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MacBook Thin is on the way?

Diatribe said:
Seriously though, carbon should be tough enough for most situations.
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I've found polycarbonate to be tough enough for most situations! 😉 The thing I wonder about carbon fiber shells... since carbon fiber is so anisotropic, how *thick* are the shells to achieve strength perpendicular to the grain? Thinness seems to be a big portion of Apple's motivation to use metals -- Ti and now Al -- for their pro notebooks. Carbon Fiber would probably be as light or lighter than either... but would it be as thin? The Al shell is what... 500 or 600 microns thick? Should almost certainly be no more than 800.
 
I'll take a side-on picture of the SZ lid with the MBP's when I can be bothered... You'll say "Holy ****!" as it's thinner than the MBP's lid.

(But you won't say "Apple can't build that without ****ing it up", cuz it's true 😛 )

Carbon structures in the real world are anisotropic? News to me.
 
Sesshi said:
Carbon structures in the real world are anisotropic? News to me.
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Not the carbon itself... Carbon fiber composite structures are highly anisotropic. That's the whole point. They're designed to be rigid with respect to axial loads -- loads in the plane of the fiber sheet. That's why they're such a great fit for uses like panels on the surface of an aircraft or tubing on a bicycle. In neither case is the panel intended to sustain a substantial normal force. Think about it this way... consider the fiber sheet itself without the epoxy component. The fiber sheet is like a sheet of paper -- it has great strength in the plane, i.e. if you pull at the edges. But it doesn't resist you if you hold it at the edges and push down on the center, except to the extent that your axial forces at the edges hold it taut. In the normal direction, for the carbon composite, again you only have the conversion to axial tension and what the epoxy does for you....

In the case of a notebook computer... I don't think it'd be a huge issue. I'm just not familiar if anyone's actually ever made one with a carbon fiber shell and how thin it actually would be.
 
mkrishnan said:
Not the carbon itself... Carbon fiber composite structures are highly anisotropic. That's the whole point. They're designed to be rigid with respect to axial loads -- loads in the plane of the fiber sheet. That's why they're such a great fit for uses like panels on the surface of an aircraft or tubing on a bicycle. In neither case is the panel intended to sustain a substantial normal force. Think about it this way... consider the fiber sheet itself without the epoxy component. The fiber sheet is like a sheet of paper -- it has great strength in the plane, i.e. if you pull at the edges. But it doesn't resist you if you hold it at the edges and push down on the center, except to the extent that your axial forces at the edges hold it taut. In the normal direction, for the carbon composite, again you only have the conversion to axial tension and what the epoxy does for you....

In the case of a notebook computer... I don't think it'd be a huge issue. I'm just not familiar if anyone's actually ever made one with a carbon fiber shell and how thin it actually would be.
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I definitely don't need a lecture on this subject... but there is more than one way to skin a cat. If you're relying on a couple of sheets of pre-preg laid uniformly on top of one other, sure - it's very directional. Is a paper-thin sheet of aluminium any different? 🙄

Perhaps the big clue with me dangling the Sony SZ series as well as the TX in this thread might be that they already have CF shells. I haven't tried chipping the shells by the way for obvious reasons, but it looks to be short-fibre reinforced thermoplastic which makes more sense from an engineering point of view. Sony are - or were (unlike Apple, who didn't have such resources) - known for true material and production innovations in casing materials and processes on their flagship products, so I'm unsure how they would have optimised the manufacturing process if at all.
 
I don't think I'd want a thinner macbook.. That seems too thin.. Sooner or later they're going to get so thin you're going to be able to break the thing in half... 🙄
 
Diatribe said:
I agree, carbon fiber would be the only thing they could actually use that would be an improvement over the aluminum they use now. Besides, it would just look awesome.
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Carbon fiber would require Apple to totally rethink their thermal management design - that could be a good thing. The aluminum case has a number of advantages that carbon fiber does not - thermal transfer coefficient, cost, ease of manufacturing.

I want / need a smaller machine in addition to my C2D. The current macbook is not bad - just bought my son one about a month ago and we are impressed with it. 12" / 13" MBP - IF WELL MADE - would be nice. Apple has to sort out their TQM process - I'd not buy a Rev A ultra portable until peoples experience with it was known.
 
Apple Corps said:
Carbon fiber would require Apple to totally rethink their thermal management design - that could be a good thing. The aluminum case has a number of advantages that carbon fiber does not - thermal transfer coefficient, cost, ease of manufacturing.
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I hope ultimately notebook computers swing around back to being safe for laptop usage... I'm getting tired of the never-ending increases in heat production. 🙁
 
Sesshi said:
It's called tax.

🙄

You wish. Although I'm sure the comparatively badly put together, problematic, very pretty result will be a winner in the eyes of drooling Apple fanboys 🙄
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I'm gonna call this one.. Demi-god or not.. multiple negative posts from this member with the Dell XPS logo looks like anti-Apple trolling to me...! ;P

"Apple can't do it. They can't make their current notebooks right.. They'll never do it right the first time like Sony.. blah blah blah".. um... OK, definite Mac fan me thinks..
 
Apple Corps said:
Carbon fiber would require Apple to totally rethink their thermal management design - that could be a good thing. The aluminum case has a number of advantages that carbon fiber does not - thermal transfer coefficient, cost, ease of manufacturing.
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Thermal transfer has it's disadvantages. It's funny that many in the Northern Hemisphere are saying "Scalding heat? My MBP's just very warm, you're full of **** Sesshi" have seemed to fail to realise it is EFFING WINTER (which appears to confirm my suspicions that the Mac community here may harbour the hard-of-thinking more than the general contingent) at this time. My 60-plus-Celcius-case-temp-in-summer MBP is also somewhat tolerable at the moment 🙄 The C2D's were introduced/purchased in autumn-winter of course and if you have to think about it... duh.

And by the same token, I'm sure my Pro has another 5 months of more-or-less flawless operation until it starts to struggle or starts suffering heat damage over the longer term that will probably render its useful life shorter than my Precision. (That is, until I finally cave and get AC. Never thought I'd need AC in outer London 😱 )

Cost is also something else that carbon fibre needn't be hugely higher in. Certain types of 'carbon fiber' can be moulded instead of laid up. It is lower strength than thermoset structures but like GRP it exhibits significantly higher strength (and therefore can be used in thinner layers to achieve the same structural integrity) than a regular moulded plastic. But the use of carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastic does make thermal management more critical, since some formulations may become excessively ductile at the temperatures attained by the MBP. If Apple were to introduce a CF notebook, the likelihood of a thermoset case being used is remote at this time due to cost (it's still quite labour intensive to make). And if Apple did make a thermoplastic CF notebook right now, I have absolutely no doubt that Rev A variants will deform 😛
 
Warbrain said:
I just don't see this happening. While people are saying they would buy this, I don't think enough would want this machine. And a lot of people would be better off just getting the MacBook rather than the MacBook thin - which, by the way, is one ****** name so far.
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I work in a large organisation that are trialling MBP's. Feedback is great but bottom line, when our executives hit the road, they always go for their IBM X60 thinkpads..small, light, robust, battery life to die for..MB's are too heavy, MBP's are too heavy and unwieldy to travel with, the 12" X60 by comparison is a dream travel companion.

I can assure you from personal experience corporate executives will snap up an intel-based MBP equivalent that can also run windows. It will be a monster product for Apple.

Vanilla
 
mkrishnan said:
I hope ultimately notebook computers swing around back to being safe for laptop usage... I'm getting tired of the never-ending increases in heat production. 🙁
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True. My MBP is a small power plant. When I have it on I don't even need my heater. 🙄 Sometimes I thinking about calling Apple... it gets burning hot.
 
Diatribe said:
You mean OTHER than some REALLY bad cosmetic issues and some badly designed hinges that would break just by looking at them? 🙄 😛
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Which is more likely:
1. Titanium as a material, is flawed when used for hinges.
2. Apple failed to make titanium hinges right.

My guess is (2). Ditto for the paint. They probably bought a cheap stock of paint and have thousands of TiBook owners pay the price.
 
Big Boss Man said:
The Dell XPS M1210 is quite nice. I was just about set on getting a Mac until I saw that Dell. It is kind of like a slightly smaller MB with a much better GPU. Apple guys I hope you are listening. You have until spring when I get my tax refund.
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It isn't a very fair comparison though, at $1299 it comes with a 1.83Ghz processor, a combo drive, and GMA 950. To upgrade it to a more decent GPU would cost $129! For that price I'd rather get a refurbished MBP.
 
mkrishnan said:
I hope ultimately notebook computers swing around back to being safe for laptop usage... I'm getting tired of the never-ending increases in heat production. 🙁
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I agree and my MBP is a laptop regardless of what the attorneys have renamed it to (laptop). The Rev A CD MBP clearly pushed well beyond the limits of the cooling technology employed. So far my C2D 15" has been great.
 
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