A laptop bomb would presumably be fairly small in size and would probably have to be placed directly against some sensitive part of the plane in order to be effective. The cargo hold meanwhile is already reinforced and any bomb would most likely end up in a middle of a lot of baggage that would absorb most of the blast. It would probably force the plane to make an emergency landing but it's unlikely to be catastrophic.

This was answered and discussed at length in the article

>The battery bombs would need to be manually triggered, a source explained, which is why the electronics ban is only for the aircraft cabin not checked luggage.

Obviously stuff in the cabin are much easier to access and manually manipulate than stuff in the cargo hold. Im also very disappointed at the slew of other answers and their up-voters who clearly did not read the article.

A bomb that size would be very unlikely to take down a plane (remember, blowing a hole in the fuselage doesn't cause people to fly out, despite what the movies show), so it seems the most likely use for it would be to try and blow open the door to the cockpit so they can take over the plane.

Regardless, though, it's incredibly stupid for the US to even consider this ban. The chances of success are extremely small compared to the headaches this will cause.

>That's a bit of a pain. I wonder why a laptop bomb would cause problems in the cabin but not in the cargo hold.

Bags in the cabin can be put right next to the "skin" of the plane; when in the cargo hold, it's much more of a lottery.

(That's what I've read at least, I'm not too familiar with cargo holds myself.)

A bomb hidden in the cargo hold is effective if the intent is to simply blow up the plane by timer/remote/altitude. But if the goal is to hijack the plane, then a bomb in hand could be a more convincing negotiation tool.