MacBook Thinness Critique

Comments criticize Apple's obsession with ultra-thin MacBook designs, which compromise repairability, ports, batteries, cameras, and other features, often comparing favorably to thicker laptops like ThinkPads or Dell XPS.

📉 Falling 0.4x Hardware
2,428
Comments
19
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#6248
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2008
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Keywords

RAM MacBookPro HDMI SSD hackaday.com DVD MacBook RJ45 M1 MacBooks macbook apple macbooks ports laptops usb form factor laptop replaceable display

Sample Comments

jdnenej Nov 29, 2019 View on HN

My dell xps is super thin and it still has easily replaceable ram and battery. The massive use of glue, rivets, proprietary screws and cryptographic verification in macbooks is not for slimness but for planed obsolescence

extralego Jul 1, 2018 View on HN

They should at least factor in how thin the MacBook Pro has gotten.

johnwalkr Jan 17, 2021 View on HN

Why not have a bump in the MacBook screen with a small penalty in trackpad size?

alexcroox Mar 24, 2014 View on HN

What laptop do you have? Macbook Pro's are so thin now even a RJ45 hole is too tall. I can forgive them for not having a replaceable battery for size/weight and noise reduction having everything so tightly integrated.

fastball May 26, 2018 View on HN

Macbooks have large batteries. Wouldn't make sense to have one in this if you're going for as small as possible form factor.

Melatonic Jan 20, 2026 View on HN

I'd take an ever so slightly thicker laptop that avoided this (never seen this on a Thinkpad for example) but Apple seems to be obsessed with the thinnest of everything possible

laurencerowe Aug 4, 2020 View on HN

An iPhone is much deeper than a laptop lid. Perhaps they'll have to redesign the lid not to taper at the edge to provide more space for a better camera.

strictnein Sep 7, 2016 View on HN

Maybe. Macbooks have more room for ports too, but they only put one port on those.

nfriedly Oct 18, 2021 View on HN

I mean, Apple gets to decide how thick the laptop is, so they could make it work if they wanted to. Didn't the original Macbook Air have a USB-A port?Also, HDMI ports are approximately the same height as USB Type-A ports, so presumably it would fit in this design.

BoorishBears Apr 6, 2018 View on HN

Form factor? Could a MBP in its current form factor actually fit all that?