I miss the old Thinkpads, I really do. I have a stack of 'obsolete' Thinkpads in a corner. I still use my 5 year old X30 despite it's USB 1.0 standard. The X40 was better until it was time to upgrade the hard drive, a new mini-drive made it more cost-effective to buy a new laptop.
I also own the Dell mini Inspiron and Acer Aspire netbooks. So the Ideapad is equal in the display department, superior in the W I D E keyboard department, but that touchpad, UGH.
Why, Lenovo, WHY? Why did you have to take away the one thing that set IBM apart from the other guys? It's a love-it-or-hate-it issue, but the Trackpoint aka Track Stick aka nipple-mouse aka eraser-mouse, or whatever you want to call it was a thing of genius in my mind.
The touchpad of the Ideapad is ridiculously oversensitive. It's bad enough when you're typing and you inadvertently just ever-so-slightly brush your palm or thumb over the touchpad while furiously setting down your thoughts, and you look up and everything you've typed for the past half an hour is GONE.
Gone because you waved your palm, highlighted your entire text, and deleted everything without realizing it. Clicking UNDO is futile. It's all gone. Forever.
You never had that problem with the eraser-mouse.
But Lenovo had to go and make their new touchpad SO sensitive that a breeze in Nova Scotia is now enough to wipe away all of your deepest thoughts. It also jumps around randomly like a wild rabbit on a sugar bender. Frankly their touchpad a piece of crap. The Ideapad's touchpad is worse than any I've used and they're all pretty bad to start with. Not good for productivity.
I am also not grooving on Windows 7 'starter' as of this moment, and it states clearly on their website that you can happily obtain a 'downgrade' disk for XP by calling their toll-free number.
Don't bother. If you're still an XP fan, make backups of your install CDs and clutch them for dear life until at least Seven-SP2 is released. As much as I love technology, the OS is not supposed to be a video game.
Seriously, all of the netbooks are basically the same, what you're really purchasing is the support when things go bad. I've had generally OK service from Lenovo when that's been the case. Dell has also been responsive as well, I can't yet speak for Acer. BUT the Acer and the Dell are substantially less expensive with the same functionality. And at least they have better touchpads.
And Lenovo? If you're reading this, BRING BACK THE TRACKPOINT.
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