new Macbook nonsense
OK, let's geek out for a moment and talk about those new MacBooks.
Apple is really proud of the fact that they're producing a "unibody" for the machines out of a solid block of aluminum.
First of all, "unibody"? Notice that you can see through it and the back of the machine isn't part of it. So it's not so much a unibody as, uh, a uni-top-and-sides. Woo-hoo, major innovation, that sounds really exciting. I'm sure it'll be way more durable--the sides break off of my laptops all the time. (Not.) And it'll be vastly better looking--I've always found seams at the edges of my laptops to be a big eyesore.
In order to achieve this, they mill a 2.5 lb block of aluminum down to a quarter pound. Aluminum is energy-intensive to produce, and here they go shredding 90% of the block (!!!). I imagine they recover the milled-off 2.25 lbs of aluminum and recycle it, but that part is not mentioned in the glossy video about the production process, they're too busy extolling how green the new laptops are. Yeah, there's no mercury in the display, but what's the energy consumption of the production process?
The end result is a laptop that's 10% thinner and 10% lighter than the old model, with equivalent battery life. That's nice, but somehow I'm not as breathless as the Apple videos suggest I should be. I'd be really curious to see a comparison of the cost of goods for the enclosures between the plastic MacBooks and the new aluminum ones.
Apple is really proud of the fact that they're producing a "unibody" for the machines out of a solid block of aluminum.
First of all, "unibody"? Notice that you can see through it and the back of the machine isn't part of it. So it's not so much a unibody as, uh, a uni-top-and-sides. Woo-hoo, major innovation, that sounds really exciting. I'm sure it'll be way more durable--the sides break off of my laptops all the time. (Not.) And it'll be vastly better looking--I've always found seams at the edges of my laptops to be a big eyesore.
In order to achieve this, they mill a 2.5 lb block of aluminum down to a quarter pound. Aluminum is energy-intensive to produce, and here they go shredding 90% of the block (!!!). I imagine they recover the milled-off 2.25 lbs of aluminum and recycle it, but that part is not mentioned in the glossy video about the production process, they're too busy extolling how green the new laptops are. Yeah, there's no mercury in the display, but what's the energy consumption of the production process?
The end result is a laptop that's 10% thinner and 10% lighter than the old model, with equivalent battery life. That's nice, but somehow I'm not as breathless as the Apple videos suggest I should be. I'd be really curious to see a comparison of the cost of goods for the enclosures between the plastic MacBooks and the new aluminum ones.