Stale designs: The laptop market needs an Elon Musk style disruption

[Redaktion]

Laptop designs started to feel stale in recent years, with most laptops adopting similar design attributes - most following the example of Apple MacBooks. That is why we are saying: The market needs an Elon Musk disruption!

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Stale-designs-The-laptop-market-needs-an-Elon-Musk-style-disruption.915772.0.html

[anon ymous]

Yeah no. f*** off with that muh innovation autism.
If Musk was to """innovate""" the design we would see a similar situation as with Tesla i.e. a fucking yoke with touch indicators on the yoke......
How about a laptop with a touch keyboard witout any haptic feedback and no ports because heckin wireless so cool!
No thanks. This obsession with design *always* results in form over function garbage that is pure cancer.

[n.]

funny, how the laptop concept has shifted from a 'computer on the go' to a 'fashion/status statement symbol'. LOOK AT ME WORLD, LOOK AT ME! LOOK! LOOK! LOOOOOOOOK!

[Horribleheadlinesin2024]

Does the writer realize Musk has never designed anything in his entire life? he literally bought Tesla when the vehicles were already selling and designed and is just rich person, so he buys whatever company has workers who do all the engineering, designing, manual labor. do they think rich people actually do the work that their company produces? lol so naive and misinformed. I bet they think Steve Jobs actually helped in the creation of the iPhone at Apple.

[Hunter2020]

It's NOT the design.  It's the software running on it.  Ever since Windows 10, I stopped allowing Windows access to the internet.  What good is a laptop where I must use Windows permanently offline while go onto another Linux partition for online activities?

I swear I will never buy another laptop with Windows on it.  I will patiently await the future (Open)Harmony OS PC made available from Aliexpress...

[dontjustreadtheheadline]

Does the writer realize Musk has never designed anything in his entire life?

Its not about if he designed it, but rather that he pushed controversial stuff to market, like the big central touchscreen or the yoke.

[CurryKatsu]

The thing I hate most about laptop designs these days is the uniform austerity. They all followed Apple in this respect. Every laptop is a ubiquitous black/gray/silver/ slab. Even if it's a "gaming laptop, it'll still be that, just with as much RGB lighting cramming into everywhere they can put it.

Even without changing the shape of the laptop at all, I miss that period in the late 90s - early 2000s when companies were willing to make the laptop chassis in a range of bright colors like, red, blue, green, orange, purple etc.

[Bizarro_NikoB]

I'd argue we should go back to early-mid-2010s design philosophies where we actually had functional laptops with ample ports, more end-user upgradeability/reparability, more headroom for heat dissipation compared to today, better keyboards (looking at you Lenovo and Apple), etc.

I really liked the early-mid 2010s Macbook Pro design compared to the odd notch monstrosity we have now as one example.

[LL]

I like the headline. Leadership is essential for disruption.

That said every product type eventually reaches a plateau and only when everything changes around it things can change again. Lawnmower reached a plateau and only when robotic industry advanced it advanced again.
As longe as we are in x86 we are stuck with significant cooling needs, until we get large folding screens we aree stuck with current displays - albeit i would buy a laptop with a slide screen that can double the screen area.

[sabri hassan]

"The design and evolution of laptops are influenced by several factors, including advances in processors and their requirements, such as cooling, as well as the development and discovery of lightweight, durable materials like carbon fiber. There is also an increasing focus on using materials that support a clean environment and can be recycled. Marketing pressures may sometimes push companies to make products thinner, though some laptops, like the exceptional Alienware models, embrace a deeper form factor. Importantly, as laptop designers, we track and build upon where others have left off, often arriving at similar solutions and results year after year.

However, it appears that companies place multiple pressures on designers—meeting strict deadlines being one of the most significant—as well as the budget and strategy for each specific product category, which can impact the design process. Furthermore, designing a laptop often requires the collaboration of a team of designers. Personally, I've designed a laptop that took me nearly two years to complete, and I encountered nearly all these challenges, with the exception that I am not employed by any laptop company. My motivation stems from a deep passion for these incredible devices and a desire to challenge myself in creating an ideal laptop. I believe I've come close to achieving that goal. Anyone interested in seeing the design is welcome to contact me at my email!"

[kutor]

Has it EVER occurred to laptop manufacturers that people are not using Apple products because of their form-over-function bad design, but despite it? People use Apple products because Apple have full control over both their hardware and software (unlike the Windows world where the OS has to run on wildly different hardware configs) and thus can make products that are well optimized i.e. stable, and they have a tight and well-integrated ecosystem.

Not a single Apple user will use a Windows laptop or an Android phone just because they look like an Apple product. So they could just end this now and make things that have a personality, instead of this pathetic imitation race.

[Krishrong]

I would prefer tablet-like laptop with detachable keyboard.
I don't need much performance, because in such a portable device, it will alway suck (always inferior to desktop esp. in gaming). I would invest more in higher performance customizable desktop if performance is required.
Because of its main portability function, it should has light weight, not more than 1.2kg. Any laptop that is heavy than this is very uncomfortable to be carried and usually results in leaving it at home eventually.
And with detachable keyboard, it is a very cheap and easy to be replaced esp. when it is spilled by water accidentally, also the tablet part can be much easier design to be waterproof and more durable.
I would sacrificed ports, only 2 thunderbolts separately on left and right side is acceptable(one side for charging and another can be attached with dongle.

[[email protected]]

Thanks for your article.. the last thing we need is Elon Musk!!!

[Ish]

Sorry to break it to you NBC, but Musk is scum. He's not nearly as "innovative" or "disruptive" as you all want to give him credit for. You can crawl out of his a** now. He is only "disruptive" when it comes to undermining democracy, stoking racist / xenophobic fears with his vanity soapbox, and doing the bidding of Putin to destabilize his adversaries.

[A]

I think you should have started the article with what you meant by Elon Musk instead of leaving it to the end of the article as many got fixated on that. What you meant I am guessing isn't specifically doing what Elon Musk did which limited options, but more focus on someone pushing the industry to make changes and trying new things instead of trying to copy the ugly macbook which is barely usable as a laptop (like nearly all laptops these days)

Personally, I just want a decent keyboard and a touchpad with buttons so I can do actual work on my laptop. I've pretty much given up on laptops being productive.

As for innovations, I personally think what will revolutionize things is XR glasses (once they make them light enough and good FOV, especially vertical) and eGPUs.

Imagine a foldable keyboard that you just unfold and your glasses project a screen. If you need more power, plug in a powersupply with a powerful egpu or co-processor (or use cloud but I prefer having access myself)

Does the writer realize Musk has never designed anything in his entire life? he literally bought Tesla when the vehicles were already selling and designed and is just rich person, so he buys whatever company has workers who do all the engineering, designing, manual labor. do they think rich people actually do the work that their company produces? lol so naive and misinformed. I bet they think Steve Jobs actually helped in the creation of the iPhone at Apple.

I think you are going a bit too far, while it is true that Musk likely never designed things, at best offered his opinion on this or that.

That said, your statement of him buying Tesla when it vehicles were already selling and designed is wrong. Tesla before Musk was meant to be a temporary holding company to sell a few EVs to a few hollywood friends and call it a day. When Musk joined in 2004 as the largest shareholder, there was 0 cars sold or any car designed.

You are thinking about when he became CEO in 2008, at which point he has already been a major influence in Tesla before then for 4 years, getting Tesla to aim for actually becoming a car manufacturer and not a 1 time thing for rich friends.

I like the headline. Leadership is essential for disruption.

That said every product type eventually reaches a plateau and only when everything changes around it things can change again. Lawnmower reached a plateau and only when robotic industry advanced it advanced again.
As longe as we are in x86 we are stuck with significant cooling needs, until we get large folding screens we aree stuck with current displays - albeit i would buy a laptop with a slide screen that can double the screen area.

x86 isn't stuck to anything, they just need to get rid of the bloat of 32bit instruction sets and other old stuff.