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Portables Hardware

Two-Pounder From Lenovo Might Be Too Light For Comfort 134

Posted by timothy from the my-keyboard-weighs-more-than-this dept.
MojoKid writes: With the advent of solid state storage and faster, lower-powered processors that require less complex cooling solutions, the average mainstream notebook is rather svelte. Recently, however, Lenovo announced their LaVie Z and LaVie Z 360 ultrabooks and at 1.87 and 2.04 pounds respectively, they're almost ridiculously light. Further, with Core i7 mobile processors and fast SSDs on board, these machines perform impressively well in the benchmarks and real world usage. If you actually pick one up though, both models are so light they feel almost empty, like there's nothing inside. Lenovo achieved this in part by utilizing a magnesium--lithium composite material for the casing of the machines. Though they're incredibly light, the feeling is almost too light, such that they tend to feel a little cheap or flimsy. With a tablet, you come to expect a super thin and light experience and when holding them in one hand, the light weight is an advantage. However, banging on a full-up notebook keyboard deck is a different ball of wax.
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Two-Pounder From Lenovo Might Be Too Light For Comfort More

Two-Pounder From Lenovo Might Be Too Light For Comfort

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  • Give me battery or give me death (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sowelu ( 713889 ) on Tuesday July 07, 2015 @02:10PM (#50064243)

    If you can cut something from 3lb to 2lb, that just means you have room for 1lb more battery.

    Same thing applies with phones. Stop making them thinner, and use the saved space for more battery!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by afidel ( 530433 )

      Agreed on the phones, 2mm thinner does nothing for me, but 2x more battery would change the way I use the phone. However since I started carrying a tablet as my primary remote work machine I have to disagree on that, saving a pound means I'm that much more likely to actually carry it with me.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mcrbids ( 148650 )

        My current laptop, a Dell Precision M3800 [dell.com] has it all: light weight, powerful, reasonable (if not fantastic) battery life, 4K screen, and native support for Linux, out of the box but it's hard to figure out what something the same size would be like at 1/4 the weight.

        But I'm agreeing with other comments: I'd rather have this exact weight laptop with 3 days of battery life.

        A few years back, I bought the phone with the very best battery life [phonearena.com] and I don't regret it one minute. Now on its third year, the phone s

    • Re:Give me battery or give me death (Score:5, Informative)

      by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Tuesday July 07, 2015 @02:29PM (#50064383) Homepage

      I tend to agree with you less when it comes to laptops, and more in terms of phones. Often enough, when I use my laptop, I'm seated someplace close enough to a power outlet. My laptop has something like an 11 hour battery life, so effectively I pretty much never run out of battery life unless I've just been totally careless. I'd generally rather have lighter weight so I can save my back from some pain. My phone, however, is always in operation and usually in my pocket. Charging isn't terribly convenient, and if I don't charge it every night, I'll probably end up stuck someplace without a working phone.

      However, in the case of this laptop, I completely agree. The reviewer says that the battery lasted around 5 hours with light web browsing, which is too short in my opinion.

      • Part of the problem with a light laptop is that if you've got it on your lap or some other soft or uneven surface, when you start typing, the laptop starts swaying. I don't know the exact weight where it gets to the point of being unusable, but even small fluctuations will subtly frustrate people.

        There may be other problems, but until they can solve this via engineering or design (without increasing weight), there will continue to be such a thing as "too light."

      • Phones draw more power than laptops, too. At least for the interesting things. Try turning on the GPS receiver and placing a voice call at the same time. The batteries will still drain even if you have a 500mA charger connected. Laptop? Not much happening most of the time. Just the screen and WiFi radio.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      Or? Why limit yourself? They can give you a big, faulty battery and you can have both!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 )
      http://news.cnet.com/HP-releas... [cnet.com]

      HP did the sub-3 lb laptop almost 20 years ago. It didn't sell. It even had an integrated optional external battery for those who would rather carry more weight/thickenss for the battery life. It didn't sell. The laptop in general didn't sell because it was $6000, but the battery slice wasn't a popular feature.

      I hear you. I understand you. But you aren't who they are trying to sell this to, so your opinion doesn't matter.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        I suspect the big pricetag was the problem. Nobody is going to cough up 6 grand for a thin laptop and then make it a thick laptop. OTOH, if it's a moderate price, someone might.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          "Might", Reality proves that those who would pay $6k for a laptop wouldn't. So the only actual data is consumers don't cough up for a battery that makes it thicker and heavier. The few who would can be served with other options. So many laptops still have dock ports, so make a snap-on battery for them. I've seen a few around, and nobody buys them, and they don't make many because people don't want them.

          If they were high-demand, people would make 3rd party battery packs, a sliver on the bottom the lapto

      • Dell have been selling dual, and oversized battery options on many models for the past 15 years. The did and continue to sell well.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          So has nearly everyone else. The big batteries that go in the same slot, but stick out. The 9-cell upgrade for the 6-cell basic. They are designed to mainly increase weight, and aren't a thickness-adder for a thin laptop.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

        Dell did the C- and L-400 series (clamshell (3.6lb) and superflat (3.5lb)) subnotes, they did extremely well. I'm looking to buy a new keyboard for my C400 since the battery still lasts five hours per charge, and for the L400 a new battery because everything else still works. I'm not abandoning my Asus netbook though, the Dells are actually better for live audio capture.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      Agreed. I already have a knife for chopping onions.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I own a LaVie Z (it's actually made by NEC who have been selling it for years, but only in Japan) and the battery life is pretty good. Overall it's a very nice machine. Fast, good keyboard, good touch pad, two USB ports and a separate charging port, nice screen... About the only thing that isn't good is the sound from the speakers, but that's always going to be the case in such a small device.

      I got it fit travelling, because I suffer from arthritis so carrying a bulky laptop isn't something I want to do. In

    • Most laptops offer a larger battery option. There are after-market cases for most phones that include a secondary battery. The Lenovo X240 has one removable battery and one permanently attached. You can carry an extra removable battery and hot swap. Really making the device lighter and thinner makes sense for phones as it's easy to combine the phone with an auxiliary battery. Harder with laptops as they are always proprietary and you have to buy them from the vendor, but still something that is general

    • If you can cut something from 3lb to 2lb, that just means you have room for 1lb more battery.

      Same thing applies with phones. Stop making them thinner, and use the saved space for more battery!

      On my phone yes, much rather more battery. on my tablet/portable laptop NO, I want it as light as possible with just enough battery life to be practical. weight is everything when you have to lug it around with you everywhere and require mobility. I currently use a Lenovo and an ASUS both were chosen first and foremost on weight, battery life was second, power/look 3rd.

  • The new R30 and Z30 models from Toshiba are a magnesium honeycomb design that's supposed to be really tough. I don't believe them. Their modern satellite series is pathetic. They're around 4 pounds but still have 15.6" screens. They're the same old composite material that laptops have been made with for years so naturally it cracks and fractures and bends and really doesn't impress the person holding it. They're so stupidly fragile! I've had 6 HP sleekbooks come in with shattered screens too, which ma

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )
      Their old Satellite lines weren't much to write home about either. I ended up with several Satellite 1700 series in the past because numerous broken ones came my way, was ultimately able to make one good one with all of the cannibalized machines but the ports were way, WAY too fragile and the hinges tended to stick and break the adjacent metal parts.

  • Weight has always been a "quality" factor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Tuesday July 07, 2015 @02:18PM (#50064287) Homepage

    Weight plays a lot into our perception for how solid and well built things are, even when they're not [gizmodo.com]. Lightweight is great, but go too far and things feel like a fragile toy.

    This is almost too good a problem to have with a laptop -- too lightweight? Put more battery in it.

    • Is it really the weight or the structural feel of the body? If it feels light and flimsy, then I would be worried, but not with light and sturdy.

      The choice of materials and the way it feels in the hand when you try to flex is really what is important, IMHO.

    • That's how I felt about the iPhone 5 vs 4. The 4 with glass was heavy enough it felt like a solid block. The 5, when tapped firmly on the back, had this vibration that I think is the camera element. Maybe the extra weight damped the vibrations? It made it feel cheaper. I tested a friend's 5 and it had the same vibration when tapped on the back. It affects nothing functionally, but it has a non-premium feeling.
    • There is no such thing as "feeling cheap" though. It used to be that plastics were inferior to metal so when we felt them we thought of poorly made things designed to not last very long. High tech composites may be better materials than metal so the statement "feels cheap" doesn't seem to apply. If it's too light, you could just add a lead weight. Or as an earlier poster suggested, more battery. Most laptops by the way do offer an upgraded battery that weighs an extra half pound or so if you really wan

  • Minthly Lenovo - Advertorial, (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    courtesy of MojoKid. this time with a hint of critique - as we wouldn't notice.

  • But still no active digitizer (Score:3)

    by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Tuesday July 07, 2015 @02:27PM (#50064365) Journal

    It looks chunky enough it should have had room for at least an optional extra battery to last more than 3-4 hours under real use. And, seriously, how can you make a tablet without a real digitizer these days? Why must I use a crayon or my finger to draw figures or edit photos in tablet mode? (Don't even get me started with that Adonis bullshit - been there, done that, not worth a penny much less $100).

  • Too light? (Score:5, Funny)

    by TsuruchiBrian ( 2731979 ) on Tuesday July 07, 2015 @02:27PM (#50064369)
    Don't worry, it will soon be weighed down with the burden of crippling malware.
  • We want everything with bigger screens - but not that much bigger. We want everything lighter - but not that much lighter. Sometimes companies tend to focus on what the consumer says they want - instead of trying to figure out what they really want. Let's face it, we are generally terrible at knowing what we want.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 )
      What happens is that segmentation is lost. They make one for everyone, rather than 10 for 10 different types of people. To some, there is no such thing as "too light" but for many there is. There is no such thing as "too big" for me. I had an 18.3 inch screen laptop for years, loved the size, but the rest of the laptop was shit. I'd have gone with a 23" laptop, if someone made it. But I'm back to 15.6, as the big screen laptops are either 3x the cost of one a few inches smaller, or weak-hinged and und

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

        I swear I saw a Sony 23" laptop in John Lewis not many years ago... the screen was OK resolution (1680x1200 or some weirdness I think), but the rest of it was complete shit. 1st Gen Core Duo, 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, DVD burner. Did not impress me for six grand.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          Yeah, the Toshiba 18.3 I had was mediocre in spec, and shoddy in build quality. Though my next laptop may be a http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/l... [lenovo.com] As 17.3 is much better than 15.3, and 10-point touch. I liked the Acer R7, but they mostly abandoned the line, and never ramped up the screen size.

          I want a big touch screen on my laptop, but not with sub-standard specs to go with it. The Y70 specs are good ($1300 for an i7, 16G RAM, 960M, and 1TB HD), and it's touch and a big screen.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

            I had instant buyer's remorse when I bought my Toshiba. It has a 15.6" panel at 1366x768 and came with 6GB RAM, I could've gone with the one next to it which (OK it was an HP and I'm still not keen on HP having been inside MANY of them fixing mechanical failures) had a 19" screen, a Core i5 dual core and 3GB RAM, but for some strange reason I went for smaller screen, slower processor, more RAM and larger hard drive off the shelf...

  • So it's come to this (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Remember when cell phones kept getting smaller and lighter? Remember when netbooks were going to revolutionize the portable computer? Remember when phablets were the next big thing? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      Remember when netbooks were going to revolutionize the portable computer? [...] Pepperidge Farms remembers.

      I'm typing this comment on a 10" Dell laptop. So do I get a box of Goldfish crackers?

  • Scenario 47 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday July 07, 2015 @03:11PM (#50064623) Journal

    "As you can see in my PowerPoint slide, the...ah, ah, Aaachoooo!... Hey, where's my laptop?"

  • As long as you can use it without it flying off your lap, (we are talking about a laptop, right?) or desk, and the rest of the specs are what you're looking for, why wouldn't you want it to be as light as possible? As long as the "bottom" where the keyboard is weighs enough so the screen doesn't tip it over backwards, I say the lighter the better! Why would you intentionally want something to be heavy? Screw all the conversations around it being preceived as being cheap because it's light. The only people t

  • Macbook Airs have sold millions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by adisakp ( 705706 ) on Tuesday July 07, 2015 @04:04PM (#50064917) Journal
    ... and they are in the similar 2 lb weight category.

  • My Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rssrss ( 686344 ) on Tuesday July 07, 2015 @04:34PM (#50065087)

    I bought a new Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon. It weighs 2 lbs 12 oz 1270 g. A bit more than the LaCie. OTOH it is built to Thinkpad standards so it is quite rugged. The keyboard is excellent. The machine came with Win 7 professional and no bloatware. It has a 500 GB SSD. It is fast and easy to use. I love it, and think the money was well spent. The battery life is excellent, it will run all day in ordinary usage. (i.e. not playing streaming HD video).

    • But does it run Linux? Last year, when I tried a basic Ubuntu install on the X1 Carbon, it didn't survive the first suspend / hibernate. Maybe things have improved since then.

  • Here's what's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ITRambo ( 1467509 ) on Tuesday July 07, 2015 @05:01PM (#50065243)
    Lenovo still uses TFT displays in high priced hardware. In this product line you pay an extra $200 to get an IPS display in the Z 360. Our business is a Lenovo authorized reseller. I do not understand why they do not put an IPS display in all their higher end gear. There shouldn't even be a TFT option at $1499. The $1699 model should be the only one available. Reduce the SKU's and hence you have less capital tied up. Sell better products, Lenovo. Your image is tarnishing more all the time. I expect more from the world's #1 PC maker than TFT junk.

    • There's a flip side to this. 2 of the 3 companies I've worked for and one of the government organisations have explicitly specified TFT displays for laptops. Their justification is (and I kid you not) security.

      In these companies all employees were issued with docking stations and laptops. The docking stations had nice IPS displays which kept people happy in their primary place of work but as the theory went the laptops got mostly used on trains, buses, and planes where the TFT panel's shithouse viewing angl

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mczak ( 575986 )
      I'm nearly 100% certain both displays are IPS. One is just anti-glare while the other is glare + touch. The linked review certainly would have noticed that otherwise, but instead just essentially saying the more expensive one is rubbish...
      (FWIW it's TN vs. IPS - both of these are actually TFT.)

  • Just like all those annoying radio/cassette players that kids used to haul around on their shoulder: Basically a nearly empty plastic box with tiny little speakers. And some big iron weights glued inside.

    • Those kids at least were nice enough to play the music for everybody and share. Now people are selfish and carry around little tiny earbuds (that probably have worse audio fidelity than the old boom boxes) but only they can hear the music.

  • I have a 2lb LG notebook. It's great. It doesn't feel "too light", or flimsy, or cheaply made.

    If these Lenovo models do, it's not the weight, it's the specific materials used, or the construction, or the design.

  • A magnesium-lithium case: aren't that two metals highly inflammable?

  • With a tablet, you come to expect a super thin and light experience and when holding them in one hand, the light weight is an advantage

    These people must have never worked at a company that uses macbook pros across the board, or a startup using thin lap-tops.

    Everyone holds their lap-tops with 1 hand like if it was a tablet, running around holding them by the lid, and all around handling them like they would their ipads.

    Light lap-tops that you can carry with one hand without effort is a definite advantage for

  • What in the hell are you talking about???? Light weight is a bad thing? I've been looking for light laptops for years. Now the same morons who think a kickstand is cool for Microsoft surface want heavy laptops to validate their stupidity? C'MON MAN. (and have fun downmodding this post to anyone who actually reads it)
  • Weird metaphor.

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