laptop are: screen size and resolution; keyboard quality; thickness and weight; and battery life. <\/p>\n<p>If you asked someone today to choose a top-of-the-line laptop, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d likely pick a MacBook Pro, the 15\u00e2\u20ac\u009d model of which has the following key features:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>15.4\u00e2\u20ac\u009d screen with 1440&#215;900 resolution\n<li>Apparently great keyboard\n<li>0.95\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thick\n<li>5.6 lbs\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2010\/04\/14\/macbook-pro-core-i7-review\/\">5:20 real-world battery life<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Surely an impressive machine. However, in <em>2003<\/em> I got an IBM Thinkpad T40, which has the following corresponding <a href=\"http:\/\/www-307.ibm.com\/pc\/support\/site.wss\/MIGR-58185.html\">specs<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>14.1\u00e2\u20ac\u009d screen with 1400&#215;1050 resolution\n<li>Amazing keyboard\n<li>1.0\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thick\n<li>4.9 lbs\n<li>4:40 real-world battery life<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remarkably similar, and actually better on several counts. Sure, <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The processor is slower, but it was state-of-the-art at the time, and was probably more power hungry.\n<li>The screen is smaller, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s higher resolution. Also, the 13.3\u00e2\u20ac\u009d MacBook Pro weighs 4.5 lbs, so 14.1\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\/4.9 is still very competitive.\n<li>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Macs have better build quality, blah blah\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Does not appear to be the case, at least for this example. The T40 in question was used every day as my primary computer for years. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been dropped, while open and running, at least 5 times, with no ill effects. In fact, it is <em>still running<\/em>, seven years on, as a streaming Netflix server for our TV. It won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t die.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What gives? I know battery technology hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t improved much. But what about everything else? Shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t new laptops be half the weight, or have fold-up \u00e2\u20ac\u0153retina display\u00e2\u20ac\u009d screens, or something? <\/p>\n<p>Okay, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the most advanced laptop I could find with an optical drive\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the Lenovo ThinkPad T410s. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>14\u00e2\u20ac\u009d screen with 1440&#215;900 resolution\n<li>Apparently great keyboard\n<li>0.83\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thick\n<li>3.9 lbs\n<li>4:10 real-world battery life<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I guess that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decent. But still. 7 years ago, I listened to music on a portable abacus, and now I have it piped directly into the aural processing unit of my brain. Why can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t laptops catch up?<\/p>\n<p><b>Edit:<\/b> In responding to a comment, I came across a better laptop with an optical drive, the ThinkPad X301:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>13.3\u00e2\u20ac\u009d screen with 1440&#215;900 resolution\n<li>Apparently great keyboard\n<li>0.7\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thick\n<li>2.9-3.3 lbs\n<li>3:40 real-world battery life<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> That&#8217;s not bad. Too bad it starts at like $2,500.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I used to use a laptop every day. In my mind, the most important aspects of a laptop are: screen size and resolution; keyboard quality; thickness and weight; and battery life. If you asked someone today to choose a top-of-the-line &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/2010\/08\/31\/why-has-laptop-technology-stagnated\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1c91x-3V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}