Due Next Year: Dell's 19-inch Laptop

WheelRunner writes "Engadget is running a story about Dell's new 19-inch laptop. Sadly, it's too late for the only lap that could hold it, Marlon Brando's." Maybe if Apple would put a keyboard-containing lid (and a briefcase-style handle) on the 20" iMac, a market for car-battery backpacks would emerge.

Comments

Re:Not a Laptop

[conteXXt]

hmmm. doesn't sound too bad.

A tripod like device that folds up (is lightwieght) and fits in a DTR pc bag.

I would get one if the price point $20 CAD

(hint, aluminium tubing sounds about right)

I've seen many sillier products on the TV at night.

Too big

[Leroy_Brown242]

TGIK got rid of his 17" powerbook after a few months. It was too damned big. It was no longer a convieniently portible device. it was a mobile workstation.

I think it's awesome that tech has come to the point of making machines like this. But how long is it before more people that don't need/want/know how to upgrade their machiens have these instead of real desktops at thier desk, in mass numbers? Think how much easier in a corporate environment it would be to move someone from one cubical to another, if all they had was a 'laptop' and personal effects!

Re:Too big

[Malc]

It'll be upgradable in the common ways that most "real" deskstops are. In a corporate environment, the most common upgrades are memory and diskspace.

I have a Dell M60 laptop, which I use as instead of a desktop. I work from home for an office the other side of the country. Therefore this thing spends most of its life docked, but I can take it with me if I want to work somewhere else, or I can take it to the office on my occasional visits. I don't need ultra portability and this new machine would certainly appeal to me.

pretty big

[moz25]

I have a 15.4" widescreen (dell) laptop. That's more or less the ideal size if you're going to carry it around all day. I found the 17" version too big to use. The nice thing about their screens, though, is that they offer high resolution screens (like 1680x1050), while many other manufacturers are stuck in the 1024x768 range.

Re:pretty big

[theendlessnow]

I too own a 15.4" widescreen laptop from Dell... but it has 1920x1200 resolution. Very nice and yet still mostly portable.

The 17" versions are huge.. 19" !! ridiculous.

Soon laptop bags will become laptop carts if things continue this direction.

Maybe the next generation 52" "laptops" will come with self propelled cases.

a voice of reason here?

[PONA-Boy]

I thought the idea of a "laptop" or "notebook PC" was so that it was portable.

Isn't this sort of thing the reason docking stations were invented? portability for on-the-go and a way to simulate a regular desktop when you are in the office?? I mean, reallly!!

-PONA-

Re:a voice of reason here?

[jonadab]

> I thought the idea of a "laptop" or "notebook PC" was so that it was portable.

There's portable, and then there's portable, and then there's portable. My prediction is that it's the average-sized laptops (14.something-inch display) that will eventually fall by the wayside, because they're a poor compromise. They're not portable enough to use while standing in line, for instance. You can't balance the thing on one knee, either. And the keyboard isn't suitable for prolonged typing sessions. And you have very little screen real-estate. It is good for some things, but a subnotebook in the 9-inch range is almost as good for most of those purposes.

If you're going to need to sit down and set the thing up on a table to use it anyway, you might as well use a 17"+ model, especially if the weight-to-diagonal ratio keeps dropping. Among other things, this gives you a full-size keyboard, so that you can touch-type and not need reconstructive surgery on your hands as a result. But it's *way* more conveniently portable than most desktops. For trips, you can easily pick the thing up, toss it in the car, and use it in the hotel when you get there. College students can take it home for the weekend. There's no rat's nest of cables to plug and unplug (with the accompanying end-user concern about getting things hooked back up correctly). Also, it's not so heavy that a small woman would be afraid she'd drop it (a common concern with moving desktop systems).

There are still going to be some niches that the 14-15" laptop would still fill. It would fit on an airplane tray table, for instance, so people who fly a lot might want one for that. But for most people I would expect either a larger or a smaller option to be preferable, depending on their needs. Indeed, some people mind decide they want both, a 19"+ portable desktop replacement that they can carry into hotels and things and use at any table or desk, and an 8"-or-so subnotebook that they can carry in a large pocket and hold on an open palm in a pinch while hunt-and-peck typing with the other hand (or use a stylus or whatever). Plus maybe also a tiny model that also has a cellphone feature or can be worn as a wristwatch, for very simple on-the-fly tasks that don't require a lot of I/O. (Remember the calculator wristwatches that were popular in the 1980s? Imagine one that can also look up weather and stock quotes and stuff on the web, sync with your appointments calculator, and beep at you when you have an appointment coming up.)

Re:19 inches?

[bmalek]

I have a Dell 17" widescreen laptop and have no problems carrying it around with the backpack that Dell offers. In fact, there is enough room for a 19" version (or at least enough that I will make room)!

Now to only convince my fiancee to trade mine in for the new version...

If you want portability, buy an IBM, if you want to show off... well the bigger the better, right?

Heavy now was light way back when

[WillAdams]

When I bought my first laptop, a GRiDCase III Plus, it was ten and a half pounds, and was a featherweight compared to the ~30lb. luggables then available (Compaq, Otrona, &c.)

Apple even had a carrying case for the 128K Mac when it first came out, which tradition is carried on in:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/LTA%20Projects/ILUG GERBLK/

And there's even one for the Mac Mini:

http://www.tombihn.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Scre en=PROD&Product_Code=TB0351

The thing I'm faintly surprised / disappointed at is that no one has mad a combination carrying case and battery pack for a Mac Mini _and_ Wacom Cintiq (LCD integrated w/ a graphics tablet) which would get one a Tablet Mac w/o waiting for Apple to build one.

William

Re:Heavy now was light way back when

[WillAffleckUW]

When I bought my first laptop, a GRiDCase III Plus, it was ten and a half pounds, and was a featherweight compared to the ~30lb. luggables then available (Compaq, Otrona, &c.)

I used to have to lug, in addition to my standard 70 pound pack, either a Pjunjar (portable drill for emplacing explosives in rock faces) or a GRiD mil computer, plus a 15 pound FN C2 with a 15 pound ammo chest pack for the 7.62 mm rounds.

Up mountains. In winter and in freezing rain. For weeks and months. Silently. Sometimes helping up others who slipped before they went over the cliff faces.

Don't get me started, this is sooooooo slack.

Bah! This is small potatoes!

[suitepotato]

Seriously, I used to carry around a big-arse artist's portfolio case with a three-foot wide drafting board and giant pads to do design sketches back in high school and the total weight was close to thirty pounds with everything in the case.

Someone makes a three-foot wide laptop with screen to match, I am soooo there. Full size keyboard, graphics tablet, and folding joystick right in front of me, big-arse 32" or so screen in front of me, maybe even fold-out flat speakers. How is this too big? I'm sick of chiclet keyboards, undersized screens, cramming all that power into too small a space and creating an upside down hot plate to scortch my crotch with.

Re:God I Really Hope

[mankey wanker]

I have a pivoting monitor and I can assure you that the computer screen was meant to be vertical, not horizontal. I assume you were going that way with your comment...

So yeah, a screen that is even more horizontal is of little use. The problem is the presumed convergence of all things electronic. Now maybe convergence is actually happening, but most computer software and movie DVDs have vastly different demands on screen size.

I love reading websites as if they were a vertical page of newsprint. Other stuff looks great that way too: digital comic books, MS Reader texts, PDFs, etc.

Composing documents with a full page view is really nice too. If I were still doing legal research and writing, I'd probably find it indispensable - as it is it's really nice anyway. Horizontal never made any sense, it just meant lots of scrolling or pages too small to view in their entirety.

And the problem will remain with us: movies look good in a wide landscape frame, reading is easier if the lines are narrower. No compromise except via pivoting screens.

I Use a Luggable Workstation Every Day

[Prototerm]

How heavy might this sucker be? To get some perspective, consider the laptop I'm using right now, an Acer Aspire 1710. It has a 17 inch diagonal screen (not a widescreen), a full-size keyboard (with keypad) and standard desktop PC components (CPU, memory, and hard-drive). It barely fits into the Targus case I bought for it (it's kinda thick on one end), and weighs in at a hefty 16 pounds. It's great when I need to take a full-blown workstation with me to a client, because I don't have to play around with a more anemic beast (e.g., I have the luxury of a fast 250 Gig hard drive)

Now, consider how much heavier a 19 inch machine might be. The screen alone would add significant poundage. Dell might use smaller and lighter components inside to shave some weight off, but you also need to look at the sheer size of the thing. If it ended up no heavier than my machine, the weight isn't a problem (IMHO), but I don't know about the size.

Re:Not a Laptop

[aclarke]

Well, Sony's notebooks haven't been called "laptops" in a while. I'm happy to say that I'm a Powerbook user now, but maybe 4 years ago we got a 15" Sony Vaio. It got so hot it would burn my legs if I wore shorts, so I called Sony to get some warranty work done on my "laptop".

The woman's response was "that's why we don't call them laptops, sir". Apparently everything was within spec. Go figure.

Re:Remember kids!

[dfghjk]

...and because it's an x86 machine it has far better processor performance than the G4 and a far higher resolution screen.

Now, regarding quality my experience with Apple quality is that it sucks. Every Apple product I've owned has failed---the two macs each within a month of purchase. You may prefer the aesthetics of the Powerbook but I seriously doubt the quality is better "across-the-board". Frankly many of the parts are identical between the two and I can promise you that Dell does far more regression testing on their systems than Apple does. I've had nothing but good luck with Dell notebooks and have owned more than 6. After 10 days my Powermac failed and has been in the shop getting fixed now for two weeks. You don't have to put up with that shit on a Dell. Apple quality is a myth.