Laptops are mobile computers that first appeared in the 70s and 80s. Scarcely owned by the general public at the time of its first appearance, laptops were expensive, thick, and heavy with limited functions (compared to today’s understanding of laptop functions). Controversy over the first laptop created is subjected and depends widely one what one would require a machinery to operate and perform to be considered a laptop.
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| Image taken from Bindapple.com |
However, today laptops are an industrial mass production product with a variety of brands and manufacturers. Just like the many other industrial mass production products with its own variety of manufacturer and brands, laptops of all colors, processors, names and brands will end up in the same place, the dumpster. With brands like Sony, Apple, HP, Alienware, Toshiba, etc… choosing a laptop is hard work because it will be our means of communication, knowledge acquisition (for homework and research), relaxation, and just about anything. The laptop has even evolved (or de-revolutionized) itself into what is known as the net-book – a device similar to the laptop in looks and functions, but contain less memory space and is even more portable because of its sheer size. Designed with the consumer in mind and designed to appeal to consumers, laptops comes in different specs, weight, programming, looks and colors, and size.
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| Image taken from Izideal.co.uk |
Laptops, like many other mass produced products are a commodity chosen for their form. When we see the new Apple MacBook Air we don’t question why it is designed the way it is. Instead we state why we desire it; because it’s thinner, lighter, looks cooler, and lastly, because it’s “new”. When Sony remolded their laptop key boards to also contain a numerical key pad, we don’t question why they added it (even though numerical keys were already provided on the average keyboard). As consumers, we don’t question like we would as designers, we complain.
The looks and functions of laptops, with no relations to branding and styling, is common knowledge to the consumer. However, the design content of their looks and functions will only testify to their designers and eventually result in the same ending.
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