[mort96]

And put the web cam where?

The notch is bigger than it should be for sure, I would've loved for it to be narrower. But I don't really mind the trade-off it represents.

You could add half an inch of screen bezel and make the machine bigger, just to fit the web cam. Or you could remove half an inch of screen , essentially making the "notch" stretch across the whole top of the laptop. Or you could find some compromised place to put the camera, like those Dell laptops which put the camera near the hinge. Or you can let the screen fill the whole lid of the laptop, with a cut-out for the camera, and design the GUI such that the menu bar fills the part of the screen that's interrupted by the notch.

I personally don't mind that last option. For my needs, it might very well be the best alternative. If I needed a bigger below-the-notch area, I could get the 16" option instead of the 14" option.

[mirekrusin]

Two cameras on the top corners or 4 in each corner for better gaussian splatting.

[joking]

I don't have a problem with the notch, I have a problem with the icons not showing in the status bar and there isn't a *** way to show them. It's so difficult to add a overflow button that shows the hidden icons?

[bobthepanda]

I wonder how hard it would be to have a camera 'pop up' from the laptop. (i'm not a hardware guy)

[eastbound]

Some laptops literally have the camera behind the screen. As in, behind pixels. It’s possible and classy.

[Lammy]

My REDMAGIC Android phone is like this too and I love not having a stupid notch cut out of the screen. I've hated them since the very first time I saw a iPhone X. Can't believe such a ridiculous design defect infected Macbooks too :/

[bobthepanda]

do you have a picture of what that looks like? having a hard time conceptualizing that.

[Tuna-Fish]

It's not visible at all. The camera is just placed behind the screen.

OLED screens are inherently transparent, there is just a light-emitting layer in them. You put your camera behind the screen, and either make the few pixels on top of the lens go black when it's on, or you use a lot of software to remove the light that comes from the screen and clean up the picture.

[XorNot]

My Oppo Reno 2z phone does this and honestly its been working great for years. I really like not having a notch.

Feels like for a laptop it would be durable enough and also fulfill the "webcam is physically blocked when off".

[hu3]

Dell XPS has webcam, no notch and same o bezel as macbooks.

Maybe it's a patent thing.

[mort96]

They have the solution with the web cam near the hinge that I mentioned. I had a couple of Dell XPS laptops like that. It's fine if the webcam is really just an afterthought for you, but it does mean the webcam has a very unflattering angle that's looking up your nostrils.

I use my webcam enough these days to take part in video meetings that it'd be a pretty big problem for me.

[gargan]

Checkout the Dell XPS 13 9345, webcam is on top but with thinner bezels than a Macbook, it's got a Snapdragon ARM processor for good battery life, OLED screen, upto 64GB RAM, and is smaller and lighter than a Macbook Air

Snapdragon X Elite 2 processor will be out next year for the refreshed model

[y1n0]

That top bezel is twice the size of my m4 mbp.

[gargan]

You're looking at the wrong laptop, the Dell XPS 13 9345 has a ~88.6% screen to body ratio, the Macbook Pro 14 M4 2024 has a ~84.6% screen to body ratio.

The weight is the big one for me - only 2.5 lbs vs 3.4 lbs

Remember the Dell has an 18 month old processor, X Elite 2 coming out next year.

Source for all these stats: https://nanoreview.net/en/laptop-compare/dell-xps-13-9345-20...

[badc0ffee]

Also it gives the huge hands effect when you're typing.

[cyberax]

> They have the solution with the web cam near the hinge that I mentioned.

Companies tried that. You get very strange-looking up-your-nose pictures.