“The MacBook Air, unfurled [yesterday], might be the thinnest notebook on the market today, but it’s not the thinnest of all time,” Michael Kanellos reports for CNET.
“That distinction belongs to the Pedion, an ill-fated notebook developed by Mitsubishi and Hewlett-Packard back in 1997.The Pedion measured 18.4 millimeters thick, which comes out to 0.7244 inch thick. Although the Air gets to 0.16 inch at the thinnest point, the Air is 0.76 inch thick at the beefiest portion, making it minutely thicker. Mitsubishi released the Pedion in early 1998,” Kanellos reports.
“The Pedion, however, wasn’t exactly the paragon of quality or value. The $6,000 notebook came with 64MB of memory and a 1GB hard drive. The notebook came with a magnesium case to make it sturdy. Even with that, though, consumers quickly reported mechanical and other problems. Mitsubishi subsequently withdrew the notebook from the market,” Kanellos reports.
Full article here.
Which would you rather have? Six inches or 228.6 millimeters?
I like the Dell website that claims their XPS with the 13.3 inch screen is the thinnest laptop with that screen size ( or it used to be). The measurement they used is at the front edge of the KB, never mind that the back edge is twice as thick as a MacBook.
How dumb do they think people are? Oh wait, they are buying things with Windows installed, so I guess they’re pretty dumb!
“Quite impressive they managed to make such a thin laptop 10 years ago.”
Yeah, but it was pretty useless since it also ran Windows. It was a lousy doorstop too.
@ TT
“You’re playing with real grown ups here.”
You take that back!
I’m releasing a new product called the MacromancerBook Pulp. It is almost as thin as a human hair, and includes a stylus made by Bic. You just write on it what you want and even allows you to flip it over and write on the other side.
It retails for $.03 and when you fill up the screen, you throw it away and get a new one.
News flash, Snow White isn’t the “fairest of them all”, either.
Why isn’t Kanellos dissing Disney?
Today I’m announcing a new disposable paper thin notebook called the Wipe.
It’s 4 inches square, two plies thick and comes in white and shades of Zune. When you are done with it, you drop it in the bowl and flush.
Apple will never beat me! BWAHHHHH!
Wow some people actually read CNET articles and news? Both CNET and ZDNET are true echelons of journalistic integrity. If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.
Hold your horses folks. I just want to remind everyone about MS big announcement yesterday. Truly in which case has the MS Zune users MS affiliates creaming with excitement. Yes a new red paint job on that Zune! Truly a remarkable piece of technology. They spent 5 years working on this. Over 1000 engineers at one point touched on this project. Fantastic. Zune users are the envy of everyone who has ever owned a personal multimedia player.
Average out 0.16in and 0.76 in and one gets 0.46in so the MacBook AIR STILL IS the ‘thinnest” notebook ever!! =)
16 mm = 1 inch….hahahaha glad Canada switched to the metric system a long time ago.
THis is why American women can’t drive. The guys keep telling them that 96 mm = 6 inches.
Apple…thin differently
“Snow White isn’t the ‘fairest of them all’, either.”
I think that had more to do with what she was charging the dwarfs. And everyone thought it was fair. Except Grumpy, of course.
I hope that Apple brings out a MBA with a 12″ screen. It would fulfil our desires for the 12″ PowerBook G4 still unfulfilled.
By average thickness (or thinness), the MacBook Air is probably the thinnest. Who said measuring at the thickest point was the definition of “thin”? If you look hard enough, there are probably some Windows CE -based notebooks thinner than 0.76 inches, but it’s the amazing degree of tapering that makes the MBA seem really thin. I saw it at MacWorld yesterday. Amazing.
Ampar,
“I think that had more to do with what she was charging the dwarfs. And everyone thought it was fair. Except Grumpy, of course.”
Thank goodness Doc was able to treat all of their STDs. She was such a tramp.
The journo has got it wrong again. While the pedion is (was) thin. The Toshiba Portege R100 was thinner at its widest it was (is) 0.7″ thick though at its thinnest still thicker than the MacBook Air.
On the other hand it was a compromise on battery life (it did provide for an external clip on battery) and processor speed and HDD capacity etc. Screen size was smaller too.
As I used one for about 2 years I can say that this ultra thin form factor is very useful and the MacBook Air appears to address the shortcomings that annoyed me about the R100. Of course the Air also runs OSX which is clearly much better as well.
Still I think I will wait until I can get an Air with 128Gb SSD – just gotta have that space.
…but with it’s 300:1 contrast matte display, it captivated millions.
I don’t get their point – the slogan is “The worlds thinnest notebook” not “The worlds thinnest notebook EVER” so I don’t get what this has to do with anything… Apple currently have the worlds thinnest notebook.
The Sharp Muramasas was 30% thinner and lighter than the MBA. That’s quite a lot really!
The Sharp Muramasas was 30% thinner and lighter than the MBA. (0.54″ thick, 2.1 pounds weight) That’s quite a lot really!