When the hardware inside isn’t that different from todays laptops
In: Technology
Improvements in technologies.
First, the most obvious is replacing Hard Drives with M.2 Solid State Drives. An old 2.5inch hard drive was typically at least 10mm thick. Even with minimal other components, that drives up the thickness.
The next is in battery technology. Lithium-ion batteries have gotten multiple times more dense, making us able to shrink them without giving up stored capacity.
Then, there’s improvements in chip design that lead to reduced power requirements. As we are able to make better and better chips, we can run them with less and less power. This has a two fold benefit of first being able to reduce the actual amount of battery capacity, and second, not having to install as much cooling capability into the laptop.
On more thing that we’ve gotten rid of is CD/DVD ROM drives. With everything being installed from online packages these days, nobody needs a disc drive. That saves a lot of physical space, and removes it as a minimum thickness requirement.
Then, last but not least, is general I/O ports. Many older laptops were loaded with ports on their side. Many USB ports, Ethernet, sometimes Telephone, large power connectors, PS/2 ports, and even the dreaded PCMCIA slots. Nowadays, most laptops will have a couple USB type A’s, some USB Type C’s, and maybe an Ethernet port. Some do not even have anything *except* USB Type C/Thunderbolt ports. The ports of old would create a minimum thickness requirement.
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