Although the PowerBook line had been available since 1991, the familiar metallic titanium design arrived with the PowerBook G4 in 2001. Steve Jobs intended this to be a completely reinvented PowerBook, and it delivered. From being a black and rather chunky device (a typical laptop of the late 1990s), the PowerBook suddenly became sleek and elegant. It was also one of the very first widescreen laptops available to consumers.
Lenovo is clearly using the release of Windows 11 as a launchpad to reinvent the IdeaPad name with two compelling new ultra-thin yet powerful notebooks. Can the IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon and IdeaPad Slim 7 Pro convince buyers to look away from other established brands in this segment and join our list of the best laptops? Let's take a look.
How a new MacBook could reinvent the laptop
That's the thing, though: While USB Type-C ports will one day become industry standard, they're still uncommon enough that you will need a dongle to plug in any of your peripherals that use a full-sized USB Type-A connector. In my case, that meant I couldn't charge my phone off my laptop. I also couldn't use the USB headset I normally wear while podcasting and making voice recordings. If I did want to use my USB gadgets, I would have had to plug in a $79 adapter -- that's right, it's not even included in the box. Again, I expect USB Type-C will one day be the norm, and it's possible that your needs are simple enough that you can already live without the full-sized USB ports.
In order to achieve such a compact design, Apple went with Intel's new power-sipping Core M chips, whose 14nm design has made possible other thin and light laptops, like the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro. In addition, Apple also had to redesign the logic board, which is now 67 percent smaller than on the 11-inch Air. The result, as we've already seen, is an insanely lightweight laptop with zero fan noise, though the trade-off is that Apple couldn't use the same heavier-duty Core i5 and i7 processors that it does on the MacBook Air and Pro.
Apple also could have slimmed down the bezels around the screen to offer up some extra screen space as it did with the 16-inch MacBook Pro (13 inches can feel a little cramped in Premiere). And while Apple outfitted the MacBook Pro with high-quality mics that are good enough to replace your podcast mic in a pinch, the microphones on the Air are nothing special. They pick up a fair amount of background noise. Combined with the low-quality webcam, there's just so much grain in my Zoom calls. This would have been yet another good moment to bring Face ID to a laptop, but alas, we'll have to wait another year (at least).
Also, a laptop can almost always use more ports, and this one is no exception. You get two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports on the left side as well as a headphone jack on the right. I complained about the lack of an SD card reader and USB-A ports on the pricier MacBook Pro, and those complaints are repeated here. I'd be happier if Apple could have at least offered an extra USB-C port on the Air. I'd rather avoid dongles as much as possible.
This little 5.5-inch 1080p screen can also act as a second monitor for your laptop. This could be useful to keep tabs on Twitter or Facebook, or just to monitor a messaging client like Slack during the workday.
In light of the new Asus dual display ZenBook that provides users with a really useful second display that could also accept pen input, the Touch Bar seemed limited by most. Whether Apple will reinvent the Touch Bar in the future with a larger display is unknown at this time.
We have been building towards this moment for the last 30 years. In 1984, we introduced the first Mac. From that moment on, nothing was going to be the same again in the computer industry. In 1991 came the first PowerBook. It put the entire power of a Mac in your backpack, revolutionizing the portable computing. In 2006, we introduced the MacBook, redefining what a laptop could be. [stage-direction: back to glowing apple logo] And today, the saga continues. [stage-direction: pause & exited crowd applauds]
One big update with this model: The much-hated Butterfly Keyboard is gone, replaced with a backlit Magic Keyboard. Plus, a Touch Bar is included in all 13-inch models. Apple's attempt to reinvent the way we control our laptops isn't the game-changer that the humble mouse was, but it's a nice addition.
The product could be as revolutionary to digital movies as Apple's iPod music player was to digital music. Both devices liberate media from the computer, allowing people to enjoy digital files without being chained to a desktop or laptop.
The pricing is understandable, given the amount of R&D these devices need. However, that cost is being passed down to the customer. Durability is bound to drop and repair costs are bound to increase. Laptops generally have a longer lifespan than phones, but the foldable revolution could affect that negatively, or at least drive the repair costs up for folks that hold on to their devices longer. There are one-time screen replacement discounts from phone makers, but with bigger laptop-size displays, the cost is bound to be driven up. A replacement is unlikely to be offered for free there. 2ff7e9595c
Comments