[wtallis]

On the other hand, all of those features tend to result in machines that stretch the definition of laptop and usually land themselves into what used to be called "luggables". Even Apple's 17" MacBook Pro was 6.6 pounds and 15.5 inches wide, and if you triple the TDP of the GPU, double the number of memory slots, and increase the battery and cooling proportionately you've got something that can only be transported with special purpose luggage.

[frozenport]

You sound like a wimp! I have never had a problem fitting my Asus ROG laptop in my backpack. I got raid ssds, 32 gigs of ram and a 770 GPU. I can do my work from anywhere.

[wtallis]

Anywhere with an outlet.

Looking at the current Asus ROG 17" laptops, it looks like they've got a model that's only 7.5 pounds with a battery the same size as in the MacBook Air 13". Or you can get a 10.5 pound machine that's got a battery the size of what's in current 15" MacBook Pros and was in the 17" MBPs. And most of those manage to stay less than 2" thick, but they're all at least twice as thick as a current MBP. All in all, they've got almost as much in common with an iMac as with a MacBook Pro. (Seriously: the 21.5" iMac is only 2 pounds heavier.)

10 pounds of textbooks in a backpack is regarded as a public health problem. 10 pounds of computer cannot be taken seriously as something made for use on the go. We really do need some more specific terminology to draw distinctions between the different classes of hinged computers.