I got told off on another thread for calling the MacBook a laptop. Apparently it's a notebook.
What's a laptop? And why isn't the MacBook one?
What's a laptop? And why isn't the MacBook one?
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Is the MacBook a laptop?
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Oxford Dictionary of English:
Laptop: "a computer that is portable and suitable for use while travelling."
Notebook: "a laptop computer, especially a small, slim one."
Very very nearly the same thing. Notebook could be considered a subset of laptop, such that if something is a notebook, it is necessarily also a laptop (meaning the rMB is one).
Laptop: "a computer that is portable and suitable for use while travelling."
Notebook: "a laptop computer, especially a small, slim one."
Very very nearly the same thing. Notebook could be considered a subset of laptop, such that if something is a notebook, it is necessarily also a laptop (meaning the rMB is one).
I hate that the word notebook now seems more popular. Notebooks are pads of paper!
A laptop is a cheap computer for people who rent apartments, ride the bus, and have blue collar jobs.
A notebook is an expensive computer for people who can afford furniture.
BJ
I always thought that a notebook was one of those small super tiny laptops before the iPad, a laptop is a Windows thing and a MacBook is well, a MacBook 
@BarcelonaPaul: Those were the Netbooks. (Another category, I wonder what kind of extra furniture they can afford).
(Another category, I wonder what kind of extra furniture they can afford).if you live long enough you will hear it all. i never believed that i would hear someone complain that an apple laptop didn't weigh enough. and yet you are not the only person i've heard this complaint from so there has to be some truth to it. and the new macbook is not the first apple laptop with sharp edges. who knows why they did it again.
Form should follow function.
It's a beautiful thing, and obviously technologically very clever. It feels like it weighs less than my iPad Pro, though it doesn't.
But it is awkward and uncomfortable to use as a laptop. The bottom of the screen is pretty pointed and it digs into my legs. And the balance of it makes it feel a little unstable.
If it had the round edges of the iPhone 6, it would probably be a lot more comfortable to use.
But I'm sure this is all my own fault for using it wrongly.
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They are both marketing terms, although laptop is much older and was actually used in the 18th century to refer to little desks that would fold out and sit on your lap for you to write documents on. Ben Franklin used one IIRC
The term "notebook" had been introduced by Toshiba in the late 80's for their mobile computer offerings. The term was intended to associate those computers with a paper notebook and its versatility/size/weight/portability, even though laptops were humungous and heavy beasts back then. Given that the term stuck until today, Marketing obviously worked well.
Notebooks are for status. Laptops are for posers.
You say to-MAH-to, I say to-MAY-to...
A laptop is a notebook, and vice-versa, and anyone who says otherwise is an insufferable pedant.
A laptop is a notebook, and vice-versa, and anyone who says otherwise is an insufferable pedant.
Say hello to me, Mr. IP.
Then again, it may be more of Egotistical vs. Insufferable.An engineer dealing in regulatory minutiae...
They stopped calling them laptops after the processors were getting so hot that they were scolding people.
I'm half serious.
I'm half serious.
I think people expect way too much out of a MB. It's not an iMac and it's not a MBP. Good grief. Get a MBP if you want power. A MB is a laptop to me. I had a netbook before and it was weird. Much smaller than this one and wasn't able to do as much as the MB.