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Two-Pounder From Lenovo Might Be Too Light For Comfort
MojoKid writes: With the advent of solid state storage and faster, lower-powered processors that require less complex cooling solutions, the average mainstream notebook is rather svelte. Recently, however, Lenovo announced their LaVie Z and LaVie Z 360 ultrabooks and at 1.87 and 2.04 pounds respectively, they're almost ridiculously light. Further, with Core i7 mobile processors and fast SSDs on board, these machines perform impressively well in the benchmarks and real world usage. If you actually pick one up though, both models are so light they feel almost empty, like there's nothing inside. Lenovo achieved this in part by utilizing a magnesium--lithium composite material for the casing of the machines. Though they're incredibly light, the feeling is almost too light, such that they tend to feel a little cheap or flimsy. With a tablet, you come to expect a super thin and light experience and when holding them in one hand, the light weight is an advantage. However, banging on a full-up notebook keyboard deck is a different ball of wax.
If you can cut something from 3lb to 2lb, that just means you have room for 1lb more battery.
Same thing applies with phones. Stop making them thinner, and use the saved space for more battery!
and less.
The new R30 and Z30 models from Toshiba are a magnesium honeycomb design that's supposed to be really tough. I don't believe them. Their modern satellite series is pathetic. They're around 4 pounds but still have 15.6" screens. They're the same old composite material that laptops have been made with for years so naturally it cracks and fractures and bends and really doesn't impress the person holding it. They're so stupidly fragile! I've had 6 HP sleekbooks come in with shattered screens too, which makes sense since the lids are about a half centimeter thick. This stupidity needs to stop.
Weight plays a lot into our perception for how solid and well built things are, even when they're not. Lightweight is great, but go too far and things feel like a fragile toy.
This is almost too good a problem to have with a laptop -- too lightweight? Put more battery in it.
.. than this POS Dell Latitude E7240.. Worst machine I've had and it's ~2kg. The Lenovo x201 which I had before was so much better..
I travel and work a lot with my laptop in one hand so a 1kg laptop would be extremely nice. Oh and this Dell have the excellent screen resolution of 1366x768.. F-ing worthless and makes it feel even cheaper, ignoring the whole keyboard flexing when pushing buttons etc...
courtesy of MojoKid. this time with a hint of critique - as we wouldn't notice.
Light is great, for travelling, as long as strong enough.
But the latest Macbook (around 2 pounds) has two key problems that would prevent me buying it.
1) The keyboard feel really sucks compared to the Macbook Air. Not enough travel. And just feels shaky and iffy.
2) Having only one port (a USB C doubling as the power connector and for any peripheral) is going one step too far.
Firstly, it doesn't have the amazing magsafe connector's safety, which is a showstopper for me.
Secondly, it is not a rare use case to want plug power AND at least one peripheral (e.g. extra screen, usb memory stick, tethered smartphone.)
So this one lost Apple's famous design edge and QA excellence. Are they slipping?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
It looks chunky enough it should have had room for at least an optional extra battery to last more than 3-4 hours under real use. And, seriously, how can you make a tablet without a real digitizer these days? Why must I use a crayon or my finger to draw figures or edit photos in tablet mode? (Don't even get me started with that Adonis bullshit - been there, done that, not worth a penny much less $100).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Don't worry, it will soon be weighed down with the burden of crippling malware.
This looks to be a great laptop . . . other than Lenovo totally screwed-up the keyboard. Why is it that Lenovo (and other manufacturers) feel the need to move keys to strange locations, make some keys duplicates and eliminate others? Lenovo has produced laptops with sane keyboard layouts before. Do they have customers that insist on buying laptops that have stupid input interfaces?
Oh, yeah . . . it's also missing the mandatory TrackPoint (pointing stick) and accompanying pointer buttons.
We want everything with bigger screens - but not that much bigger. We want everything lighter - but not that much lighter. Sometimes companies tend to focus on what the consumer says they want - instead of trying to figure out what they really want. Let's face it, we are generally terrible at knowing what we want.
Just tweak the "weight" slider when you 3D print it at home. In your 3D printed home.
Can he get a refund for the unused copy of windows, then?
Have you checked out /dev/null ?
Unlimited battery life.
Unlimited memory.
Unlimited persistent storage.
100% secure!
The only problem is that it's write only with no user output.
Without a trackpoint I don't even want to look at it. Wtf is up with Lenovo not putting trackpoints on a lot of their laptops?
Remember when cell phones kept getting smaller and lighter? Remember when netbooks were going to revolutionize the portable computer? Remember when phablets were the next big thing? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Lenovo, unfortunately, has their own non-Thinkpad laptop lines. These are where the bad ideas that have occasionally spilled over and corrupted the Thinkpads are given full freedom to breed and mutate into ever weirder and less likeable consumer crap.
1 comment, 1000 submissions. He's a hot hardware boner.
"As you can see in my PowerPoint slide, the...ah, ah, Aaachoooo!... Hey, where's my laptop?"
Table-ized A.I.
No. That would be like demanding that a car dealer refund you the money that the tires cost because you put different tires on the day after you bought it. And that's just stupid, and a stupid thing to suggest. M$ is not oppressing you.
A refund for what? It's not like he's paid for the copy of Windows that comes with it.
Ehh, that's not entirely reasonable. I mean, kind of, but it's like the "pirating vs stealing" thing. You're not strictly depriving the dealership of being able to sell that copy of the software again. (Unless it has unique keys even for oems, but that's still silly.)
Really just arguing against the analogy here.
As long as you can use it without it flying off your lap, (we are talking about a laptop, right?) or desk, and the rest of the specs are what you're looking for, why wouldn't you want it to be as light as possible? As long as the "bottom" where the keyboard is weighs enough so the screen doesn't tip it over backwards, I say the lighter the better! Why would you intentionally want something to be heavy? Screw all the conversations around it being preceived as being cheap because it's light. The only people that would think that are people who know NOTHING about what it takes to MAKE things light in the first place! If it weren't for durability factors and little things like flashpoints, I would say make everything out of magnesium honeycomb! Or whatever is next, of course. (Spiderweb anyone?)
Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
A refund for what? It's not like he's paid for the copy of Windows that comes with it.
Then who did pay for it? I was under the impression that PC makers paid about $60 per copy for a lawful Windows install. Or are you claiming that publishers of Windows-only trialware completely subsidize the Windows license?
Actually, you can request a refund before you click the license agreement for Windows.
Actually, people have done this and documented the request & refund and the documents are online.
So, to keep your [very poor] car analogy, you could request a refund if the dealer for your preferred tire came and installed the new tires before you took possession of it.
This really is old news.
Rules for computing:
Rule #1, M$ is oppressing everyone.
Rule #2, When M$ isn't oppressing everyone, Bill Gates, through his "charitable" foundation, is oppressing everyone.
Rule #3, If you don't know what is going on, refer to Rules !1 & !2.
doubt the lightweight laptop will feel too light once it's in my bag
Oh, so you are one of those weirdos that uses those nipple thingies. The rest of the world uses trackpads, sorry.
... and they are in the similar 2 lb weight category.
nipple things are far superior to trackpads
just like
tactile real keyboards are far superior to touch screen
The TrackPoint (nipple thing) lets you move the mouse without taking your fingers off the home row of the keyboard. Very nice if you have to do any amount of typing.
How can that be anything but a positive?
I bought a new Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon. It weighs 2 lbs 12 oz 1270 g. A bit more than the LaCie. OTOH it is built to Thinkpad standards so it is quite rugged. The keyboard is excellent. The machine came with Win 7 professional and no bloatware. It has a 500 GB SSD. It is fast and easy to use. I love it, and think the money was well spent. The battery life is excellent, it will run all day in ordinary usage. (i.e. not playing streaming HD video).
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
tactile real keyboards are far superior to touch screen
Except when said keyboard butchers the right-shift key. I find it amazing that a company which can produce all manner of complex hinge configurations is unable to create a keyboard with a non-rectangular outline (having a cutout for the arrow keys).
I immediately write off any laptop that mangles the standard layout - to include chopping down the right-shift key, reversing the Fn and Ctrl keys (FU Thinkpads), reshaping the Enter, or getting creative with the F1-F12 or Esc keys (among other things - Eg. New work laptop (Dell E7450) has a backlit keyboard that turns itself off after 10 seconds - W. T. F. ) On a recent purchase I eliminated all consumer Lenovo notebooks from consideration for this reason. Dollars flow away from idiotic design.
>Or are you claiming that publishers of Windows-only trialware completely subsidize the Windows license?
Um, hello, McFly? This has been known for many years already.
According to Dell's CEO and founder Michael Dell, pre-installed crapware brings the vendor about $60 extra revenue per unit.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Sony-039-s-50-Crapware-Fee-Killed-Overnight-81420.shtml
So, yeah, he's more than welcome to a -$60 dollar refund (i.e. paying 60 extra bucks) to return his unused Windows license. I'm sure the OEM will be happy to take the money.
Lenovo still uses TFT displays in high priced hardware. In this product line you pay an extra $200 to get an IPS display in the Z 360. Our business is a Lenovo authorized reseller. I do not understand why they do not put an IPS display in all their higher end gear. There shouldn't even be a TFT option at $1499. The $1699 model should be the only one available. Reduce the SKU's and hence you have less capital tied up. Sell better products, Lenovo. Your image is tarnishing more all the time. I expect more from the world's #1 PC maker than TFT junk.
That's all that needs to be said when talking about Lenovo.
Superfish
Wankers
As someone who has worked with an Osbourne "portable", IF you think it's too light THEN kindly fuck yourself in the ass while sick with dysentery.
It's great when you have both. If you have a high quality trackpad, I find it's generally faster to use that though. Seems to take less time to slide your finger around on a high resolution pad, than it is to try and make a precise movement with a microscopic joystick.
The only negative to it when I had a laptop with one is that it can temporarily get out of calibration if you rest on it slightly, causing the pointer to creep.
LOL. I love you. But seriously I really think a lot of the more experimental Lenovo line designs would be fun to try if only - if only - they had trackpoints. I always see a lot of Japanese dramas where there are Lenovo's and I get excited until there's a shot which shows the keyboard and the lack of trackpoint.
Just like all those annoying radio/cassette players that kids used to haul around on their shoulder: Basically a nearly empty plastic box with tiny little speakers. And some big iron weights glued inside.
Have gnu, will travel.
That has to be one of the most erroneous car analogies ever seen on Slashdot. I have to assume it is a troll as nobody could possibly be that stupid.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Microsoft has to refund to the manufacturer after the manufacturer refund to the customer, because again the license it's unused
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
A refund for what? It's not like he's paid for the copy of Windows that comes with it.
Then who did pay for it? I was under the impression that PC makers paid about $60 per copy for a lawful Windows install. Or are you claiming that publishers of Windows-only trialware completely subsidize the Windows license?
no, generally the crapware they ship with it pays for it, actually it usually more than pays for it to the point where coming without windows actually is more expensive for most PC Makers.
It's not a nipple thingy. Everybody knows the proper term is "keyboard clit".
Finally, they sell one without an eraser head.
But in recent buttonless trackpad models, the trackpad was unusable. A click caused the cursor to wildly move around the screen before selecting something at random.
Hopefully, they fixed that.
I don't know, I think it's a pretty apt analogy. If you request different tires, they aren't going to give you a discount for the old ones, this is well known to anyone who'd ever bought dealer installed upgrades, they charge for the installation on top of the part. And oddly enough, they don't give you a refund for a part if the new part is replacing a standard part. When I got my car, I could get locking hubcap bolts for something like $300 bucks. They'd install them for me for standard shop rates, minimum 1 hour, and there was no discount for the old ones, though they would dispose of them for me for free.
I have a 2lb LG notebook. It's great. It doesn't feel "too light", or flimsy, or cheaply made.
If these Lenovo models do, it's not the weight, it's the specific materials used, or the construction, or the design.
Damn Lenovo, put 8 trackpoints if necessary, I don't care if they weight an extra kg.
The finger position is not the right one when you use a trackpad. When you use a trackpoint you do not move your hands out of the keyboard area. It is more efficient to use a trackpoint. Also, the trackpad is not as precise of a trackpoint. Sorry but the people that didn't used a trackpoint much do not understands it.
A magnesium-lithium case: aren't that two metals highly inflammable?
These people must have never worked at a company that uses macbook pros across the board, or a startup using thin lap-tops.
Everyone holds their lap-tops with 1 hand like if it was a tablet, running around holding them by the lid, and all around handling them like they would their ipads.
Light lap-tops that you can carry with one hand without effort is a definite advantage for convenience.
Then why don't they sell Linux machines with Linux crapware, either native or in Wine? They could make a few extra bucks that way by not having to pay the Microsoft tax.
I've been using Lenovo for years. I get a new one every 2 years from work. Typing this on an X1 Carbon. First thing I do on any new one is disable the trackpad and I only use the trackpoint nipple. I also carry around a wireless mouse. Ideally I'd spend some time and try the trackpad and maybe forget the wireless mouse but the many times I;ve tried, I just can't stand using a trackpad.
And people who don't know how to use their thumb on a trackpad think they need a trackpoint (or have really small hands). seriously, my fingers never leave the home row and my left thumb does almost all the mousing where necessary.
What in the hell are you talking about???? Light weight is a bad thing? I've been looking for light laptops for years. Now the same morons who think a kickstand is cool for Microsoft surface want heavy laptops to validate their stupidity? C'MON MAN. (and have fun downmodding this post to anyone who actually reads it)
Also, the trackpad is not as precise of a trackpoint.
Sure, and using a joystick is more accurate than using a mouse, right?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
If you use your thumbs for the trackpad, you can leave all 8 fingers on the home row without even moving them to the nipple.
It's actually one of the best. You just don't like it because, like most Linux zealots, you live in a constant state of butthurt where every little bit of truth stings like hell.
nipple things are far superior to trackpads
I've heard this asserted, yet I've never seen a study that showed it (I've seen a couple that showed the reverse, but they didn't control for all factors so aren't definitive). I've also never seen any gamers begging for them because they give an advantage in aiming (which is usually a good hint that something is a good pointing device). A modern, high-resolution, large, multitouch trackpad provides better fine manipulation (try using a trackpoint to select an individual pixel on a ThinkPad) and faster large movements (the acceleration in the trackpoint means that the Fitts' Law curve is a different shape because you need to decelerate more to stop).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This is hardly news - Apple has been selling lighter MacBooks for a long time.
Reads more like advertising for Lenovo.
Keyboard is crap, trackpad is crap[1]. So, when you need to connect a real keyboard and a real mouse, who cares about the weight?
[1] missing trackpad buttons, making it impossible to click without dragging at the same time. Yes, I have an L540 at work, which I use as a desktop, unlike my previous HP laptop.
hahah, clit-mouse - I love it!
Says you and nobody else in the world
I can relate to something being too light. I have owned a couple Macbook Air's and while most times I find the lightness a virtue I do find using a light notebook on a lap or precarious service a bit more problematic. I would almost rather have a bit more bulk then lose even more weight. Eventually the lack of weight makes pulling a notebook on the floor when you trip on the power cord or something more susceptible. Its why i would not buy a new Macbook because the lack of a MagSafe power connector and using the USB C connector is just a accident waiting to happen. I'm sure the Lenovo has just as bad of a power connector and any sudden pull and that notebook would be on the floor.
a gamer will use a mouse, but trackpoints and trackpads are unsutable for major gaming
You say "A modern, high-resolution, large, multitouch trackpad provides better fine manipulation"
And the mind just boggles, that certainly isn't the case in my experience, not even close
Maybe you're using crappy trackpads, but it's very easy with the one on this laptop (MacBook Pro, retina display) for me to move the cursor by one pixel in any direction. With my old ThinkPad (R31, with a under quarter of the pixel density) I could just about move it 1-3 pixels, but had little control within that range.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
My reasons for thinking Lenovo builds are now cheap and flimsy have nothing whatsoever to do with their weight.
Weird metaphor.
I disable the trackpads on my Thinkpads. Way too easy to brush it with the palm of my hand, select an entire section of text and type over it. Happens to me over and over again.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You don't get finer control with a finger, than an arm at rest.
I use an Atari 2600 Joy Stick, for optimal control, and comfort.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. With a trackpad, rolling my finger a little bit moves the cursor a tiny amount. With a trackpoint, there's an acceleration and deceleration component - you have to move the trackpoint to start the cursor moving and then move it back to stop the movement. This involves having to do two fine motor movements in quick succession for a fine cursor adjustment, whereas the trackpad requires only one.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's not a nipple thingy, it is clearly a clitoris thingy. It even has the lips to each side and your can.... well lets not go into this too deeply, it is clearly, however, not a nipple.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.