So small and thin is definitely in again for notebooks in 2008. But the rapturous reception afforded to the tiny and cheap Asus Eee PC by the PC and Linux crowd, and the swooning ranks of Apple fans when Steve Jobs unveiled the wafer-thin expensive Macbook Air are nothing new.
Along with the semi-mythical all-day battery and roll-up TFT screen, small and thin are two constantly recurring design themes in the laptop world.
Unfortunately, the road is littered with the corpses of the many failures. Remember the Mitsubishi Pedion/HP Omnibook Sojourn - still the thinnest notebooks in the world, as far as I know - the Compaq Contura Aero, or even the Zenith MiniSport? Yet every time the wave comes back, it’s confidently pronounced that technology has finally matured enough to make these miniature marvels a roaring success. The most recent wave has been the crop of ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) we saw a couple of years ago, but which have so far largely failed to take the world by storm.
Sadly, I still have my doubts, as I believe the problem runs much deeper than being able to cram lots of processing horsepower into a stylish chassis the size of a paperback book. But before I explain, don’t get the idea that I don’t think the Eee and Macbook Air are impressive bits of kit. They are, particularly the Asus with its incredible sub-£200 price point.
There will always be a niche of users who will kill to get their hands on a PC that fits in their jacket pocket. But the mainstream business user will never be prepared to make the compromises needed to live with these devices.
The Eee PC has miniscule amounts of storage by modern laptop standards, and a low-resolution screen that cramps your style compared to today’s high-res screens on Windows notebooks. The MacBook Air seems to have all the flaws of its ancestor, the Mitsubishi Pedion non-removable battery, hard drive and memory, plus limited expansion ports.
I think of the two, the Asus Eee has the best chance of starting something new. Versions with bigger screens, 3G and more storage are all promised, and even XP is now supported. But it’s the price that’s the killer £199 is almost petty cash territory these days, and certainly sales are reported to be impressive, although feature bloat could easily start to push up that compelling price tag.
Given that we should be trying to make PCs and laptops smaller and more efficient simply for the sake of sustainability, these products should be welcomed, but my gut feeling is that this wave will ultimately prove to be equally as transient as the previous ones.
