'Notebooks' - is it just apple that calls them that?

[equalsabracket]

I've only ever seen apple call laptops notebooks. The standard name for them where everybody knows what you're talk about is laptop. Near the start of their history, apple may have decided to refer to them as notebooks hoping it would catch on, but it clearly hasn't. So do you think apple should stop being so clingy with the name and change to laptops? It might be kinda hard at this point for them, but do you think they would? I mean it even stopped them from calling the macbook air 'The worlds thinnest laptop'. Instead it was 'the worlds thinnest notebook' and that probably lost a lot of non-mac owners who could see it was a laptop but were wondering what the difference is between a laptop and a notebook.

Personally, when i didn't know much bout apple, i thought a notebook was a small laptop but those are now called netbooks and macbooks definitely aren't small laptops.

What do you think? Is it just apple that calls them that?

 

[r.j.s]

Gateway calls them notebooks, so does Sony and Acer.

 

[liptonlover]

I think it has actually caught on to an extent, especially because of the new type of laptop, the netbook. But whether it does or not, I like that Apple still goes with notebook. I think it sounds better, it sets Apple apart, and it retains their heritage when they were calling them ibooks. I think Ibook sounds dorky, but notebook makes it better.
Also, it goes with one of the major design decisions Apple made, hearkening back to the original Macintosh. In Windows, you have things such as directories. In Mac OS X, you have folders. They designed the whole system as if it were a physical desktop. So having a notebook on your desktop makes sense, going with that theme.

 

[Tosser]

I've only ever seen apple call laptops notebooks. The standard name for them where everybody knows what you're talk about is laptop. Near the start of their history, apple may have decided to refer to them as notebooks hoping it would catch on, but it clearly hasn't. So do you think apple should stop being so clingy with the name and change to laptops? It might be kinda hard at this point for them, but do you think they would? I mean it even stopped them from calling the macbook air 'The worlds thinnest laptop'. Instead it was 'the worlds thinnest notebook' and that probably lost a lot of non-mac owners who could see it was a laptop but were wondering what the difference is between a laptop and a notebook.

Personally, when i didn't know much bout apple, i thought a notebook was a small laptop but those are now called netbooks and macbooks definitely aren't small laptops.

What do you think? Is it just apple that calls them that?

No, far from an Apple-invention. Far from Apple being the only ones:

http://www.notebookreview.com/

 

[r.j.s]

OP, just what is the difference between a laptop and a notebook?

 

[mkrishnan]

I think it has actually caught on to an extent

I think the term notebook became popular as they got thinner, not in the past few years, but say 10-15 years ago (I could be wrong, and I'm not at all sure Apple was the first to widely use the term).

At the same time, the term "laptop" increasingly is going out of vogue because of the heat issues -- with the cases of heat from hotter notebooks causing skin problems and even being accused of impacting reproductive health, computer companies backed away increasingly from the suggestion that one should use a notebook computer on one's lap to begin with...

 

[Melrose]

OP, just what is the difference between a laptop and a notebook?

Laptop is passé. Notebook sounds cooler.

 

[steve2112]

I think the term notebook became popular as they got thinner, not in the past few years, but say 10-15 years ago (I could be wrong, and I'm not at all sure Apple was the first to widely use the term).

At the same time, the term "laptop" increasingly is going out of vogue because of the heat issues -- with the cases of heat from hotter notebooks causing skin problems and even being accused of impacting reproductive health, computer companies backed away increasingly from the suggestion that one should use a notebook computer on one's lap to begin with...

One of my friends worked tech support for Dell a few years ago, and he has said Dell told them to call them notebooks instead of laptops because of reasons like you mentioned.

 

[mkrishnan]

One of my friends worked tech support for Dell a few years ago, and he has said Dell told them to call them notebooks instead of laptops because of reasons like you mentioned.

Yeah... I hadn't made the connection myself, but now in thinking about it, I'm kind of surprised Dell (and HP/Compaq) still uses the term laptop so prominently...

I really can't believe how much more heat today's notebooks seem to generate in general than notebook computers from the 1990s. Granted they do a lot more, but my memory is that, when I got my first notebook, it really didn't make tons of heat (this was a Compaq Armada with a Pentium 150 and 48MB of memory... it had a trackball, which I loved! And no optical drive, amusingly, much like my netbook. It was fairly light and small, too!)

 

[localoid]

...I really can't believe how much more heat today's notebooks seem to generate in general than notebook computers from the 1990s. ...

Faster CPUs = more heat being generated.

"Heat is work and work is heat."

 

[mkrishnan]

Faster CPUs = more heat being generated.

"Heat is work and work is heat."

That's not strictly the way it works... It is the way it works if one engineers CPUs without much regard for heat production, which is essentially what has happened, but it used to be that heat production was considered an important issue in notebook CPU design -- in some areas of the market even now, it is (for instance, Apple implemented and then dropped fanless notebooks, but now there are some second or third generation netbook designs that are fanless again).

 

[jodelli]

One of my friends worked tech support for Dell a few years ago, and he has said Dell told them to call them notebooks instead of laptops because of reasons like you mentioned.

Likewise at HP/Compaq tech support. We were told to use the term notebook.

 

[Electro Funk]

I think the term notebook became popular as they got thinner, not in the past few years, but say 10-15 years ago (I could be wrong, and I'm not at all sure Apple was the first to widely use the term).

At the same time, the term "laptop" increasingly is going out of vogue because of the heat issues -- with the cases of heat from hotter notebooks causing skin problems and even being accused of impacting reproductive health, computer companies backed away increasingly from the suggestion that one should use a notebook computer on one's lap to begin with...

you hit the nail on the head with that answer... i remember apple specifically saying at one point that a "notebook" should not be used in ones lap but rather placed on a desk or some type of surface when being used. (this was when many were complaining about the heat issues from the bottom of the case a few years ago.)