I recently started looking for a new Laptop I could use for work. To pin it down, I made a List of what such a Laptop would need and what not. Here is what I came up with:
As a programmer, I require a Screen, a Keyboard, a CPU with integrated Graphics, a Battery, a WIFI-card and ports for charging, connecting monitors, a headphone jack and some other would not harm.
What I don’t need is a webcam, a microphone, speakers, and a touchpad. I don’t use a touchpad since I started to work with the terminal, switched to nvim etc. but I can understand if others require one, so I’m fine to put it on the list of required items.
With that said, my real question comes into play. Would it be resalable to design a Laptop that is slim, elegant, and light, with a nice screen, a goof keyboard, a long-lasting Battery and a good CPU preferably AMD but doesn’t have a microphone, speakers, a webcam Bluetooth and a mousepad?
In my mind, leaving some components out would make more room for a slimmer design or bigger battery as well as a smaller price tag while ports could be managed via extension cards.
Webcam, Microphone and Speakers are pretty small.
Touchpad is nice when another pointing device would have to be carried otherwise.
The Framework model is pretty minimal, the only external ports are four USB-C slots, and a headphone jack.
1 USB-C port will ultimately be used for charging, but the other three, are open and can be configured for a variety of things.
You can also connect to a dock, and use an EGPU, with more ports, as desired.
The lowest price CPU is still more than capable for everyday usage, if budget is a concern.
You could leave Bluetooth out if you could source a NIC that doesn’t have it.
Good luck at finding such a minimal PC, I think most people want at least some of the items you wish left out.
Fair, I will probably end up ordering a framework as I really like their philosophy and want to support them. I was just wondering how much of an impact such tiny components make space wise.
For me personally I don’t need a mouse other than in games which I would not play on a work laptop, so I would be fine without a mousepad, but I understand that others need it.
As a thought experiment, I think this is an interesting concept, especially as we look into the future of DIY/modular computers. without a microphone or webcam, you’d be able to slim down the bezels of the Framework Laptop, allowing for a bigger screen or a slightly shorter laptop body. Without the speakers or the touchpad, you could increase the battery, which is currently sandwiched between the speakers and under the touchpad.
As for your goals of “slim, elegant, and light” the problem you’d probably run into is component depth. the mainboard right now has to be a certain thickness, and unless you were to make it bigger in order to try to flatten it more, there aren’t many unessential components you can remove to flatten it more. same with the battery, its either lose capacity to thin it, or make it bigger.