The 10 most important laptops of all time

Bilby / Wikimedia

Bilby / Wikimedia

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There’s some debate as to what constitutes the “first laptop” or “first portable computer,” but for many it’s the Osborne 1.

Sure, it required a mains power connection and lacked an internal battery, but it was designed to be transported around for computing in different locations, even if it couldn’t be used on the go.

The Osborne 1 was advertised as the only computer that could fit under an airline seat. It weighed close to 25 pounds—so you wouldn’t have wanted to use it on your lap—but that was “portable” for its time.

It included a 4MHz Zilog Z80 processor, 64KB of RAM, and used 5.25-inch floppy disks for storage. Its display was a 5-inch monochrome CRT that could support 52×24 characters of text.

Priced at $1,795 at its launch (about $4,960 in today’s money), the Osborne 1 made waves for bundling around $1,500 worth of software—including a word processor—making the whole package tremendously valuable for early adopters.

1988 — NEC UltraLite

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Close to a decade after the Osborne 1 debuted, the NEC UltraLite revolutionized the industry with a design that doesn’t look all that distinct from modern laptops.

The NEC UltraLite is credited as the first true “notebook” laptop with its clamshell design that had its screen on the top half of the system and its keyboard on the bottom half.

Built around MS-DOS 3.3, the UltraLite was powered by an NEC V30 processor that could operate at up to 8.14MHz. Storage was handled by an internal non-volatile RAM drive (an early example of solid state storage) and optionally 3.5-inch floppy disks. The RAM drive required its own battery (with a suggested weekly recharge) to hold its data.

This iconic laptop also featured an LCD display, which came with a resolution of 320×200 or 640×200, depending on the model.

1991 — Apple PowerBook 100

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While Apple’s Macintosh Portable from 1989 was bigger and more powerful, its high price and bulky design made it less of an iconic design than its leaner, more affordable sibling: the PowerBook 100.

The Apple PowerBook 100 struck a great balance between performance, portability, and price, all while introducing some unique features that are still common in modern laptops today.

The PowerBook 100 came with a palm rest and trackball navigation, much-more akin to the touchpad designs now used by almost all laptops. It featured a Motorola 68000 processor operating at up to 16MHz, up to 8MB of RAM, and a 20-40MB SCSI hard drive.

It had a 9-inch monochrome LCD display with a 640×400 resolution, and it weighed 5.1 pounds all-in. That would be heavy today, but it was slight for its time, making it a real hit among professionals.

1992 — IBM ThinkPad 700C