No one in their right mind needs big screen notebooks

IN 1983 the Compaq Portable arrived, followed in 1984 by the IBM Portable Computer, and the so-called era of the notebook began. They were not strictly the first portable machines, if you count in the Osborne 1 and others, but they set the scene for the mainstream market.

Portable, however, is probably too forgiving a term since they were portable like sewing machines are portable. The fond term used was "luggables". The IBM effort weighed in at 30lbs. This week, over 22 years later, Dell and Acer announced notebooks with 20.1 displays weighing in at 20lbs and over 17lbs respectively.

Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture? Step back for a moment into my Warped Recollection Time Machine.

There was a time when having a notebook with a bigger screen meant something - could fit more work on the screen etc. Back in the ancient days of 10 to 11-inch displays, which were quite an achievement, notebooks themselves were quite rare and reason enough to gather round some smug bastard's desk for a peek. Oh, how we ogled those low-res graphics and "oohhed" and "aahhed" at the many fine low-res applications that ran on them.

Then came 12-, 13- and 14-inch screens - the last being the biggest seller until just a couple of years ago - all of which caused a stir.

Colour arrived and resolutions improved and all was well with the world. When 15-inch displays arrived it was time for an office orgy. Or maybe a nice cup of tea. No one dared dream about a 17-inch notebook display because massive 17-inch CRTs were, in the late 1990s, the pinnacle of desktop fashion. If you had a bitchin' 17-inch, or - saints preserve us - a 19-inch display on your desk, you really were going places. The idea of squashing one of those 17-inch monsters into a notebook seemed to defy all laws of physics.

And now, less than five years later, we have notebooks with 20.1-inch, high definition displays. Some are going "ooh" but like Scrooge, I'll have to go with ‘Bah'. This is hi-tech self abuse, at its worst.

After 17-inches, the need for a bigger display became redundant for the majority of people. Even now, most people don't need or want one. Just looks at what sells like hotcakes. We see all of this publicity about 17in, 19in and 20in notebook displays with a gazillion pixels and UltraBrightSuperSharpMegaBlack LCD technology, that we forget what real people are buying.

According to Display Search, 15-inch notebooks were the biggest sellers until the end of 2005 and 15.4-inch notebooks will be the biggest sellers this year. In price terms, sub-£500 notebooks are the ones running off the shelves. After that, everything else is a long way back. Bigger screens don't mean squat to those on a budget.

Will anyone, apart from a teeny tiny proportion of CAD/CAM or gaming enthusiasts buy a 20.1-inch notebook? Heck, how many people have a 17-inch notebook? Acer and Dell have both made a lot of noise this week claiming the biggest screens since, well, the last biggest screens. Does anyone else think that the whole development ethos of notebooks is going backwards, not forwards?

Big screen notebooks are sexy, there is no doubt. Everything looks good on them but they are portable in the same way carrying a concrete block under your arm all day would be. The Dell XPS M2010 weighs in at nearly 20lbs while the Acer Aspire 9800 comes in at a relatively lightweight 17.2lbs. Wow, I can hear my biceps breathing a sigh of relief on that one.

First off, forget decent battery life - three hours at best and probably not watching a movie or gaming either. In addition to being bigger and more power hungry, they are high-definition which means they squash more pixels into the same space. This usually means a significant bump up in the power needed to run them and, being high-def, means they are not going to be as bright because of all those extra pixels making it more difficult to pass light through.

And then we come back to portability. I'm sorry, just because Dell has built-in a carrying handle for this does not, in my mind, make the M2010 a notebook. And, get this, after asking for £2,000 for this beast they don't even throw in a carry case.

Consumer: Hello, is this Dell support?
Support: Yes?
Consumer: I was walking along, swinging my new M2010 by its cool handle when it accidentally hit the edge of the door and now it has a huge crack running along the back of the display?
Support: Nasty mate, should have had a carry-case.

Just because I can physically lift a notebook up does not make it portable - at least not in the way that notebook portability is meant to mean. In the notebook world, portability means something that is easily transported on a regular basis or over an extended period of time.

The term ‘portable' doesn't jump to mind when I'm hefting that 10Kg bag of potatoes into a Tesco shopping trolley and it doesn't apply to this new generation of skinny PCs. That's all they are. PCs with a battery. Manufacturers can call them desktop replacements and you know what, pound for pound, that's all they are. Just stop calling them notebooks. µ