Found tonite on Slashdot:
Public belief:
The 15″ and 17″ are the very same thickness and therefore there is no technical reason for the 15″ not to also have the dual-layer drive.
Reality:
There is a technical reason. The 17″ is both wider and deeper than the 15″. There are things in the 15″ that get in the way, thickness-wise, that do not have in the 17″ like the trackpad and the keyboard. You don’t have to believe it, but it’s not an artificial reason, or to get people to “buy the 17” by arbitrarily keeping the DL drive out of the 15. The word directly from an engineer at Apple:
Actually the reason for the thinner 9.5 mm optical disc drive (ODD) in MBP15 is because it overlaps the keyboard front-to-back. The 17 is deeper front-to-back, hence the keyboard does not overlap the ODD and it can use the 12.7 mm ODD. This is one reason why the G4 15″ is 1.1″ thick – it uses the 12.7 mm ODD.
Contributed by: Kurt Tappe
Found tonite on Slashdot:
Public belief:
The 15″ and 17″ are the very same thickness and therefore there is no technical reason for the 15″ not to also have the dual-layer drive.
Reality:
There is a technical reason. The 17″ is both wider and deeper than the 15″. There are things in the 15″ that get in the way, thickness-wise, that do not have in the 17″ like the trackpad and the keyboard. You don’t have to believe it, but it’s not an artificial reason, or to get people to “buy the 17” by arbitrarily keeping the DL drive out of the 15. The word directly from an engineer at Apple:
Actually the reason for the thinner 9.5 mm optical disc drive (ODD) in MBP15 is because it overlaps the keyboard front-to-back. The 17 is deeper front-to-back, hence the keyboard does not overlap the ODD and it can use the 12.7 mm ODD. This is one reason why the G4 15″ is 1.1″ thick – it uses the 12.7 mm ODD.
Contributed by: Kurt Tappe
