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How Practical are 20-inch Laptops?
GeneralPacket writes "A 20-inch laptop might sound perfect for a game of Grand Theft Auto on the way to work, or navigating a mammoth spreadsheet. But are they really usable as laptops, or are they just luggable desktops? This week CNET attempted to work on the super-sized 20-inch Dell XPS M2010 laptop while travelling across London on the subway. The resulting video review is hilarious. This is not your typical tech video review — it's actually funny, and, refreshingly, completely advertising-free. The reviewer is in constant fear that anti-terrorism police are about to swarm him. Would you use a 20-incher?"
Would you use a 20-incher?
On behalf of my girlfriend, I have to say the answer is yes.
Most people don't want a "laptop". Instead, they want something that they can take to Panera and do their work w/o being in the office. My wife and father both have one of these huge laptops. They are uncomfortable to carry (they use backpacks), they suck power (she gets about an hour of battery life), and they are loud.
I rely on my Sidekick for most of my work (e-mail, calendar, and notetaking) and I use a Thinkpad for anything more serious. While I am always looking for something even smaller everyone else seems to look for something larger.
MORE POWER ARRR ARR ARR.
Would you use a 20-incher?
I can't believe you ended a Slashdot post with a question like this... it's like T-ball.
What are you tying to do - flush the trolls into the open?
Sheesh,
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
this T-shirt and the look will be complete!
First off, Dell markets this laptop as a portable home entertainment system. You can obviously interpret that in so many ways, but my guess is that it is intended for portability WITHIN the house. So, for example, it can be used as a perfect workstation at the home office, and then transported to the living room for media center uses.
My close friend bought one of these beasts. I was fast to check it out and I've even borrowed it for personal evaluation purposes (since I wanted one myself). All I can say is that it is an outstanding machine and works perfectly if you want to watch movies while lying in your bed. It also interacts great as a media center and it has the power to play games.
What do people do when they buy a real laptop? They are usually intending to carry it around every now and then, because they might need it at work, at home and at other places. This machine does not really serve that purpose and it's obvious.
So when this reviewer is making this amusing approach of using the laptop at buses and subways, it's fairly obvious this was only an attempt to make fun of its massive size. And there's really nothing we can blame Dell for here, anwyay. With larger screens comes lesser portability. It's fairly obvious.
Full Tilt
To me they seem largely impracticle, but I can see that people are ready for a true desktop class portable to become available - some thing more than a 17" widescreen or the occasional 19". There's nothing like being able to work on a full dual or tri-head setup, close the lid on your work, head home and plug in to your extra monitors, and re-open the work in progress a few minutes later. Albeit with a 20" you can probably cancel your membership at the gym. Some thing of this size the user is not concerned with what their having to carry back and forth, they're just psyched they have a nice work portable area.
How well can they condense the guts of it? Can they stretch out the lcd all the way to tthe edge of the bezel and keep the keys tight to the edge so there's no wasted space? The world of 17" machines like the HP 9600 (total tank) requires massive power supplies to lug around, gives you limted long-term battery life and are the loudest machines I've ever heard with 3+ fans constantly whirring away trying to keep heat to a minimum.
Dell has obvious imac 24" envy
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
I'm reminded of a cartoon in the New Yorker about "Hummer Style" in which various normal objects were supersized and underpowered so they would appeal to bonehead Americans still living in a world where size always means value. For example, a cellphone the size and weight of a concrete block with a range of 200 feet from the cell tower and a battery life of fifteen minutes. In Japan, of course, the idea is to make things smaller and charge more for them. I'd love a laptop with a 1600 X 1200 six inch screen that fit in my pocket. I wouldn't mind using reading glasses and typing on a tiny keyboard, at least until I get "to the office."
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
No, no, no! Not diameter! ...
So what you're saying is that most americans should find this acceptable?