We got the new laptop sometime last week, and in a word: it’s awesome. Truly spectacular! It’s a Toshiba Satellite running a Windows 7 platform. There was a slight learning curve going from XP to 7, but once I clicked around for a few minutes I was able to find everything and figure out how Windows 7 was laid out. The inlaid mousepad is VERY sensitive, but I just need to go in and find the settings and switch them out so that just HOVERING over the mousepad doesn’t make it think I’ve actually clicked something (seriously, it’s THAT sensitive). The keyboard keys are quite large – pretty much the same size as a regular external keyboard. It also has a full-sized number keypad as well. VERY nice since I dislike most laptop keyboards because they are so small.
The Satellite came with a trial of Microsoft Office 2007, but was only loaded with Microsoft Works. So I turned in a couple gift cards and bought Microsoft Office 2007 (Home and Student version) for $67 and free shipping. That’s really where the learning curve came in – it’s a LOT different from the 2000 version we have at home and the 2003 version running at work. The whole new “ribbon” layout was frustrating as I created a few sample documents to familiarize myself with it, but since I’m a Microsoft Office junkie, I was up and running relatively quickly on that as well.
The machine is nice. The reviews were all right – the fingerprints on this thing after a couple minutes are heinous. But seriously, that’s the only thing I can complain about. The sound card is decent and the video quality is amazing (I played music, YouTube videos, Netflix streaming and an external DVD to test both sound and picture). I was hoping we could get a Blu-Ray laptop, but those were too expensive. However, the regular DVD still looked fantastic on this thing.
The screen itself is large, but the laptop itself doesn’t seem any bigger than our old one. It about the same weight though – which makes sense since it has a huge battery (it has gotten about 5-6 hours of power per day).
All in all, I’m very pleased with our purchase. What’s funny is that Denis has yet to use it. He keeps using the old laptop (which is working again, miraculously enough). As for me, I’ll never go back.  The Satellite rocks!