| So, what would a pro laptop look like in my opinion? Not too different from todays top laptops, but a few things would be improved: - Easier to repair / upgrade. Dont glue or solder in parts if it is not absolutely neccessary. If the device gets a few mm thicker, its not the end of the world. - Specifically, make the battery switchable. There is a battery capacity limit for flights in the US, and I've heard this is one reason the new MacBook Pro has the specs it has. A switchable battery would be a way around it. - Be completely honest about your incentives, and then side with the customer. Say: "We would like to glue down everything, so you can't repair it and have to buy a new one when the battery fails - but we won't." This is a business disadvantage in the short term, but you gain trust and can charge more to customers who know what's important. - Give it a matte, high-dpi touchscreen. Note, I don't mean mattED, where you stick a matting foil on top of a regular glass screen. I mean native matte, like good business desktop LCD screens. - Here is an important, overlooked point: Make it "just work". In the sense of "software eats the world", you can do a lot by getting the software right. Have a dedicated team make sure that all popular OSes (Linuxes, Windows) work properly. - A good keyboard is really important. Let the keys have enough travel, make sure that they have standard sizes, that cursor and home/end keys are easily reachable. - Give customers the ports they need, or at least make the dongles cheap. Offer a docking station, or recommend one. (- And if you want to create a Myth, source your components (graphics, WiFi card, touchpad) cleverly, and people will be able to make Hackintoshes out of your machines. Just be careful never to advertise this, or to give instructions :-D.) I believe a smaller vendor could pull this off nowadays. Even if you don't have the economies of scale, you are selling to a pro segement who is willing to pay more for a "no-comprimizes" device. (Edit: cleaned up) |
The reason is that a removable battery needs twice as much enclosures as a non-removable one, adding something like 1/5 of an inch to the thickness. The second reason is that Apple has switched to shaped batteries basically filling any available space, which makes removability as good as impossible.
A third reason is that nobody actually wants removable batteries. An MBP gets 10 hours of battery life, 13 if you're on a plane and turn off the wireless. Add an hour of food service to it and you're good to go around the world.
If that's not enough, you can just get an external battery.