It’s time to upgrade my three-year-old laptop which is getting long in the tooth. Looking around online and in big box stores, I find plenty of ultra-thin models available both in Macs and Windows PCs. Nowadays, laptops have become so thin that there’s almost no more practicality in getting them any skinny.
Take, for example, the HP Spectre; at 10.4mm thin, HP is proudly announcing it’s the world’s thinnest laptop. Though it looks as thin as it is, that doesn’t get buyers any extra advantages. Consider how thin it is, and you’ll realize that it’s only as thick as a slice of bread.
Nowadays, laptops have become so thin that they differ only by a few millimeters. The differences between them carry very little meaning because they all fit easily into tight bag pockets, and none of them is any easier to use. The one that claims to be a millimeter or even less in thickness than the rest isn’t more practical to use. For the most part, consumers don’t care, and when’s the last time you heard a typical user speak about the thickness of a particular laptop?
When it comes to getting a new laptop, few consumers are really interested in how thin it is. Many laptop users simply take whatever model the company gives them. The ones buying their own laptop often choose a financially feasible one, no matter how thin the model may be. So, the race to get even thinner as laptop makers seem to insist on doing is not as much of a factor as it used to be. It’s time to focus on other areas going forward.
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My MacBook Air is three years old, which is old for a laptop, but it’s more than thin enough. I like that it’s thin, but I’m not looking for the thinnest model available. Newer laptops have become so thin that anything I consider will still be thin enough, and I doubt that I’m the only one who thinks that way.
Shaving off a few extra millimeters from new laptops may even have negative consequences. Thinner laptops mean less space for batteries, and that, in turn, means shorter battery runtimes. Ultra-thin laptops that use Core iX processors usually have less powerful mobile processors that require fans for cooling. Try one of those, and when the fan kicks on, the noise may surprise you. The hit a fan takes on the battery shouldn’t be a surprise, however.
