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HP Says It Made the World's Thinnest Laptop (time.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the as-thin-as-a-AAA-battery dept.

An anonymous reader writes: HP claims that its Spectre laptop, unveiled April 5, is the world's thinnest laptop. It measures 10.4mm thick or 0.41 inches. That would mean that it's slimmer than the 12-inch MacBook (0.52), MacBook Air (0.68 inches) and Dell XPS 13 (0.59 inches) at their thickest points. It's also thinner than the 0.52-inch Razer Blade Stealth. The new notebook is equipped with an advertised nine-hour battery life, 13-inch HD 1920 x 1080 resolution display, and sixth generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor. The Spectre will be available for pre-order on April 25 for $1,169.99 before it hits Best Buy stores on May 22 for $1,249.99.

29 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. not a good idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thin laptops are vulnerable to being bent and cracked in half. They're not very durable. They also tend to have shorter lifespans because there's little room for adequate air circulation and the overheating shortens the life of the components. This probably isn't a good way to spend your money.

    1. Re:not a good idea by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Laptops have already reached the 'thin enough for me' plateau. Weight reduction is still a good thing though.

    2. Re:not a good idea by vux984 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They've reached thin enough i think. They could still lose some weight. They could definitely stand to gain some battery life still, especially for more perforamnce oriented units.

      And they could still stand to shed a lot of heat. My macbook pro runs pretty cool most of the time web/email/excel/etc, but some crappy web-sites/web-apps manage to be written poorly enough to burn enough cpu cycles to start warming it up if I leave it on the page; and if i launch a game or even stream one a desktop via steam play it heats up fast... even something pretty nomimal for performance like simple sprite turn based games like ToME, or SotS:The Pit, or the graphical version of "DoomRL" get it too hot to have on my lap... I don't expect to a new tripleA game with the latest shiny 3D graphics and have it run cool... but its pretty irritating that DoomRL heats it up.

    3. Re:not a good idea by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      Thin laptops are vulnerable to being bent and cracked in half.

      Really?

      I've lost count of the number of laptops I've deformed or broke when I've slipped them into my back pocket...

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. and woe betide you... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...if you sit on it. Or drop it. Or sneeze on it. Or look at it the wrong way.

    This anorexic idiocy has got to stop. 0.75-1" is fine, especially if built properly, and allows for maintenance hatches and cooling systems that can handle 35-45W TDP processors. These things are idiot status symbols.

    1. Re:and woe betide you... by Nethead · · Score: 2

      Are you talking about the 8470s? Yeah those things are great. We just refreshed with Dells and now I have a few at home with i5, 480GB SSD and 16 RAM. Old aerospace engineering laptops. We had those traveling all over the world. Very few problems. The 840 is a nice one too, snagged one for my wife, she loves it.

      --
      -- I have a private email server in my basement.
  3. I Miss Real Keyboards by Pauldow · · Score: 2

    I can remember when there was a bunch of complaints about the Chicklet keyboards on the Texas Instruments 99/4 computer, so they put a real keyboard on it, and called it the 99/4A.
    Now every laptop has keys that are worse and no one complains. HP made better keys on a folding keyboard I had for my Compaq iPaq. I could put that in a pocket.

    1. Re:I Miss Real Keyboards by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      Chicklet today != chicklet then. The TI chicklet was just a rubber-membrane calculator keyboard. Just awful. The hard chicklet keys on a modern laptop are not everyone's bag, but they are at least usable.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:I Miss Real Keyboards by Junta · · Score: 2

      There continues to be a wide range of keyboards, and some are serviceable, but after using my X1 carbon for months and getting thoroughly used to it, was typing on a W510 and feeling how much better it was.

      However I am outright repulsed by this keyboard on an Acer I have used occasionally. Absolutely flat, trivial key travel, super slick texture.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  4. RAM by darkain · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The thing still tops out at 8GiB RAM? I still don't understand why mobile devices have such low amounts of maximum RAM. I purchased a cheap ass 10" netbook some 3-4 years ago for only $300 and was able to effortlessly upgrade it to 8GiB of RAM. Surely a 13" system with more horizontal space could pack more RAM, especially with the increase in memory density?

    1. Re:RAM by PraiseBob · · Score: 2

      In the current OS environment, most people won't get much benefit from more than 8gb of ram, unless they are running a lot of virtual machines, or huge databases. I suspect if you made a venn diagram of people who run huge databases & lots of virtual machines, and people who want the worlds thinnest laptop, that those would be different market segments.

    2. Re:RAM by somenickname · · Score: 2

      Because vendors have convinced customers that they need pretty computers and not useful computers. It doesn't matter if the specs are good, the keyboard is usable, the touchpad doesn't prevent you from typing, etc. It just needs to be pretty enough to impress other people.

      I've twice tried to replace my X220 with thin, pretty laptops. Once with a Chromebook Pixel and once with a new XPS 13. Both machines lasted a few days before I breathed a sigh of relief and booted the X220 back up. The only thing newer laptops have going for them is high resolution displays and, on small ultra-portables, it's not as useful as one might hope. There might be very subtle improvements in font rendering but, certainly not enough to make a nearly unusable laptop more appealing than something like an X220.

  5. To quote Men in Black by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "I feel like I'm going to break this damn thing!"

  6. Shaving by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I won't be happy until I can shave with mine. And we're talking ZZTop here, not Justin Bieber.

    1. Re:Shaving by LordHighExecutioner · · Score: 5, Funny

      you can shave with a pc just now. Just use a blade server.

    2. Re:Shaving by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Funny

      you can shave with a pc just now. Just use a blade server.

      F*ck everything, we're doing five blades!

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    3. Re:Shaving by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 2

      IBM had a chassis to hold 14 blades. Probably too heavy to shave with but damn fine computers.

  7. HP is Garbage by CrashNBrn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    HP locks down a large number of their "laptops" with a custom shit-bios. I believe most of their laptops have 2 ram slots. And when you put 2x8GB slots in there - the Bios says 16GB, and when your system finally boots, your OS is allowed to see and use 8GB.

    1. Re:HP is Garbage by Anonymous+Psychopath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ultraportables generally don't have RAM slots at all. The memory is soldered onto the motherboard, as is the SSD. Sacrificing the ability to upgrade in favor of portability is par for course with this type of system, and the target user usually has a 3-year or less refresh cycle so they don't care.

      --

      Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

  8. But does it run Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Because if it doesn't... talk to the hand, or buy a macbook.

    1. Re:But does it run Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Only if covered with hot grits, and turned on by Natalie Portman.

  9. 8GB RAM max? by darthsilun · · Score: 2

    Srsly? A year ago I was ready to replace my Gen1 MBAir, the then current 13" MBAir also had 8GB max, but for just 200g more, I bought the MBpro and put 16GB in it.

    Okay, so my MBpro is a couple mm thicker. The diff between 10mm, 13mm, and 16mm doesn't bother me; mainly it's the weight I care about. And being able to put 16GB of RAM in it.

    1. Re:8GB RAM max? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's almost like different people have different requirements for laptops...

  10. I beg to differ: by Hartree · · Score: 4, Funny

    "HP Says It Made the World's Thinnest Laptop"

    A construction company I know has a Cat CS44 vibratory soil compactor that says otherwise.

    Oh. You mean a useful laptop. :)

    1. Re:I beg to differ: by Raistlin77 · · Score: 2

      Indeed, the product of the Cat CS44 vibratory soil compactor is FAR more useful than any turd HP makes.

  11. But it is still has HP engineering .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But it is still has HP engineering, which has burned me on laptops and PCs enough already.

    I won't bore everyone with all the failures over the years.

    Won't touch anything from HP, except PA-RISC stuff.

  12. Spectre? by colinrichardday · · Score: 3, Funny

    This thing had better work, 'cause Spectre doesn't tolerate failure. If a screen breaks, who gets thrown to the sharks?

  13. If it runs Windows 10, I don't want it... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It doesn't matter how thin it is, if the HP laptop runs Windows 10 I don't want it.

    .
    At this point I am more concerned about the amount of data harvesting being done by Windows 10 than I am about the thinness of a laptop.

  14. Re:hinges by newcastlejon · · Score: 2

    Can't say I'm a fan of laptop hinges that are a an inch or so from the edge.

    I like this in a laptop. It moves the centre of gravity closer to the crotch when it's perched on one's lap.

    --
    If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.