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Acer, Asus, Lenovo Borrowing MacBook Air Design

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Thin is still in.

Apple's MacBook Air has always prided itself on being one of the slimmest laptop computers on the market. The new 2010 refresh of the MacBook Air made things even slimmer and more compact.

Part of that was thanks to neat tricks with the LCD assembly, by having the LCD makers finish only the cell portion of the LCD module and passing it off to the backlight manufacturer to finish the rest of it. This sort of process shaved off between 3 to 5 millimeters off of the thickness of the LCD.

While Apple was the first to put this into use, the same process is now available to Acer, Asus and Lenovo. Digitimes believes that this will mean that we'll see some thin 13.3- and 14-inch notebooks using Sandy Bridge chips by the end of the first quarter.

So, if you've been lusting after that sleek form factor of the MacBook Air, but you want a PC, there could be the answer in just a few months.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
48 Comments Comment from the forums
  • gorillateets
    I bet these slim laptops will be a major pain to work on. Count me out. I'd rather have more performance and sacrifice a tiny bit of convenience. This will be for morons.
    Reply
  • trnddwn33
    gorillateetsI bet these slim laptops will be a major pain to work on. Count me out. I'd rather have more performance and sacrifice a tiny bit of convenience. This will be for morons.
    I would say the average consumer in the market for one of these doesn't really care if they're easy to work on or not. In fact, I'd say that's true of most laptop users. If you want easy to work on, get a desktop.
    Reply
  • woofster
    gorillateetsI bet these slim laptops will be a major pain to work on. Count me out. I'd rather have more performance and sacrifice a tiny bit of convenience. This will be for morons.Thats a bit of a narrow minded point of view i think. There are lots of people out there who this will be ideal for. I've used a macbook air on Windows and i found it more or less as capable as my laptop. If you're doing video editing or something similar then clearly this is not for you.
    Reply
  • lamorpa
    This sort off process shaved off between 3 off 5 millimeters off of the thickness off the LCD off.
    Reply
  • noblerabbit
    I'm afraid I'd physically damage one of these Air prototypes, just my looking at it, and doing 2 minutes of my job functions.
    Reply
  • iceonfire
    lamorpaThis sort off process shaved off between 3 off 5 millimeters off of the thickness off the LCD off.LOL got to love awkward sentences :)
    Reply
  • sunflier
    I bet these slim laptops will be a major pain to work on. Count me out. I'd rather have more performance and sacrifice a tiny bit of convenience. Macs are for morons...

    Thats prolly what you meant to say.
    Reply
  • chickenhoagie
    i may be looking into the Asus model..sounds like it could be one sexy laptop!
    Reply
  • dman3k
    How is this copying Apple???
    Reply
  • ender21
    How does having the LCD be thinner make a laptop (or desktop for that matter) easier or harder to work on? It's the monitor. I'm looking at it, not touching it (except to open it/turn it on).

    I can see how rugged use would put it to the test, but the first poster's closed-minded assertion is that the laptop will somehow actually be more difficult to work on as a result. I just don't see it being easier or harder to work on. Just more portable.

    Reply