Is Apple really pushing 'thinner and lighter' hard enough?

[argentum47]

So this year's rMBPs got bashed quite a bit for Apple's pushing 'thinner and lighter' too much while making many compromises. Then I found this new laptop from LG that makes me think rMBP isn't really pushing 'thinner and lighter' to the limits enough (to justify making unwanted compromises).

http://www.lge.co.kr/lgekor/product...cateId=2170&prdId=EPRD.308759#featureBtnsWrap (in Korean)

Its specs:
15" form factor
i7 7500U (15 W dual core)
Dual slot DDR4 (i.e. supports 32 GB)
60 Wh battery with claimed 22-hr duration (despite the supposedly power hungry DDR4)
Only 1090 g (compare that to 1.83 kg of 15" rMBP)

What it lacks compared to Apple's 15":
Quad core, retina display, build quality (adds to price, but likely zero to small weight differences)
dGPU, slightly larger battery (76 W in 15" rMBP) (adds to weight, but certainly not 740 g)

Of course, I'm not bring this up as a direct comparison to the 15" rMBP.

While this particular model would be more in line for competition with a MBA-line Macbook (if one existed at 15" form factor), the 60 Wh battery / 1090 g makes me strongly think that Apple could have done much better than their 76 Wh battery / 1830 g on their rMBP line if they really pushed the 'thinner and lighter' to the limits. Or have made less compromises in return.

For me personally, would certainly want to buy a similarly positioned (size, weight, & power wise) Macbook Air-esque from Apple.

 

[sinoka56]

how else would they sell next year's.

They would upgrade the cpu and battery size then advertise it as all day battery life.

 

[Creep89]

There is a major difference between cooling 45+35W or just a simple 15W dual core.

 

[leman]

Apples design constraint for their laptop line always was making them as thin and light and possible while utilizing high-end CPUs and mid-range GPUs as well as best in class connectivity. Here, nothing has changed in at least the last decade or more.

I am not sure what kind of compromises you are talking about in the 15", as it offers the same class of performance as any MBP before it (in fact, it's the first MBP I am aware of to offer a professional GPU, even though that's mostly a marketing gimmick), except maybe reducing the battery.

The LG laptop is a completely different class of device. It uses a low-power CPU, has no dedicated GPU and doesn't offer a 4K display which of course would draw more power. Sure, it will get 15-16 hours or so even with DDR4, because all other components are low-spec and therefore draw less power than what's inside the MBP. The funny thing is that with all that, the LG has actually larger footprint than the MBP. The main reason why it's lighter is because it's made out of cheap plastics, doesn't need to invest into a good quality cooling system and also probably cheats out on the powe subsystem. Is a budget laptop which is completely oversized for what it can do. Boasting with 32gb of RAM on such a machine is almost an insult. It's like attaching a trailer to a fixie and saying "look, it can also serve as a truck".

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Apple or any successful company can never make a critic happy with any design. The only people who are satisfied are the ones who use a tool to express their talents and work. A tool is just an extension of yourself.

And remember. Winners think about winners. Losers think about winners. Watch them criticise and laugh back at them.

 

[Ries]

So this year's rMBPs got bashed quite a bit for Apple's pushing 'thinner and lighter' too much while making many compromises. Then I found this new laptop from LG that makes me think rMBP isn't really pushing 'thinner and lighter' to the limits enough (to justify making unwanted compromises).

http://www.lge.co.kr/lgekor/product...cateId=2170&prdId=EPRD.308759#featureBtnsWrap (in Korean)

Its specs:
15" form factor
i7 7500U (15 W dual core)
Dual slot DDR4 (i.e. supports 32 GB)
60 Wh battery with claimed 22-hr duration (despite the supposedly power hungry DDR4)
Only 1090 g (compare that to 1.83 kg of 15" rMBP)

What it lacks compared to Apple's 15":
Quad core, retina display, build quality (adds to price, but likely zero to small weight differences)
dGPU, slightly larger battery (76 W in 15" rMBP) (adds to weight, but certainly not 740 g)

Of course, I'm not bring this up as a direct comparison to the 15" rMBP.

While this particular model would be more in line for competition with a MBA-line Macbook (if one existed at 15" form factor), the 60 Wh battery / 1090 g makes me strongly think that Apple could have done much better than their 76 Wh battery / 1830 g on their rMBP line if they really pushed the 'thinner and lighter' to the limits. Or have made less compromises in return.

For me personally, would certainly want to buy a similarly positioned (size, weight, & power wise) Macbook Air-esque from Apple.

DDR4 isn't power hungry. Uses about the same as LPDDR3 when in active use, the difference is in when in standby mode, you won't get 30 days unless you use some the special versions.

 

[Apple 26.2]

Hard enough? Or too hard?? To me, Apple seems to be about style over substance... we need both.