>Weight and size.
>Have you ever hauled around a big laptop on a daily basis?
For us who've been using laptops for a long time, I think we've developed a preconceived notion of what a "large" laptop should feel like, ie if it's big, it's likely heavy. But with advancing tech, that's no longer true.
My brother had the same thought you have. He wanted a 14" for his wife, since he's afraid she can't handle a bigger laptop. But a 16" can weigh under 3lbs, same as a 13" ultraportable, so portability is no longer a factor.
I recommended an Acer Swift Edge 16 for him, which he bought. It's last year's model, but with comparable Ryzen 7 CPU as this year (7735U's 680M IGP is about 10% weaker than this year's 7840U w/ 780M), and most importantly it's $600, or 60% off the original $1500 MSRP. Costco also has a 90-day return, 2-yr warr which makes the choice even more appealing.
View: https://youtu.be/MUunJrbMXP0
I've plenty of big, old laptops, and my experience is that portability is about both girth and weight, but weight is the larger factor. Watching the how effortlessly the reviewer handles the 16" in the above video because of its light weight, I don't see portability being a concern any more.
Now, about the size. I don't think it's the screen size itself that's the main constraint, but the corresponding deck size that takes up space on your physical desktop (or lap). Present laptop designs have the keyboard/deck size the same as the screen size, and at some point it just eats up too much of the deskspace to be practical.
So, yes, 16" is probably the limit for mainstream, with 18" being a niche. But as folding display tech gets more affordable and common, and more importantly, with the keyboard deck being decoupled from the display and thus not needing to be the same size, I can well see "laptops" getting larger and still be functionally portable.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram