Decrying stasis in the laptop industry, InfoWorld's Tom Yager and crew have designed their ideal laptop for 2009 given the components are available currently. The project was subjected to the same limitations manufacturers face when whiteboarding a new notebook and introduced only those components that would increase end-user productivity manyfold. The resulting AMD Puma-based WorldBook Ether and WorldBook Meteor [specs, tour, pricing] include an 'Embedded Smartphone' system-in-system ARM microcontroller, flash-memory overlay for fast boot, and ATI/AMD Hybrid Graphics for power-saving switched mode.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Amen.
When my wife got her Thinkpad, she had me disable the trackpoint. One day, while she was resizing a bunch of photos, she got fed up and whined about how inaccurate it was with the touchpad, how she had to lift her thumb while keeping her pointer finger depressed in order to do major resizes, how accidental brushes while she was typing highlighted other windows and interrupted her typing, how she had to do all of her pointing with her least dextrous finger (her thumb), etc.
I enabled the trackpoint.
One hour of awkward discovery later, she disabled the *touchpad* and has been a trackpoint convert ever since. She refuses to buy another laptop with a touchpad. Ever.
Member since:2008-02-26
I am happy to hear you found some poison for your mouse, but the touchpad beats the mouse any day if you set it up correctly and you take the time to learn it instead of just plugging a mouse in(even old dogs learn new tricks according to the Myth Busters). I can play games(FPS) and move windows around without even moving my hand.
Also, Intel graphics is the way to go with a Linux or OSS laptop although I would probably get an ATI card for a desktop where you can install coolers and replace molten parts easily.
I don't care about desktop effects but it does that fine and I am currently playing both Linux and ~3 yo or newer Windows games in my free time, and the card works cool and silent.
After the ATI heater finally managed to bake all the components of my old 15" machine, I wasn't going to put an nVidia card in a 13" laptop.
I invested my money in more memory, a LED screen and a faster processor and it pays.
3D gaming, virtual machine updates, and firefox with 60 tabs open won't slow down or heat up my computer anymore, even when done simultaneously.
Member since:
2005-07-06
...and it would be great if more people/companies finally realised how great Trackpoints are, especially in contrast with miniature touchpads used in minilaptops.
Heck, nevermind minilaptops...from what I see around most people who have a chance of using Trackpoint end up really liking it. Large number of them actually ends up using Trackpoint as the main input device.
Contrast that with how many users of touchpad only laptops can't really use them if there's no mouse attached (again, from what I see around). Especially hilarious was some recent TV news report about people still working/directing their companies while on vacations...where somebody was actually trying to use a mouse on smooth case surface next to touchpad, with laptop on their lap.
But instead of really usefull things...we get this "bling, bling, bling" proposal, that can't decide what it wants to be. Quite large, doesn't look very tough...like desktop replacement. OTOH it also wants to be always on/always with you device (solar panel and smarthpone integrated in the same case)
Edited 2008-07-09 00:18 UTC