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Re: Satellite A660

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On Monday, April 21, 2014 4:33:05 PM UTC-4, the wharf rat wrote:
>In article <3eeeab49-6f23-45b3-ac89-d30f0df639efATgooglegroups.com>,
> <andymhancockATgmail.com> wrote:
>>Now, I've used the vim wrapping feature to hard wrap this message,
>>but
> 
> 	Emacs: fill-paragraph

Oh, you're one of them, eh?  Well let's take this to another group
then.

Kidding.  It's whatever people have attuned themselves to.

> 	All kidding aside, this is a text medium and lines are
> 	traditionally kept to <80 chars.  Lots of us still use command line
> 	readers.

It is a text medium.  But the means by which many people access it are
changing.  I wasn't kidding when I indicated surprise that readers
can't wrap to window width (command line or not).  In fact, this still
isn't clear to me.  That's why I thought that the rude and arrogant
manner in which Dominic demanded line breaks was in appropriate to say
the least, especially when he wants others to conform to his demands
and it involves a commensurate sacrifice in readability for the
wrap-to-window-width crowd.  Has he even explored the possibility of
wrap to window width in his reader (which he hasn't specified)?  If
so, why hasn't he described the problem?  This is not the kind of
issue for which a good solution will be arrived by shouting the
loudest denunciating beratement.  Furthermore, the 80 character length
in composition isn't going to help with nested quotations, so you're
eventually going to blow that limit anyway.

>> The bill for this laptop was $1200 when the typical (decent) laptop
>> was going for half that.  So it was definitely in the quality and
>> performance category, or pretending to be.  The web research
>> available
> 
> 	Pretending.  Offering $3000.00 worth of features for $1200.00.

How did you value it at $3000?  Even the ticket of $1200 seemed to
cause eyeballs to bulge.  It's not that spectacular in terms of
features.  I'm not one to live on the edge of technology or do high
performance gaming.  The occassional netflix is about as exciting as
it gets, technology wise (and I'm not ashamed to say, life-wise...I
don't look for bungee jumps).

>>scrimping on the keyboard and touchpad is like sabotaging the
> 
> 	They didn't cut any corners there.  It's a standard Synaptics.

It's quite different from any laptop I've used.  It's flush with the
palm rest (no easily discernible tactile boundary, relying only on the
difference in surface coarseness) and supersized.  In fact, I'm
convinced that the super size contributes in part (probably a large
part) to phatom touches when typing.  This is not to say that other
laptops aren't doing this, or that it isn't a trend, but that it is
definitely new in my experience.  I would be very disappointed if this
is a trend.  There was nothing wrong with touchpads in the past, and
they allowed extensive use of the keyboard for composition without
nudging the touchpad.  That's one of the reasons that I don't think
this laptop was designed for anything other than entertainment, and
should have been branded as such to avoid creating "disappointment".
Which is a euphimism for much stronger and more appropriate words.

>>Finally, the fact that all laptops run Synaptics doesn't mean that
>>all touchpads are the same.  
> 
> 	Outside of minor individual variations, the only real differences
> 	are Alps or Synaptics, and the drivers.  If the drivers suck try
> 	the reference drivers. (Actually, did Panasonic use their own?
> 	Hardware, I mean.)

Not sure about Panasonic.  As for reference drivers, I was given
fairly stern warning against doing that by Toshiba.  I trust that
there must be some historical reason for such a strongly prescriptive
tone.

>>I'm hoping that this is more useful than pedantic self-important
> 
> 	Sure, thanks for posting, but it does contradict most other
> 	experiences.  Guess you got a lemon...

Curious...what do you do that exposes you to owners/users of this
specific model at a sufficient volume for you to confidently make
these statements?

> 	Hey, buy a new touchpad on Ebay and swap it out.

I don't trust myself when it comes to laptops.  And my track record
with professional services has been such that if this kind of action
is needed, the laptop is a piece of crap that needs to be tossed out
the window, if only the highrise window could open, and if only it
wasn't dangerous to others, and if only I could bring myself to f..ck
my only laptop.  Heck, I'd have my way with it before tossing it.  It
also means another round of info collecting to get another one.  This
is a highly imprecise undertaking, and my best attempts at rational
due diligence leading to this one didn't work out as planned.  Or
perhaps it did -- perhaps it is the least of evils.

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Thread

Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2013-12-14 21:18 -0800
  Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-02-27 22:02 -0800
    Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-03-02 22:57 -0800
      Re: Satellite A660 Bob_Villa <pheeh.zero@gmail.com> - 2014-03-03 04:24 -0800
        Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-04-14 19:13 -0700
          Re: Satellite A660 Dominic Reich <usenet@tmsn.at> - 2014-04-16 17:22 +0000
            Re: Satellite A660 not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2014-04-16 22:44 +0000
              Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-04-18 17:30 -0700
                Re: Satellite A660 Dominic Reich <usenet@tmsn.at> - 2014-04-19 00:56 +0000
                Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-04-20 14:04 -0700
                Re: Satellite A660 Dominic Reich <usenet@tmsn.at> - 2014-04-23 19:02 +0000
                Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-04-26 11:40 -0700
                Re: Satellite A660 not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2014-04-19 02:41 +0000
                Re: Satellite A660 wrat@panix.com (the wharf rat) - 2014-04-19 09:34 +0000
                Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-04-19 22:29 -0700
                Re: Satellite A660 wrat@panix.com (the wharf rat) - 2014-04-21 20:33 +0000
                Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-04-21 23:24 -0700
                Re: Satellite A660 not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2014-04-23 00:02 +0000
                Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-04-26 11:59 -0700
                Re: Satellite A660 Dominic Reich <usenet@tmsn.at> - 2014-04-23 19:26 +0000
                Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-04-26 11:46 -0700
                Re: Satellite A660 wrat@panix.com (the wharf rat) - 2014-05-03 14:53 +0000
                Re: Satellite A660 andymhancock@gmail.com - 2014-05-03 13:29 -0700
          Re: Satellite A660 wrat@panix.com (the wharf rat) - 2014-04-20 01:52 +0000

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