My Dell Is Bigger Than Yours

Dell 19" Laptop

There's just something odd when your laptop has the same diagonal size as the average monitor. I'm a portable user I will admit, but I have some fairly practical limits. Dell's introduction of it's new 19" laptop is sure to have some people thinking "Great a media laptop" but I think people really need to reclassify these things.

A laptop is meant to be portable, I would say a maximum size of 16" is where the "normal" laptop scale should stop. Once you crest beyond that you've really ceased to be a lapotp and have gone back to the days of "Portable Computer". Does anybody remember the early 4" green-screened Toshiba Portable PCs? Going beyond the weight and battery consumption, there's heat. A 17" PowerBook or a similarly sized Intel based laptop will pretty much cook your legs and drain in around under 2 hours with media usage.

Don't get me wrong these types of systems make perfect sense for home users w/o much space. But I'm starting to get worried that soon we will have to have Magnum laptop cases for these behemoths. What's next? Ribbed for the laptops pleasure?