back to article El Reg gets its hands on Haswell fondle-gizmos at posh Tosh bash

Intel Haswell fever today had Toshiba showing off its full range of laptops, some of which featuring the new chips - plus some new tablets to boot. The new Satellite laptops and Qosmio gaming models were out in the wild in a swish London hotel, nestling up against three new Excite 10in Android tablets – more on those …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yup and still running Win 8. Don't care how great the hardware is if the OS is crap.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Agreed, Windows 8 is the weak spot in what could have been, but won't be.

  2. cosymart
    Joke

    Models

    Is the woman with the suitcase masquerading as a handbag the S or the L model?

  3. MrT
    Pirate

    The price...

    ...is optimistic - the basic spec seems good (screen and video card look to be standard), but according to the press release pdf, £1499 is the starting price, not for one with all the numbers maxed. 'Up to' 32GB RAM, 'Up to' 3TB spinning rust, 'Up to' 3GB VRAM, the SSD is optional, maybe even an optional hybrid drive (that might be standard, but it reads a bit vague on that point). Guestimate another £1k for all the 'Up to' options added. They're probably pricing against Dell XPS or Alienware, and I've seen those spec up to near-£3k...

  4. Richard Boyce
    Thumb Down

    Ergonomics

    One thing that jumps out at me from the pictures is the off-centre touchpad. I've learned the hard way with my current laptop to avoid that in the future. I'm often getting a right click when I want a left click, a problem made worse because it's hard to tell with touch when you're on the right side of the touchpad or the left.

    Why has no-one considered splitting the number pad off from the main keyboard, putting it to the right of a central touchpad where there's plenty of room (or even omitting it), then widening the main part of the keyboard to full width? I'm also fed up with UK keyboards coming with tiny left shift keys and/or tiny return keys.

    The neglect of ergonomics is one reason why laptops are suffering in competition with tablets.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ergonomics

      A human being is usually relatively symmetrical, off set touch pads are for people with one arm and hand shorter than the other.

      A car steering wheel is not generally on the opposite side to the accelerator, clutch and brake.

      Please explain why this set up is ergonomically better?

      1. Gavin King

        Re: Ergonomics

        I'd thought that the touchpad was offset to line up with the centre of the typing keyboard, so that when typing the right palm doesn't cause the cursor to move about wildly.

        I know that it can happen; the current machine I'm using does this from time to time, usually when resting the hands while thinking about what's next to type. That said, I've never used one with the offset touchpad, so don't know if it is a nuisance of a different sort or not.

        1. TeeCee Gold badge

          Re: Ergonomics

          Correct. Central to the alphameric keyboard beneath the space bar is the right place so, if a numeric keypad is present, that's offset to the left when the whole chassis is considered.

          If it were dead centre it'd be about where the heel of your right hand sits when typing.

        2. Elmer Phud

          Re: Ergonomics

          "I'd thought that the touchpad was offset to line up with the centre of the typing keyboard, so that when typing the right palm doesn't cause the cursor to move about wildly."

          With a number keypad heavily used the keyboard, for me, is the width of the machine and not just the letters bit.

          Then the right-hand edge of the touchpad is the centre line of the keyboard.

    2. Elmer Phud

      Re: Ergonomics

      " putting it to the right of a central touchpad where there's plenty of room (or even omitting it), then widening the main part of the keyboard to full width?"

      I'm left handed and prefer the pad in the middle -- and, like you , not offset to the left where the occasional 'wtf' is used.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like