I really hope before computer manufacturers start calling their products “disposable” that they start creating machines that are environmentally friendly and biodegradable. The last thing we need are businesses buying thousands of these and dumping them a year later.

Why buy a laptop with a built-in ergo keyboard? Laptops, by nature, are ergonomically evil — if you place the keyboard in the correct position the monitor is in your lap, and if you place the monitor in the correct position your hands are raised in front of you like Frankenstein’s monster. Changing the design of the built-in keyboard doesn’t help to solve this more fundamental problem — but it does make the keyboard more fragile and expensive. I just use external ergonomic keyboards, one at work and one at home.

Slightly off topic, but are there any laptops with ergonomic keyboards? There used to be one by Samsung years ago that sort of split the keyboard to angle it outward, but I haven’t see anything recently. Anyone?

Do these low-end Lenovo Thinkpads support dual-displays? I’m looking for a cheap (erm, inexpensive) laptop to take on the road and give presentations. I’d prefer a laptop that can display the “slideshow” on an external monitor/projector while showing a “presenter’s screen” on the built-in LCD display. Can I do that with the $600 Lenovo? — Thanks… Chris

Why would you want to play games on a $600 laptop? I agree that this is making the average consumer’s life easier, but there are many of us who need the more expensive&better laptops (and I don’t use macs due to performance issues). To get the $600 laptop to last 4-5 years, particularly if you’re prone to dropping things, is quite wishful thinking. I think that a lot of this boils down to that not all people tend to drop and generally abuse their stuff, which makes disposability less of an issue (also, how about environmentalism? piling up huge amounts of computer junk is not exactly ecological)

HP has the little pointing stick, too.

For the record, if you don’t like or want windoze (and who can blame you for that?), the IBM laptop probably runs Linux quite nicely. That’s certainly what I’d do with one.

I use Apple computers at home, and Windows XP at work. I like Apple hardware, and OS X. I like OS X for the Unix-esque attributes, and for the spiffy GUI, and for the good hardware support. I’d be happy using GNU/Linux, but I prefer OS X. If someone prefers GNU, or Windows, that’s fine, just so long as they have an educated preference. I think most Windows users think Windows is the best because it’s the most popular (not always a good assumption). I personally have no Windows-only needs at home, and don’t mind spending the extra money every few years to get the product I want.

Although a $600 IBM laptop running GNU/Linux does sound rather enticing.

Phil: Yeah. I work in the avionics software industry. I’m involved with avionics simulation software, which runs exclusively on Windows. It was originally built for VMS. There has been talk of porting it to GNU/Linux, as there has been growing interest in that platform among some of our users, but nothing definite yet. Windows XP has been surprisingly stable, but it would be nice to get better real-time control of the system. (Hence I do not believe that Windows XP is the best platform for our particular software, at least not for the developers…)

Naum: If $600 isn’t “disposable” then all the more reason to save money by buying standard PC hardware and running Windows or GNU/Linux! My particular interest happens to be flying and the Mac is useless in that arena. But that doesn’t mean that only pilots need Windows. Any given person is going to have one unusual interest that is supported by Windows-only software. For teenagers it is probably some sort of game (most games as I understand it are Windows-only). For an adult it might be wanting to subscribe to the $5/month unlimited Yahoo! Music service (Windows only). I’m all in favor of people being ridiculously rich and having enough money to give Steve Jobs $2000 after they’ve bought their required WinXP machine. I’m just not one of them!

Cease and desist the evangelism, fellow Mac users. It’s unwelcome, and you’re blowing our cover. Keep your head down and let the peecees continue taking the bullets for us.