Sorry, missed these replies...Winter has *finally* finished here so went camping!
matticus008 said:
Actually, the iBook at ~1.3 inches would indeed be considered among the "thin" notebooks (any below 1.4 inches, as 1.4-1.7 or so is "normal").
Abstracting away from the cooling system for a moment, a processor socket adds at least 3-4mm to the height of the mainboard as well as makes it less impact resistant (bent pins are no good) and increases assembly complexity and potentially cost as well. Cooling systems for socketed processors also have to be developed to take into account the socket and substrate rather than fitting snugly over the smaller, slimmer CPU core which can in turn also make the cooling units thicker (taller) by an additional millimeter or two.
Sorry, missed these replies...Winter has *finally* finished here so went camping over the weekend...
I assume that even though you live in the USA you have a concept of what you're talking about here in mm...dunno if you have a ruler handy, but from what you've said it'd be a max of about 5-6mm difference in thickness, possibly quite a lot less. Really not that much all said and done! And as others have pointed out, PC laptops
do sockets without being huge. Dell is only one example. And I mentioned "Toshiba monsters" simply because they seem to consistently have
much fatter notebooks than other makers. They are not, on average, the same as a Dell. Toshiba notebooks are, on average, so darn fat they could practically fit a desktop HDD!
And they have been that way for years!
matticus008 said:
Because notebook computers are not considered by manufacturers to be user-serviceable internally, there's no point to a CPU socket.
So I guess all those PC laptops with user-upgradeable CPU's are pretty pointless then, huh?
Back before I discovered the joys of OSX, one reason I used to think Macs weren't as good as PCs (other than OS9 - ick) was because they were notoriously upgrade un-friendly. I think I am probably not alone when I say that many users who switch from PC to Mac (eg. to the MBP) would be disappointed when they discover things like not being able to upgrade HDDs or RAM without the help of a technician etc. or voiding their warranty. (My old Year 2000 subnote Acer can be HDD & RAM user-upgraded, but the CPU is soldered because the thing is only a little over 1cm thick!!). Obviously a CPU upgrade is a bigger step requiring more disassembly, and as someone said, the majority of laptop users would be unlikely to do this, but times change.
Younger generations are way more tech savvy than their parents and grandparents and such things as being able to tweak their systems is only going to become more popular. Maybe right now it's not such a big deal for the vast majority. But PCs are still ahead of Macs in this. Much as I hate to acknowledge it, it is definitely one of the things I still find frustrating about Macs.
But I do know that when I wandered around some of the big electronics stores downtown, and I asked about socketed CPU's, there were plenty of options and many of them were almost as thin as the MBP, or mere mm thicker (I live in Japan, there are LOTS of notebooks that are small, even without brands like Acer). There were a couple that were thinner, but only because they didn't have an optical drive, so I wasn't including them in my observations.
All I am saying is that the
option for upgrades, even if a technician is needed for CPU upgrades for mainstream users, is only going to become more popular and I for one would really like to see Apple stop taking advantage of the *relative* passivity of its userbase and get on board with this!
At the
very least if user-upgradeable HDDs and RAM aren't included in new Merom MBPs, I won't be buying. Will stick with the pending Macbook until Apple come to their senses.
