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Future Macbook Pro Casing Materials

snaky69 said:
All commercial grade aluminum is already an alloy, nobody uses pure aluminum as is, except perhaps for foil.

Scratch resistant coating? It already has one, it's been anodized.

Thing is, a relatively soft metal such as aluminum will scratch easily, no matter what.

Aluminum is lightweight, fairly cheap, looks good, is a fairly good heat conductor and is easy to machine, hence why it was chosen by Apple in the first place.
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No crap, I was proposing that they would use a different aluminum alloy that is composed of a certain percentage of a harder, more scratch-resistant metal.

Obviously I know anodization improves the scratch resistance of pure aluminum alloy, but, the process does not make it scratch resistant enough, in my opinion, that's why I was proposing another process in place of, or in addition to it.
 
I think it will be liquid metal. They experimented with it for the iPhone sim removal tool, and then purchased the firm that made it. I think it may be awhile before we see anything unless they were working on it previous to the purchase. MBP's are one of the best looking machines IMO but I think the entire line-up is in need of a facelift or some differentiation.
 
I think it will be magical. Maybe unicorn horns or the skin from Harry Potters butt.
 
Will it be as easily recyclable as Aluminum ?

I believe one of Apples concerns, currently, about their products is environmentally friendliness.

Personally I love the aluminum, I still have my first Powerbook, it was the last G4 model before they switched to Intel. It damn near looks as good as the day it was bought. My youngest son uses it for school now.
 
I believe one of the main problems with using carbon fiber is that it's not very eco-friendly. Given Apple's environment policy, I doubt they would use it as it is right now. Maybe they could magically alter the process to make it green...
 
carbon-fibre-macbook_011.jpg


I don't like the way carbon fibre looks. I prefer the aluminum.
 
I prefer the aluminum way more than carbon fibre. Given the choice, I think I'd rather go with the stock Macbook (black) over a carbon fibre'd one.

10030d1232682444-wtb-black-macbook-img_0952.jpg


Man these are so nice; I should have bought one while they sold 'em.
Jealous my neighbor has one :p
 
The problem with carbon fiber is that it does not disipate heat very well. With an aluminum body, the entire bottom is like a giant heatsink. Using something like carbon fiber for the body would require bigger heatsinks and fans, increasing the size of the laptop, which is counter-intuitive to what they want to do.
 
aplqna said:
No crap, I was proposing that they would use a different aluminum alloy that is composed of a certain percentage of a harder, more scratch-resistant metal.

Obviously I know anodization improves the scratch resistance of pure aluminum alloy, but, the process does not make it scratch resistant enough, in my opinion, that's why I was proposing another process in place of, or in addition to it.
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The question is, what alloy are they using at the moment?

I was more stating the alloy thing for the general public that knows next to nothing about metals, I personally know only the basics.

Most likely they are using a 6000 series aluminum, probably 6061-T6. If they switched it up to 7005-T6, which is alloyed with zinc instead of magnesium and silicon, which would make it a harder material, thus less easy to scratch.

That's just making assumptions though.
 
I didn't realize they were actually machined...how do they keep the cost down on the 13 as my 13 inch MBP wasnt ridiculously more expensive than other mid-high end laptops?

snaky69 said:
The aluminum in the MBP is not cast, but rather machined.

Ti is hard to form, and is extremely expensive, I don't personally think it'd offer much advantage over aluminum.
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miles01110 said:
Titanium was already used in the TiBooks of the early 2000s. The problem wasn't with the cost or even the titanium itself, but the design. I don't think there's a compelling reason to use titanium at this point.
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I remember that computer...it was my dream computer which was nowhere near my price range. IIRC those computers did have hinge problems and the actual coating on the titanium was not durable enough for a product which sees harsh environments such as that of a laptop? A kid I knew actually sold his car and bought a less expensive one to afford a Ti Book. Oh that was the day, back when laptops were still not mainstream, weighed enough to qualify as a deadly weapon, costed more than a week-long luxury vacation, and were less powerful than 75% of today's cell phones.
 
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