Clueless Consumers Favor 15" Notebooks, Ruining Market

Here's an idea... Make 15" laptops more expensive than smaller ones! I've been looking at the Acer TimelineX laptops in the 13" form factor and they are more expensive than the 14/15" version spec'd exactly the same only it doesn't have an optical drive.

So I give up components to pay more?
 
rufio said:
Yeah, show me a current notebook in the 14-15 in range that has a 1680x1050 resolution option that is not an insane addon cost. The one in my dell e1505 from four years ago was $50 extra...
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I don't feel like checking, but I'm pretty sure both Sony and Lenovo offer this as a reasonably priced option. Apple also offers a $100 upgrade from 1440x900 to 1680x1050 on their 15" MBP line.
 
I'm more than happy with my 17 inch 1920x1200 screen. This dude needs to get an iPad and leave everyone else alone.
 
I am one of those who appreciates netbooks because they are insanely portable - but to try and dictate what is or what is not appropriate for an entire market based on my sole opinion of what portability is would just be idiotic.

Sort of like the idiotic guy who wrote the article.

Idiot.
 
Battery life is over rated.

I so seldom sit more than 6 feet away from an outlet that it is laughable.

Battery life solution for a vast majority of users: Buy a spare power supply and leave one permanently where they usually use the laptop and keep the other in the bag being used to haul it about.
 
huh...does it mean the "desktop replacement" class 17" laptops that me and a few of my friends have bought within the past few years are doing extra damage compared to the 15" laptops?
 
As someone who travels 20 weeks out of the year... I say give me a good 12-13" laptop, with decent hardware. My M1210 that I've been lugging around for years is just about the perfect form factor.

Why do I need a bigger screen and heavier power brick if the resolution is the same? I'd love even higher res. If you can't see it, visit your optometrist. Your prescription is out of date.

I already lug enough crap through airports.
 
size doesn't matter unless you are really small, then if you can convince others it doesn't matter you might start believing it yourself.
 
When they build a 13" laptop with the specs and price of my said g37, then I will buy one.
 
Rizen said:
Why would I want to stare at a shitty 13" or 14" 1280x800 screen? My main PC has three 24" 1920x1200 Dells, and going to my laptop without a 2nd monitor is a hard adjustment. I would kill for a larger screen.
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15" 1366x 768 is way worse than 14" 1280 x 800.

I would have to agree with the article that 15-inchers are flooding the market. If I go to say Staples or Best Buy, a good 80% of the laptops are 15.6". I went to staples and there were only 1 or 2 14-inchers, a 17-incher, and a whole lot of 15.6".

I personally find 14" 1280 x 800 perfect. Good tradeoff between weight and size, while retaining the same performance as 15-inchers (perhaps except for graphics).

On the topic of ranting, what ever happened to decent consumer laptops? What ever happened to decent keyboards, usable touchpads, 16:10, PHYSICAL screen latches, real F-keys, matte screens, and matte surfaces that hide fingerprints? Every stinking consumer laptop is the same piece of 15.6" weak glossy plastic garbage without a latch with a lid that flops around and attracts fingerprints. And don't get me started on the glossy screens and a horribly mushy keyboards that force me to mash down the Fn-key just to get access to the F-keys. Screw you media keys, because I want my F5 and F11 without having to hold down Fn.

Now that's over, I'm going to have to admit business laptops have spoiled me.
 
Pylon said:
On the topic of ranting, what ever happened to decent consumer laptops?

...

Now that's over, I'm going to have to admit business laptops have spoiled me.
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Lower build quality, lower build cost, higher profit margin. I'm comfortable generalizing that consumer grade laptops aren't often purchased for most of the attributes other than their price tag.
 
I bought a 17" laptop, as it was a desktop replacement for in home use only. I got exactly what I wanted for this purpose, and refused to look at anything any smaller. Not sure how he can just lump everyone into 1 category, but whatever.
 
ml_paladin888 said:
huh...does it mean the "desktop replacement" class 17" laptops that me and a few of my friends have bought within the past few years are doing extra damage compared to the 15" laptops?
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Agreed. 2 out of the last 3 laptops I've helped friends/family pick out have been 17" DTRs. The 2 wanted the large screen for media etc, and even at the size and weight it was portable enough for them, they didn't need it EVERYWHERE. The other was a 13" for my brother for him TO take EVERYWHERE, and because he already had a 17" at his place as a DTR setup.

Right now the sweet spot is 15" for a gaming laptop as far as price is concerned. I always get the max rez I can, but ticking that option has become painful.
 
I personally think the 14" models are perfect for a general purpose laptop. 15.6 is just a bit too big.

I think 16:9 messed with laptops more then anything. 4:3 screens seemed to produce more usable space for a laptop at any given size. A 15" laptop with 4:3 screen for some reason feels more mobile then a 15" with 16:9.

Its probably just an perception thing...
 
dandirk said:
I personally think the 14" models are perfect for a general purpose laptop. 15.6 is just a bit too big.

I think 16:9 messed with laptops more then anything. 4:3 screens seemed to produce more usable space for a laptop at any given size. A 15" laptop with 4:3 screen for some reason feels more mobile then a 15" with 16:9.

Its probably just an perception thing...
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I have a 15.4" 16:10 laptop and I'm satisfied with it. The slight improvement over 16:9 for vertical workspace is very welcome, and while there's no replacing the height of a 4:3 or 5:4 display the 16:10 golden ratio is more pleasant to view for longer periods.

As for the size, the machine is only about 14" wide so it's pretty portable in this form factor vs. a square-ish display.
 
I wanted a 14" but I couldn't find a reasonably priced one with a good resolution. I ended up getting a 15.6" with 1920x1080. I would have settled for a 14" with 1660x900, but the industry likes to put crappy 1366x768 on everything. I can't do my work on a screen with only 1366 pixels wide.
 
for the record typing this on a m1330, wouldn't buy anything bigger. I have a "desktop" at home (mITX, smaller than a shoe box) and a 24" 16:10. Use a 17" external and BT keyboard when I'm at my desk at work with the laptop.

Haven't read the article, but the author likely just needs to realize that having exacting standards in your life will often leave you lost in the sea of unwashed masses that don't give these things a second thought. Obviously he's also missing the fact that lots of people have legitimate uses for 15" laptops.

OK back to work.
 
Laptop choices for people who actually want a portable, functional machine are very few. What else is new? It's been this way for quite a while now.

Glossy screens almost everywhere. High resolutions generally expensive or unavailable (and I put the blame for this squarely on Microsoft for not having good support for resolution independence). 4:3 completely nonexistent, and 16:9 taking over from 16:10.

I have to say I agree that it sucks, and probably is mostly due to people getting poor advice (or ignoring good advice), and just not knowing any better. If the industry wasn't so driven by shiny pamphelts and shiny, printed cases and people actually bought things based on their technical merits, I think we'd see economies of scale applied more to useful things than flashy things, and I think that'd lead to improvements in most of these areas.

Not much to be done about it though, just pay your premium and go buy a ThinkPad X or T series.
 
THis guy is right. we, as consumers, are pushing this "good enough" deal, and voting for the "cheaper is better" rather than "better is better".

However, what the writer doesn't take into account is that many people want the laptop to be their ONLY computer. They aren't experienced enough to understand how remote desktop works, and some are too dumb to realize that old doesn't mean obsolete. there are so many 12" laptops that existed before netbooks that are so much more capable, but they will pay more for a netbook than they will for a decent machine that is "old"...but i digress...back to screens.

what is funny is that people are forgetting that calculus proves that area on a given diagonal is maximized the closer you get to a square.

I avoided widescreen laptops for yeeaarrss. I had a lovely 1400x1050 14.1" thinkpad t60 and a fun toshiba m200 which had a 1400x1050 in a 12.1". I desperately needed an upgrade for Adobe Inventor and required a tablet for school, and when i went shopping for it back in april, i discovered that the x61 was the last SXGA/SWXGA tablet, followed by the m200 that i had previously. Problem was, they were ultra rare and very expensive. Worse yet, they were just coing out of warranty. God blessed me with this x200t at almost the same price...but with a 1200x800 resolution. You can't IMAGINE how much of a step down it feels in my every day computing, albeit a much more capable machine. Every day i complain. the DAY the come out with an SWXGA screen that is compatible with my x200, i will use the money i didn't spend on the Styker Artic pro lightsaber on that.

However, to combat this, i bought a projector...which is great as long as its not too bright. I can use it as a second monitor, which i sometimes do, or as a bg 1080i/p monitor on my ceiling.
 
Agree with the slappage. I'm typing this on a 15" notebook that I hauled around my college four years running and Washington DC after graduating for three months. It was by no means unportable. 17" is big. 15" is not, unless for some reason you happen to believe the only definition of portable is "netbook." Some of us like a little power in our portable computers...
 
Um what a retarded article. people buy what suits their needs. i mean seriously i'd be lookin at 17" rather than smaller. fine if you want to blow out your eyeballs staring at a tiny screen good for you. but i think bigger a better functionality/portability tradeoff. if you want small get a phone or an ipad.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
What a tard - what's his next article: "Everyone should buy an iPad"? This tool needs to find a new line of work.
 
I want to go around stabbing any screen that is ????x768 or lower. 1990 called, it wants it's ancient vertical resolution back.
 
gaspah said:
Um what a retarded article. people buy what suits their needs.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
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Please read the article next time before making comments. People aren't buying what suits their needs but what suits their wallets. Companies are telling then what suits their wallets and then Best Buy tells them what suits their needs. The consumer is pretty helpless (on the whole, not [H] people walking into local BB) because they need x,y,z and if generic 15.6" technically does that, then in the cart it goes.

The author is simply saying this practice has cannibalized the other configurations and made it more expensive to create those 14" OR 17" options. I did get the smaller is better vibe as well from the article but I think it goes both ways.
 
For me 15" is really big. Moving from 13.3" to 15.6" you not only add 2.3" of screen size, but also usually around 1-1.3kg of weight, while having still that 1366x768. 15.6" with 1600x900 or 1920x1080 ? I say OK. 15.6" with 1366x768 ? Pure joke.

For example right now i have a Acer TimelineX 3820TG with Core i5 430M, 4GB RAM, X25-M 80GB, IGP+HD5650 switchable graphics, and couldn't be hapier. It's silent, it's small, it's lighter, while providing same power and resolution like most of the 15.6" laptops on market.
 
Kenworth said:
The author is simply saying this practice has cannibalized the other configurations and made it more expensive to create those 14" OR 17" options. I did get the smaller is better vibe as well from the article but I think it goes both ways.
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This is part of the point, though the author is severely biased towards >14-inchers.

I would also agree that most consumers are fairly clueles. From experience, people make decisions by fairly poor advice from non-techies and also make choices by brand, not by the specific laptop. (e.g. my friend's Dell PC had OS problems and got a ton of viruses, so all Dells are bad, or I heard that Sony's are good, so I'll just get a Sony laptop).

And in general, laptop purchases are mostly specs driven (unfortunately). With desktops, purchasing a unit solely on specs is totally okay, because it's just a box that you throw under your desk that stuff gets plugged into. Build quality, etc. mostly don't matter with a desktop. Buying a laptop on the other hand solely by specs is a stupid idea because you miss out on factors like build quality, ergonomics, port layout, keyboard quality, screen quality, etc. that don't show up on paper yet affect the user experience FAR more than specs. To me a good keyboard is far more important than shaving off 7 seconds in boot time or whatever. This also results in cost cutting as things that don't show up on paper (e.g. build quality, keyboard quality) are cut in order to put in higher spec'd parts.
,
 
If someone made a 24" widescreen laptop running 1920x1200, I'd get a credit card just to have it.

I don't believe in that smaller size = more portability crap. Portability is awesome, but not at the cost of functionality. I would take function first as my first priority.

For me, portability or lack of it is defined by three questions: Can you carry it with one hand? Can you do so without struggling? Does it weigh less than what is cumbersome for you? If you answer yes to all these questions, ITS PORTABLE. But that's just my opinion.
 
I'd say my biggest gripe at the moment regarding laptops is the move towards 1366x768 panels. That's utterly garbage on a 15" laptop, and usually it's a pure garbage panel to boot. I've opted for a 13" this round after having used a 15" because, well, I have a proper desktop and don't need such a large laptop. It's amazing how much more expensive it is to get a decent resolution on a laptop anymore, not to mention how difficult it is to do so. While phones are going higher and higher resolution while keeping the same form factor, laptops have fallen off and have settled on a very low resolution that in a short while will be just as low as what you'll find on cell phones and tablets several times smaller. That makes no sense to me. If phones can have 800x480, 854x480, and 960x480 screens at between 3.5-4.3" then surely a 15" laptop could run at least 1680x1050, if not 1920x1200/1080.
 
I bought a 15" Notebook recently because it came with more ram, bigger HDD, faster cpu and didn't cost much more than a 10" Netbook. I would rather have the smaller Netbook but 1GB of ram with Win7 is just not enough IMO.
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
I don't believe in that smaller size = more portability crap. Portability is awesome, but not at the cost of functionality. I would take function first as my first priority.
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Honestly all you people touting this, I don't get it. Exactly what functionality do you lose with a 14" laptop vs. a 17" (or 24"...)? Aside from the fact that high-resolution small laptops aren't really available, what is it? A numpad?
 
Sovereign said:
Agree with the slappage. I'm typing this on a 15" notebook that I hauled around my college four years running and Washington DC after graduating for three months. It was by no means unportable. 17" is big. 15" is not, unless for some reason you happen to believe the only definition of portable is "netbook." Some of us like a little power in our portable computers...
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Seriously, people need to stop talking about power. My 14in laptop is faster than your 15in, and Lenovo makes 12in models that will destroy yours in everything except gaming.
 
What a douche. What this bag doesn't seen to realize is that many people and businesses are opting for larger notebooks to replace a desktop. Less clutter, lower power consumption and if need be, portable.

I'll never buy a another laptop with a screen smaller than 17"
 
I would click on the article, and I support H and all, but I don't want to click on the article because I know it's already full of fail.

The customer is always right.
 
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