Aluminum and Magnesium Casing
About ten years ago, when Compaq was at the height of its company buying spree, Compaq had a product demonstration for its latest line of notebooks. Called the M-series for mobile computing, the M-series also introduced magnesium alloy casings.
Magnesium alloys are more commonly used in mag wheels or magnesium alloy car wheel rims, as well as for high-performance bicycle frames. The alloy itself is light, and strong and rust free. It’s a low maintenance metal, but expensive to manufacture.
As part of the demonstration, it was explained that due to the process of creating the casings, and allowing them to cool gradually, it is not possible to create smooth surface chasis for the notebooks. The manufacturing process resulted in a crinkly exterior unique to each case. At first glance, each notebook with the magnesium alloy case looked the same, but on closer inspection, there were minute differences between casings due to the crinkly surface.
Since that time, there have not been too many announcements about magnesium alloy casings being used by other notebook manufacturers. Truth is, while most computer market segments are trying to cut down on prices, high-end notebooks can maintain their costs and prices. And to that end, it would be natural for manufacturers of high-end notebooks to give value for money with the use of aluminum alloy casings.
I was thinking about this when the latest series of Mac notebooks were announced. This time, during the presentation it was emphasized that the notebook casings started out as a solid block of aluminum, which was carved out for the space for the notebook’s innards. That was important to explain because aluminum is one of those metals which are not easy to forge and shape, but soft enough to carve. The metal gouged out could easily be recycled anyway.
Between the plastic casing of the Apple iBooks and the aluminum casing of the MacBooks, the MacBooks are more “green” because the aluminum can be recycled. It’s an easy enough fact to forget but the consumer and Mac user should be increasingly aware of the manufacturer’s responsibility to recycle computer parts. Unfortunately, more and more notebooks are being made with plastic in order to save on costs. I can’t say I can blame them as consumers will usually buy the cheaper model if there’s no differentiating factor between the available choices.
Among other things which was left unsaid during the presentation and release of the new Apple iBooks and MacBooks is that Apple is the undisputed leader in that market segment. Apple notebooks sell at a premium compared to other notebooks. And in the above $1000 notebook market, Apple is number 1. In fact, further segmentation would show that in the more expensive notebook segment, Apple has a higher market share.
This is significant because Apple traditionally has never fought over market share in any price segment. What’s surprising is that Apple is now going to release sub-$1000 notebooks. This may be just a toe to test the waters, but if ever the netbook market continues to grow and explode, it’s a sure bet that Apple would be fielding something in that market.