Apple has tended to favor “Desktop Replacements”, but your statement is far too general and I’d imagine most 12″ PowerBook, 12″ iBook, 2400c and Duo fans would outright disagree with you.

The heat on the left top bottom of the MacBook measured 110F while idle and 113F doing the simplest things. This is a design flaw. I would take my desktop computer back if it had these heat readings.

I think any notebook that in being developed by Apple should sit on the bare legs of an Apple designer for 4 hours. If he can recommend the experience then it passes the test.

Hot notebooks to make them almost as fast as a desktop with the same chipset is a poor strategy in my book. I will avoid the MacBook and stay with my very useable iBook G4 1.2GHz laptop.

Michael

Apple portables have always been “desktop replacements”.

Apple moved to Intel for “more power per watt”. They implemented the move as more power same watts rather than same power less watts. They do that because the desktops they compete against go the more power route.

Companies with more models can choose to go both ways. They get away with less power by having fewer features, eg. no dvd burner.

I find that today’s laptops run both hotter and cooler than those of a few years ago. My 15 PowerBook is a great example. Plugged in it is set for adaptive CPU speed, while on battery I have it set for reduced processor speed. On batteries, the fan rarely comes on and the bottom of the machine, while warm, is definitely not hot. Plugged in the bottom gets very hot, as does the area just above the function keys near the display hinge. My 12″ PowerBook is slightly warmer on batteries, and slightly cooler on AC, go figure. I also have a Centrino IBM ThinkPad X32 that gets rather warm plugged in and stays nice and cool on batteries, but even at its warmest it doesn’t come close to either PowerBook for BTUs.

Compare that with my old Pentium III Toshiba. Granted, that machine (Portege 3490) was an ultrathin model that weighed only about 3lbs, but that thing got so hot that it actually melted the top of a cheap desk, no kidding. Despite the heat, that too was a reliable computer that ran cooler (though still uncomfortably warm) on batteries.

Going way back things were cooler. My first laptop, a PowerBook 145B was only slightly warm to the touch, though I’d imagine the processor itself got warm. That machine and all laptops of the day was over 2 inches thick, and the processor was actually nowhere near the case bottom or case top, so even if hot, the processor’s heat was already dealt with by the time it reached to bottom or top of the computer.

Yep, I use a an aluminum cookie tray to cool my laptop. In fact, I see the revolution that needs to happen is nothing short of room temperature superconductors. Once those arrive in integrated circuit size, then we’ll have a true laptop.

Relatively powerful laptops have been hot since the G3 Powerboks. My maxxed out Wall Street was much hotter to the lap than either the TiBooks, the G4 PBs or the Macbook Pro. Logically, engineers have always been designing laptop boxes such that the more powerful boxes of each generation max out heat at what will br substantially hot to the touch.

Personally I recognize the engineering issues and expect high temps from a maxxed out laptop when running Photoshop or other heavy graphics app. If it gets uncomfortable various cooling pads are available.