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Dual-core Athlon 64 X2 Laptop Reviewed
Steve from Hexus writes "Dual core finds its way inside a laptop (albeit a not-so-portable DTR) in the form of Rockdirect's Xtreme64. The DTR features an Athlon 64 X2 4800+, two 7200rpm hard drives and a GeForce Go 6800 Ultra GPU. HEXUS.net has a review of the laptop, one of the most powerful we've seen hit the market to date." From the article: "Rather than change a formula that works, Rockdirect has opted to stick with the Clevo D900-based chassis that its other performance-based laptops use. The obvious downsides are bulkiness and weight, with the laptop sitting almost 5cm high and weighing in at 5.7kg. It's a desktop replacement in the truest sense of the words, and with an 8kg travel weight (including charger and supplied carrying case) and relatively poor battery life, it's about as portable as a concrete slab."
At my workplace we can salary sacrifice laptops but not desktops. This means you pay for the system out of your pre-tax income, which can make a good laptop cheaper than an equivalent desktop system.
Its a silly rort, but it leads to people buying systems like this one because its portable.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Just wait until they start throwing server parts in there. Have you ever wanted to host a giant Oracle database ON THE GO?
Has anyone even seen any parallel port peripherals in the last 10 years?
And then it skimps on firewire by only giving unpowered slow firewire 400
...but with a battery life like that of a goldfish, why bother? Seriously save yourself hundreds of dollars and just build a comparable desktop system.
This isn't exactly the kind of system I would want to lug with me into a coffee shop either--it might break the damn table!
The only practical application of such a portable system (give the cost) that I can think of would be somewhere in the applied sciences "out in the field." However, these specs barely conform to those that many such scientists would require.
I'll admit this, though: I would love to take this bad boy to a LAN party! Perhaps that's the target market they've been looking for.
I don't understand the market for these sort of laptops. At almost 6kg, this is approaching the portability level of my desktop PC, especially since with its battery life of one hour you're still effectively tethered to power supplies anyway. And for this 'privilege' you pay far, far more than you would for an equivalent desktop system. So, where's the market? I can see basically two possibilities: video editors who need a rendering setup that's just about portable, and gamers who want the highest-specced laptop, no matter the price. But since this laptop's gone for the 6800 go - rather than the faster 7800 cards that are being rolled out - and allows no overclocking, the gamer market's going to be pretty limited, at least until it starts shipping with the 7800. And with only 200GB of storage - far less than I use in a day when shooting - the video editing market is limited to those who're willing to carry an additional kilo or two in external drives, or have facilities available; and these people probably just use a desktop anyway.
I also question the accuracy of Hexus' reporting on the weight front. Either they've got one of the two weight figures wrong (7Kg with charger, 8Kg with charger and bag) or that's a very heavy bag.
While I'm ranting about the laptop, is there really any need for the heat to be blown out of the bottom? If it's generating 200W of heat, couldn't it get blown out of the sides, rather than the bottom, which is going to be either on a desk or your lap; the former allows little airflow, the latter being a touch hot.
Anyway, my final point: Does anyone buy these laptops, or are they purely made, like top-of-the-range graphics cards and cars, to be able to boast about having the fastest? Has anyone here ever bought a similiar laptop? Why, if you did?
In 10 years the Apple zealots will again have rewritten the history and given Apple the spot for first dual core/SMP laptop, just as they always does.
Looks like PC zealots like you have already started
Apple did dual processor laptops 10 years AGO in 1996.
Go find another drum to beat.
Actually, Dual Processor == Dual Core. Really - who the fuck cares about "casing"?
So you can cook both of your balls at once.
I'd never thought I'd actually look at this but since I've got an iBook and worked on several Sony Vaio and IBM ThinkPad Laptops I'd say this is a real downer. It looks like an early nineties 'luggable'. I'm looking forward to the time we've got 3 GHz like performance at Apple/IBM quality levels and 8 hours battery-time for 1000$.
Until then I'm sticking to my 12" iBook and a little envy of my friends Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P with 15 hours (!) of battery time. And the size of an OReilly Camelbook.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I guess you might need this if you spend your day in different rooms inside your luxurious mansion and you want your computer with you all the time to stay connected to WoW and check your various stock prices all the time.
But carrying this thing outside?
You would need to hire another butler just for that!
My printer at home still is connected to a computer via a parallel printer cable. It's my server and it's been running for a few months now. But, that's not what you're asking about, is it?
Tune to last week: My son got his picture taken with Santa and the professional photographer had a nice digital camera hooked up to a small computer/printer combo box. Pretty cleaver, really. On the back of this box connected to the parallel port, which couldn't have been more than six-months old, was... a key dongle.
For those who maybe aren't old enough to remember these babies, they are fairly slick little copy-protection keys. They are the hardware solution to software piracy. When the special software starts up, it looks on the port for a key and if it's not there, it bails. And hardware keys are much harder to copy, partly because the good ones destroy themselves if they are tampered with (usually the soldier points or ICs are sensitive to prying).
While these never really got used for major software products, they are practically everywhere in scientific and research environments where companies spend millions on a software package that only a few hundred of specialized applications exist. If you're charging $5,000+ for software, a hardware key starts sounding pretty good. Heck, when I left the university a year and a half ago, we still had three such applications that had been around for years (even through computer upgrades). I'm certain that these programs are still being used, and it will continue for some time.
*Sigh* Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
No, actually, it's not.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Actually, Dual Processor == Dual Core. Really - who the fuck cares about "casing"?
Who cares? Anyone with a fucking clue, that's who. I've got an old dual CPU Pentium motherboard with two 75Mhz chips on them, THEREFORE THEY ARE DUAL CORE JUST AS THE TERM 'DUAL CORE' IS USED TODAY! How about you re-evaluate your perception of reality and get back to us when you aren't a fucking retard.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Wow an people say PowerBooks cost a lot.
OK, here's a page with the WidowPC reviewed on 16th December.
Now, compare this to the photo of the notebook reviewed today.
No doubt the insides vary. Yay. Two identically-clad notebooks, both with dual-core AMD two 7200 RPM hard drives, minor differences in screen, etc. I hate to be pedantic, but it's just the same story.
My blog
I have trouble imagining this so-called laptop being anything other than a gimmick to assuage a sensitive ego that just wants to claim "biggest, baddest", without any particular attention paid to issues of practicality or usability.
Keeping in mind that I agree with you so far as the laptop is concerned...
A couple years back I picked up a highly impracticle car. It was a Toyota MR-2... a 2 seated mid engined double-trunked (both worthless) pocket rocket.
Man how I loved that car, it was so fast....turbocharged.....so agile....not terribly fuel efficient, and not at all practical. Fun fun fun.
Sometimes it really is about being specifically impracticle...the benefits you get from such a machine are equally impracticle. But, man, the price premium and practicality bombs you suffer can be quite worth it.
Forgive me for wondering, but if you feel the need to post how thinkgeek, newsforge, etc are all owned by your parent company in every story that comes from those (and the rest) of the sites. Then why don't you mention that this company may not be paying you, but did give you something to inspire you to talk about them so well on a website?
I guess I'm just lost here ... you want full disclosure, most of the time?
This thing is not a monster laptop, it's a portable all in one desktop that has a builtin ups (battery). It's not that cool (the price tag which you fail to mention this time around, is pretty high). All I ask is that if you want full disclosure, then practice what you preach...
Queue the flaimbait, off topic, redundant, etc mods.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
If it weighs 5.7kgs, I won't be too excited about carrying it on my lap. A good DTR should be a trade-off between size and performance. And what about the power consumption? Dual-core + GeForce 6800 would generate a lot of heat. Anyway, the overall package is good but I'll buy one when the weight comes down.
"Apple did dual processor laptops 10 years AGO in 1996."
:)
The poster didn't say it was a Mac, merely a dual processor laptop.
Hell, Apple could have sold dual-processor G4 based [17"] Powerbooks for the last couple of years if they cared about their customers to make up the performance difference. At least the G4 is quite low power, and Apple gets them quite cheaply - they should have tried something to jazz up the glacial speed increases of that processor line.
Anyway I wouldn't call this a laptop, not if it is a desktop replacement. It's a portable all-in-one system. It's probably just as portable as a Shuttle case with handle and separate LCD, but requires less cables.
...it's a space station!
at best it's a Notebook. For some of the differences, see an earlier post of mine: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14205 8&cid=11906247
However, I even find 'notebook' arguable. If the difference between a notebook and a desktop machine is a built-in display, keyboard and pointing device - then sure, it's a notebook.
If the difference is that a notebook is meant to be able to be relocated with sufficent ease that it can be frequently done- i.e. between home, work, off-site locations - then I would say this isn't even a notebook; just a desktop machine with built-in display, keyboard and pointing device. I can't imagine anybody wanting to lug this beast around even if it would be just twice a day, 5 days a week.
Let me think. Acer I do believe sells a comparable laptop using the same chasis. They don't appear to be hurting buisness wise.
Alienware sells a comparable laptop using the same chasis + a custom lid. They definitely arn't hurting buisness wise.
I in fact bought one such laptop, mostly because I had the spare money and could, but also because I travel between two cities alot (my hometown and where I go to college).
I don't like unplugging all my desktop stuff (and I prefer leaving my desktops always on) and having to lug it back it forth. I'm also a geek and a gamer. I want to be able to play battlefield 2 perfectly wherever I am before bed.
I also have a couple of friends who have bought such laptops because that's what they wanted: they wanted a more slim/portable machine that was also as powerful as most desktops.
I don't use such a laptop for long battery life. Nor does anyone else I know. But the battery is still useful! Ever try moving your desktop from your living room to your bedroom then back 5 times fast? Or using your desktop from the sofa while watching TV? Yeah.
Also, my laptop in that chasis isn't that heavy and i'm quite a small person, so that's really no big deal. Sure I wouldn't want to carry it around all day, but it's NOT that kind of laptop.
Lastly, the bottom ventilation I find to be pretty important. Putting these laptops on a flat hard surface (read: no cloth!) greatly reduces heat and strain on the fans. There is a very small air path underneath it that is amazingly important. I also find I CAN put it on a cloth surface without serious heat problems if i put a cold/heat (you know, one of those gel packs, it need not be cold though) right underneath the graphics card area.
Having room for two hard drives with a SATA/raid controller, two optical drives, and four SODIMM (read: RAM) slots in my beast is just a nice plus too.
Oh yeah (sorry for the rambling, it's early). There ARE some serious downsides to this specific chasis that seems so popular. First it's plain ugly and the component layout is near retarded (most ports on mine plug in...upside down!). It just screams cheap high production taiwanese product. Most importantly, and something I find many laptops lack, is a good power connecter. There have been multiple reported problems both on the motherboard and adapter plug itself from most vendors who use this chasis (so it appears they mostly use the same power adapter too). Also the fans working with most of the heat are right by the power connection. Well this baby will put out some pretty hot air. Hot enough that it probably does some serious damage to your sperm count. Combine that with plastic cable and wire and possible laptop movement moving the wire around more to get a situation asking for the cable to die a slow and painful death.
With better thought and design put into the product, I could see such laptops being used alot more frequently. As it is I doubt many owners of one will buy another anytime soon and not just because of the large price tag. If you pay alot of money for a product, you expect everything to be near perfect (read: like a mac) and I have yet to see a laptop using this chasis be just that.
Yeah, the system has two cores in it, but the term dual-core really means a single chip with two processor cores on it, connected via something (the cache, the on-chip arbiter or whatever) and then attaching to the rest of the system via a single interface.
AMD's processors are dual-core as they connect via an on-chip arbiter, the SRQ. They then connect to the rest of the system via a HyperTransport link. AMD's next core revision, the F-Step, will have 4 core connections from the SRQ, allowing for future quad-core processors.
Intel's current 'dual-core' processors aren't really dual-core as they connect to the FSB independently. Indeed Intel's latest Presler processors have separate dies on the processor packaging. In practice however it doesn't really matter that much, so they get away with calling it 'dual-core' when it is technically SMP on a chip. Yonah will be Intel's first true dual-core processor because the cores are connected at the L2 cache level, which they share.
So now people defined the number of cores a processor has by the number of cores per socket in the system. In your system you have one core per socket, so the processors are single core, the system is dual-processor. In the reviewed laptop there are two cores in one socket, for the system is single-processor, but the processor is dual-core. Quite simple really.
I have one of those moster HP laptops. I get maybe an hour on battery. Big screen, full size keyboard with separate keypad, giant screen, regular desktop processor. Over 10 lbs and huge.
The think is so big as to almost not open correctly in coach on planes. Good thing the bat only lasts 45 minutes. If you can find a plug in the airport it is awesome to work with.
Get a bigger bag and hit the gym you little
Why the fuck waste space for a parallel port on a "portable" computer? The three people who would use it could just buy a parallel to USB converter. And the same could be said of the serial port, seriously ...
My HP zx5000 has two smaller fans in it and they need dusting after about 10 months' hard use. And 200W?! This thing could wind up needing the air-duster kiss of life every three weeks.
This unit has a purpose albeit a narrow one such as someone who has to lug around their own video multimedia editing-mastering studio with them. I mean people wondered what the massive Apple notebook with a screen larger than most people can easily fold out was good for, but it's good for something.
I dunno what y'all are talkin' about sayin' 5kg-8kg ain't portable. That's like half the weight of my ol' Kaypro II. Mus' be some weakling Yankee thing.
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The South shall rise again!
What are you smoking?
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
Anyone else think the company's name is just a little too fitting?
You forget to mention that the Dual CPU powerbooks (the 5600 models, the only PPC604 ones coincidentally) did not run MacOS at the time, rather ran AIX, IBM's UNIX also used in some of their servers.
Not to mention Powerbook 5600's had woeful battery life as bad as the machine in this article. When new it was rare for users to get the full 1.5 hours quoted with just one hour the norm. Those two 604's ate up more power relative to battery capacity than even the beast in the review here.
No Macintosh OS and bad battery life. I don't think it counts as a first for apple, do you?
RST
At that price, and supposedly with "all the best components" and all it has built into that hugemongous case is a touchpad. There's more than enough space to have a combination of touchpad and trackpoint. Heck, you could even have a trackball on it too. If even Dell can put a combination of both on some of their bigger models then this beast can certainly offer a choice.
Too bad you're implying that a PC company did it first. See here.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
These Clevo systems are rebadged by a bunch of different companies: Sager, Alienware, Hypersonic, Prostar ... These are great systems if you need the power and mobility.
I have a Sager 9860 (same casing as this). I take it to client sites every day. It's heavy, but not too much for just walking from the parking lot. And it has a lot of power. I typically run an application server and a database while I'm working, in addition to my IDE, various office apps and music player. If you need the performance, it's worth it.
Of course, if you don't, don't buy it. It's always interesting how so many people assume that they understand the needs of everyone else.
Yes actually, We almost daily, do a large application demo with a series of laptops showing a real network environment. Often this is done with VMWare and one laptop as well, showing various user-level views. We indeed do it on todays modern laptops but started once on a P133 and P233 laptop.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I have an Acer Aspire 1712 laptop that weighs in at 15 pounds without the power brick (and it is about the size and weight of a real brick), and I can tell you that, while you won't want to carry it with you everywhere you go, it's manageable. You get your exercise, at least. You want to make sure you have a strong bag to carry it in, of course (no place to shave pennies). I opted to buy a second power supply, so I can keep one in my home office, and carry the other in the back of the car when I have to travel.
As a software contractor, I need the power of a full-blown desktop combined with portability.
The battery life on these things is about an hour, but you're only going to use one of these monsters sitting at a desk, near a wall outlet. The battery serves as a battery backup in case the power fluctuates (valuable when traveling to an older building.
Why have a parallel port? Well, I have a good bit of hardware around the house (printers and scanners mostly, even an old Zip drive) that I still use on occasion that only works with a parallel port. It's not dead yet, Jim.
Finally, most of these monsters use desktop parts, which makes upgrading things like memory, CPU and harddrive very nice. For example, my laptop has a 250 Gig drive in it, and I'd like to try one of those 400 Gig drives. There's no such thing as too much disk space.
You have to live with noise with a machine like this. Turn it on, and it sounds like a jet taking off (mine certainly does). The plus side of this is the sort of white-noise effect it supplies if you're working in a noisy environment. You actually get used to the sound after a while, and miss it working on a quieter machine.
Just because a machine like this is big, heavy, and has a short battery life doesn't mean it's worthless or a waste of money. I mean, which would you rather haul back and forth to the office: a desktop machine, keyboard and 17-inch monitor, or one of these things? Oh, they're also great for LAN parties.
Of course, after about a year and a half carrying this thing around, my right arm is twice the size of my left. Wanna arm wrestle?
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Tadpole Bullfrog Dual Processor http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/html/products/mobil e/bullfrog-dual/:
- Dual 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC® IIIi processors
- Up to 16GB DRAM
- Large 17.1" SXGA TFT LCD Display
- Full Length, 66 MHz, 64 -bit PCI Expansion Slot
- Dual 2.5" High Performance Disk Drives
- Integrated DVD/CD-RW Drive
I'd change the operating system for a GPL one though.
Pupeno
Complaining about 8kg? Bah Humbug. After taking the first compaq portable with me on a trip, my right arm was longer than the left arm -- from carrying it -- it it felt heaver than 28 lbs (12.5kg) it was rated. That was with a 9 inche screen and no battery.
You young whippersnappers have it so easy.
Fight Spammers!
"Why does it ship with a crappy OS like Microsoft Windows, and the 32bit version at that?
So you can download and burn Linux.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
Why? This is common, and saves a lot of money on larger purchases. The company does not benefit - it's an employee perk.
In the past I've saved thousands this way.
The guy above said it but maybe no explicitly.... If you buy a 2k laptop with your own money for work, you get to take a 2k deduction on your tax return. Deductions come off of your income before tax is applied. So if you made 40k and bought a 2k laptop, you only have to pay tax on 38k of your income. You pay 2k for the laptop but end up not having to pay like 400 dollars that you would have paid on your taxes otherwise
You also don't pay tax (VAT in this country) on the laptop because technically the company purchased it, so you win at both ends.
No, *you* are a fool - or at least ignorant of the scheme the OP is talking about.
The laptop is his, bought through a scheme which means that he effectively gets it cheaper than retail by the rate he pays income tax at. Thus if he pays income tax at 25%, he gets a £2000 laptop for £1500.
The idea is that the company benefits because having a PC at home helps to increase the PC-literateness of its employees, and the government benefits because having a (more) PC-literate population potentially gives the economy a boost as more people move into (currently) higher-paid "knowledge economy" jobs. The guy's benefit is obvious - he gets a cheaper laptop.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I don't know about you, but my preferred "laptop" is around 50 kg and I certainly don't complain when she's on my lap.
Hi poopdeville,
To view the printer friendly version you need to be logged in, which requires that you sign up (for free) to MyHEXUS (top right of every page there's a link). The pages aren't broken down purely for ad revenue. Stupidly long pages are... stupid, plus it makes locating a particular part of an article easier, and breaks it down so you don't get bored - which can happen if you trawl through one long page.
As for ads, it's amusing that people complain about them, especially when Slashdot has ads too. Of course, on Slashdot you can subscribe to get rid of the adverts, but that costs money. Funny that... it seems websites rely on adverts to pay bills!
Regards,
Unts (more commonly known these days as Steve from HEXUS)
From what I recall, XP Home with SP2 treats multiple cores as one CPU for the purpose of licensing.
Throw the bums out!
Bzzt. Yes, there is an AMD on the page you linked, but the review you're talking about was for an Intel P4 based laptop. The other differences are similarly "minor". I hate to be pedantic, but you're dead wrong.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The laptop is his, bought through a scheme which means that he effectively gets it cheaper than retail by the rate he pays income tax at.
Unless you're a tax lawyer and can cite specific court cases that make such a think legal, I suspect you're very wrong.
The company is buying the laptop with pre-tax dollars, and they own it. If they're turning around and give the laptop to the employees and no-one is paying any taxes on the transaction, someone is going to go to prison.
You know, the older I get, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that, if given the opportunity, the vast, overwhelming majority of humans will gladly, of their own free will, chose slavery over freedom.
You must still be very young. Because the older I get, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that the vast overwhelming majority of humans have already gladly, of their own free will, chosen slavery over freedom. This includes you, and it certainly includes me.
:-( I hope this version of Clevo's DTR can stay cool enough to work in a warm enviroment. If you don't have aircon. then you may see the GPU start to loose the plot then the CPU will HALT. Those fans suck in a heap of dust and crud too, so over time cooling gets much worse. Other than that they are great, unless you are a wimp and can't lift the thing. ;-)
I use XP Home on my AMD 3800 X2 based computer. XP Home works just fine with a dual core processor, however, XP Home does not support computers with two seperate processors and Pro does. This is something that has caused alot of confusion on web forums that I visit.
wtf? My aunt got a laptop through a similar program in Canada and she plays games on it at home. Because she handles sensitive data, she can't work on it at home, and uses a regular desktop at work, and yet she still got the laptop witha tax deduction. I'm starting to get sick of all this conspiracy theory bullshit on Slashdot. Please repeat after me 500 times a day "Everyone isn't out to get me. Everyone isn't out to get me. Everyone isn't out to get me. Everyone isn't out to get me."
BTW, there is some benefit to true dual core over independent FSB hookups. Mainly, core-to-core latency can be much lower and core-to-core bandwidth can be much higher.
Program Intellivision!
First of all, most laptops are Clevos. The high end Clevos are the best of the best high performance laptops, but expect all the usual defects you live with in modern gadgets.
Don't be suprised if the ethernet fails after 6 months and you have to use ethernet over 1394, the keyboard drops a lot of keypresses, and the touch pad is over sensitive due to the high heat.
Other than that, it's held up better than the Dells and Sonys due to its size. Of course, there is no Linux support on this chipset for AGP, power management, DV over 1394 and there never will be. That's part of the cost of bleeding edge.
The laptop is his, bought through a scheme which means that he effectively gets it cheaper than retail by the rate he pays income tax at.
The company is buying the laptop with pre-tax dollars, and they own it. If they're turning around and give the laptop to the employees and no-one is paying any taxes on the transaction, someone is going to go to prison.
Its akin to an employee loan.
1) Company agrees to purchase computer on behalf of an employee which may or may not get used for employment purposes.
2) Company agrees to repayment using pre-tax deductions from pay.
Things to note: The company pays sales tax on the computer when it is purchased (no one is getting out of the tax on that part of the transaction.
The employee finds it easier to finance, with more favourable terms than he could get for a loan - or upfront lump-sum payment to purchase the computer.
The employer (likely) ends up with a happier employee and one who has increased his/her technical ability and probably improves their trainability in the process.
Company agrees to repayment using pre-tax deductions from pay.
Despite that this is insanely unethical, I'll grant that the politicians of many countries have probably made it legal. But again, unless someone is citing specific court cases where this was found acceptable, I'm going to guess that in most places people doing this are risking prison.
(Of course, I'm not saying that avoiding taxes is unethical. I'm saying that tax laws that create such blatantly unfair and uneven tax burdens are unethical.)
In the case where companies do this, they're really just passing along a tax break to their employees as a perk. The company still pays the tax in one way or another. They either pay taxes on the re-sale of the computer to the employee, or they have $2,000 less wage expenses to report. (I suspect the latter)
I'm sure corporations have various legal ways of reporting the purchase so that they get a little kick-back themselves. Where the employee would have paid $500 tax, the corporation might pay $350 tax, for example. So the company gets to look like a nicer guy than they really are. Corporate tax laws are a maze of constantly changing regulations & loopholes.
TODO: come up with a clever sig
Thanks for replying. I must disagree with your comments regarding "stupidly long pages." All the functionality of multiple pages can be emulated with fragment URI's. At the same time, using fragment URI's makes searching an article much simpler, since you don't have to wait and load pages between searches. Try searching for "OBJECT element" in the URL I gave you, and imagine how big a pain the same search would be if the document was split up. You could easily even have a mini-TOC like the one at the bottom of the pages between the bigger sections, if you wanted.
Regarding advertising: I don't care one way or the other as long as it doesn't disrupt my flow of reading. Splitting pages up does that, hence the complaint. Privoxy can't do anything against it, either.
After all, I am strangely colored.
I have to admit I have no grasp on how big or small this laptop is because this headline was apparently written in Europe. -Not nerdy enough to know both metric and english.
I have big fat fingers so I like having the full sized keyboard. I just wish they would make a laptop with full depth keys, not just full width. The extra depth makes a difference, but I learned to type on a manual typewriter back in the day. Maybe newer kids don't mind key travel so much.
The city where I live has offered this perquisite to its employees (my uncle being one of them). Granted its not a provincial or federal government, but I don't believe that doing so is illegal in any way. For reference, I am Canadian.
C'mon, you pizza-munching, jolt-guzzling lardass geeks, you know it's true. Trading 8 Kgs of useless fat for 8 Kgs of uberleet dual-core portable for your daily lugging-around weight can be nothing but good!
:)
Oh, and Happy New Year, everyone!