So, I’ve been thinking about getting a new laptop for a couple years, but never did anything about it.  A couple weeks ago I went into MSY to pick up a $10 USB drive and walked out with a “new” Toshiba W100 “Concept PC”.

What?  Well, it’s not really new as it’s been on the market since 2010, but it was “new” in that it was still in a sealed box.  It’s a “concept pc” because it has two touchscreen LCDs, no keyboard or trackpad, and Toshiba apparently couldn’t think of a better name.

I remember reading about the W100 when it was announced in 2010.  It was odd, expensive, and I wanted one.  Fast forward to 2012 and the W100 is odd, I still want one, but no longer expensive.  In 2010 it was about $1500 AUD / $1100 USD, but I picked up my very own for $400 AUD/USD.  Not bad.

You can go read any number of two-year-old reviews of the W100 to get the specs, but I’ll just sum it up as a 1.2 GHz Pentium U5400, 2GB RAM, 62GB SSD, two 1024×600 7″ touchscreens, and it runs Windows 7.

If you can think way back to 2010, you may remember than another touchscreen device was released, the iPad.  Unlike the W100, I did buy an iPad in 2010, and here’s what I thought about it.  Bringing us back to 2012, you’ll find that “vintage” iPad 32GB/3G still getting daily use along side a slightly-less-vintage iPad 2 64GB/3G.

Having used the iPad(s) for a couple years and the W100 for a couple weeks, I have some observations:

• Having used both, it is very clear why Windows 7 on a touchscreen tablet/”Concept PC” wasn’t and isn’t a good seller while the iPad was and is.
• A dual-display laptop is one of the best form-factors I’ve used, and would be even better with 12-13″ displays.  A dual-screen/keyboardless 11″ MacBook Air?  Two iPads taped together? A Microsoft Courier?  Do I just miss my RAZR?
• One of the best features of Apple devices is the lack of fan noise.  The fan on the W100 sounds like a dental drill and brings me back to my unpleasant and noisy CPU-overclocking days in the late ’90s.  Tip: to quiet the fan, set the W100 fan to “Battery Optimized” (Control Panel > Power Options > Advanced Power Settings > TOSHIBA Power Saver Settings Vx.x.x.x) Easy to find, huh?
• The controls in Windows 7 on 7″ 1024×600 displays are way too small and are frequently difficult to use.  Changing the Windows GUI element sizing does make the system more usable, but many applications (as well as much of the OS) don’t fit on the small 1024×600 screens with anything but the standard settings.
• The audio (in and out) on the W100 is terrible.  The speaker and mic on every one of my other portable devices (a c.2005 12″ PowerBook, MacBook, iPads, Nexus S)  are better.
• The Toshiba touchscreen keyboard (different than the standard Windows 7 tablet keyboard) is excellent and on par with the iPad.
• The W100’s battery life with the big 8-cell battery is poor, likely due to the dual LCDs.  On the other hand, the iPads run so long that the battery has never been an issue, and I don’t have to think about it.
• The iPad 2 screen is significantly brighter than both the iPad and W100, and was difficult to photograph.

For the past few months I’ve been thinking about getting a Windows 7 system.  Why?  Good question.  If I had to guess, it was probably those Bill Gates and Seinfeld commercials.

It has been almost a year since I stopped using XP on a daily basis, but that is not to say that I miss it.  These days, I use any of a few different Apples, all running Mac OS 10.5 and a server running Windows Server 2008.  Yes, I’m still using 10.5 as my primary laptop is a five-year-old PPC-based 12″ PowerBook, and 10.6 is of course Intel only.  All of the other Macs are Intel based, but I like consistency so they are all on 10.5.  Anyway, I wanted to see how things are going in the Microsoft world, so I thought I’d try out Windows 7.

Since my laptop is five years old I thought a similarly-sized Windows system would be nice.  For the past month (or more) I’ve been looking at low-cost CULV (Consumer Ultra Lowe Voltage) systems and some of the nicer netbooks.  I’ve looked at everything from Dell, HP, Samsung, Toshiba, Lenovo, Asus, Acer and even Gateway– I didn’t know they still existed.  But, I’d I have to say that I’m pretty underwhelmed by what I’ve found.  My requirements:

• 10-12″ display, preferably matte
• No more than 1″ thick, no protruding battery
• A good keyboard and usable multi-touch trackpad
• No optical drive, 160GB+ HDD
• WiFi (802.11g is sufficient)
• 5+ hours battery life, more is better, but no big batteries
• Capable of playing SD video, HD would be nice, but not necessary
• Less than $500
• Nice extras: webcam, bluetooth, support for 4GB RAM, no glossy plastic

Of the system I’ve actually used and seen in person, most were a huge disappointment.  I was particularly disappointed in the quality and appearance of the Asus netbooks- the keyboards were terrible and I’ve seen milk jugs that compare favorably to the case plastics. I wanted to like the Asus Eee PCs, but they were just too cheap.  The quality and materials on the Dells seemed alright, but the design (particularly the batteries) was just inexcusably awful.  Aside from these, I was surprised that the HP Mini systems looked and felt better than I expected.  I’ve never been a fan of HP laptops, but these actually seem rather well thought out.  The Acer systems are acceptable, but I have reservations about the quality and durability.  I really liked the Samsung netbooks I’ve seen, but they don’t really compete well on price or performance.

To be fair, I’m really comparing these low-cost notebooks to my old PowerBook, which was $1800 in 2005.  That would be $2000 in 2010 dollars, or roughly 4-5x more than these systems.  And, with the exception of running Windows 7, the PowerBook still does everything these systems can do.

So as of now, I haven’t found anything I want.  Of all of the systems, the HP Mini 210/210 HD and Acer 1410 come close, and I will say that the upcoming Acer 532h and Timeline 1830T look promising.  That said, this laptop malfunction rate data from Lifehacker (SquareTrade) may be worth considering:

Lifehacker: Laptop-Reliability Study Highlights the Most Sturdy Laptop Makers

In the mean time, I did hear about a 25% discount off of a Microsoft TechNet subscription on the Windows Weekly podcast.  Among other things, a TechNet subscription allows access to all MS operating systems, applications and utilities.  Included in this software is Windows 7.  So, for the price of a really bad netbook I can play with Windows 7, Office and whatever else looks interesting.

I’m currently running Windows 7 Ultimate on the Core 2 Duo Mac Mini under VMware Fusion. I was going to just upgrade my old version of Parallels, but apparently my version is too old to upgrade.  Feeling slighted, I downloaded an evaluation copy of Fusion 3.  And, I’d have to say that Fusion running Windows 7 is nice.

Oh, and just to rub salt in the wound, I sold the Mac Mini 1.42GHz G4 to cover the cost of the TechNet subscription — almost an even trade.  But don’t worry, I still have two remaining Minis.