5. Ergonomics: A Quick Overview

The keyboard decks on the Fujitsu LifeBook E8210 and HP Compaq nx7400 are roughly the same size. Though a bit smaller the Lenovo ThinkPad T60's keyboard desk comes close in size to those of the Fujitsu and HP. The larger decks and keyboards on these three mobile computers make it easier to type on them than on the smaller Gateway E-100M. The keys on all four of the notebooks provide good feedback as they are pressed down and released.

The touchpads and mouse buttons work well, though it may take some adjustment of settings to gain optimal control over them. By default tapping on the touchpads of all four of notebooks is equivalent to clicking the left mouse button. This works fine in many situations, but can lead to unexpected dragging, resizing or closing of windows. Tapping can be turned off using the mouse settings applet in Control Panel. Some will find the eraser head joysticks on the Fujitsu and Lenovo useful, especially those who've been using notebooks for a while. Others will never use them. This is another legacy feature that has all but disappeared on consumer notebooks.

All of the notebooks ran fairly coolly. The ones with larger capacity batteries, larger disk drives and higher powered CPUs and memory ran hotter, but we found none of these ran hot enough to make them impossible to use on your lap, assuming your lap is covered by clothing.

Cooling fans were certainly audible as the notebooks heated up. The CD/DVD drive made some noise, however because these computers are designed for business and their optical drives are for data and not CD listening or DVD watching the noise should not get in the way of their use.