It was surprising to find during an excursion to a computer store that the standard of finish on most consumer laptops has declined as central processor power has increased. It seems wrong to me that costly, late-model laptops with high technical specifications should present the same design appeal as Tupperware or a hair curler.
Plastic is manufactured from petroleum. Its chemistry is ‘oily’ and so it is insoluble in water and usually very toxic when burned. One reason that plastic is an inherently unpleasant material to touch is its chemical affinity for the oil produced by healthy human skin. You may have noticed this affinity the last time you attempted to wash plastic containers that had been used for food that is oily or fatty. The high-gloss finish being applied to the ABS plastic fascia of today’s consumer electronics only emphasises the greasy, slippery feedback that all plastics offer to human skin. It should not be surprising that rubberised or satinised plastic surfaces are more appealing to touch than the optimistically-named ‘piano gloss’ finish. It may be that in computer manufacture plastic has structural and cost-saving merits that simply cannot be ignored, but this does not excuse the meanness and trickiness of the thinking behind a ‘piano gloss’ finish on a plastic object. Let what is plastic announce itself as such and sell itself on its merits – whatever these are in a device costing $A 2 000.
Above: Not to be confused.
Given the limitations set by case materials being chosen for their low cost, kitsch façadism has crept into recent attempts to freshen the aesthetics of laptop computers. There are numerous instances of milled- or pressed-metal effects applied to painted plastic with repellent results. One example is the highly-specified Toshiba Qosmio.
Above: Toshiba Qosmio. This studio shot has the same relationship to the Qosmio on the dealer’s shelf as gourmet food photography does to your own efforts in the kitchen.
The unrelieved nastiness of the misleadingly molded and painted plastic keyboard surround is redoubled by the keyboard itself, a rubbishy assemblage of flat, thin keys finished in high-gloss plastic. Hewlett-Packard offers a variety of ugly laser-etched motifs apparently inspired by 2-dollar-shop shower curtains. The worst of these appears to be imitating a crocheted doily.
Below: The hopefully-named Hewlett-Packard Envy.
Solid-colour satinised finishes make more fortuitous references to certain kinds of mountaineering and outdoor activity equipment but, if they are applied to ABS plastic rather than the aluminium, achieving design integrity is impossible for the afflicted product.
The ‘chiclet’ keyboard exudes cheapness wherever it is installed. Apple’s aluminium-covered laptops cannot redeem it and the company ought to be condemned for using it. The ‘chiclet’ key is a design failure. It gives poor – wobbling, uncertain and greasy – tactile feedback and has almost no travel.
It should not be necessary to spend more than $A 4 000 on ‘military-specified’ or ‘ruggedised’ laptops in order to own a laptop with design integrity (which does not, so far, exclude ugliness). But only one laptop in the consumer market embodies the fundamental rules of laptop design, at least within the present limits of the form factor: it is the Lenovo Thinkpad.
Above: The Thinkpad T410, a moderately successful laptop design.
I will mention only the aesthetic rules here. Laptops contain numerous square-cornered components (see picture at top). Except where they touch the user’s body, their design elements should have square corners and flat cross-sections: no designed hyperspace. Plastics should be rubberised or satinised to improve their inherently poor tactile feedback. A magnesium-alloy chassis and screen hinge should be evident as well as present in the substructure of the laptop. A coherent colour scheme in a laptop means a solid-colour design maximizing the visual impact of the colours chosen and taking advantage of the natural properties of the construction materials: no painted, faux-etched or faux-engraved graphical elements. Users are always free to deface the laptop lid as they choose. The keyboard should use dished-face, medium-travel keys controlled by dome switches as found in full-sized desktop keyboards.
