The biggest reason i haven't ever gotten a laptop is the keyboard layout. i've been using a standard qwerty keyboard for so long that i always get flustered whenever i try to find a control key on a laptop.
My no doubt lowest-end notebook Acer Aspire 1353LC sports a full-size keyboard, though it's just a 15" machine. Apart from the missing numeric keypad, every key is perfectly placed. You're right it's rare to find decent keyboard layouts; beside the Acer I've only seen a few HP notebook keyboard layouts that were tolerable. Even Acer's own parallel Travelmate line is deficient in this regard.
The two tell-tale signs for determining whether a laptop offers full-size keyboard: there must be three (not just two) keys to the right of the L key, and there must two keys (to the right and to the left), not just one key, below the A key. Most laptop keyboards (and even many standalone keyboards) fail this test.
I occasionally send documents to others who are not as wise to the many problems associated with MS Grammar check. They open it up and see that there are a bunch of green lines and think that I don't know anything about grammar.
I circumvent that by having recorded a macro that, after you highlight a portion of the text and press the assigned keyboard shortcut, instructs Word to ignore that passage in its spelling/grammar check. I run those macros when I do my final rereading of the texts just before I submit them.
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The biggest reason i haven't ever gotten a laptop is the keyboard layout. i've been using a standard qwerty keyboard for so long that i always get flustered whenever i try to find a control key on a laptop.
My no doubt lowest-end notebook Acer Aspire 1353LC sports a full-size keyboard, though it's just a 15" machine. Apart from the missing numeric keypad, every key is perfectly placed. You're right it's rare to find decent keyboard layouts; beside the Acer I've only seen a few HP notebook keyboard layouts that were tolerable. Even Acer's own parallel Travelmate line is deficient in this regard.
The two tell-tale signs for determining whether a laptop offers full-size keyboard: there must be three (not just two) keys to the right of the L key, and there must two keys (to the right and to the left), not just one key, below the A key. Most laptop keyboards (and even many standalone keyboards) fail this test.
I occasionally send documents to others who are not as wise to the many problems associated with MS Grammar check. They open it up and see that there are a bunch of green lines and think that I don't know anything about grammar.
I circumvent that by having recorded a macro that, after you highlight a portion of the text and press the assigned keyboard shortcut, instructs Word to ignore that passage in its spelling/grammar check. I run those macros when I do my final rereading of the texts just before I submit them.