5. The Limits Of Smallness

With ultra small laptops size does matter. Small computers provide their designers with a range of challenges. Real estate is scarce. Features must be downsized or in some cases entirely eliminated. Downsizing usually impacts keyboard and key size, mouse options and display size, as well as components such as CPUs, graphics chips, memory, disk drives, batteries and cooling devices. Though ultra light laptop makers have done a great job retaining most of the ports and slots found on larger mobile computers, some items have taken a hit including the number of USB ports and the availability of PCIe and comprehensive card reader slots. Let's take a look at some of these.

The Toshiba Libretto U100's keyboard is no match for the one on the Dell Latitude X1.

The U100's keyboard and keys are small and difficult for a touch typist to use. The keyboard is 7.75" x 2.75" (19.69 x 7 cm); the keys are .44" x .375" (11.18 x 9.53 mm). The width of the keys is almost equivalent to the width of the keys on a very good PC keyboard. It's the depth of the keys (.375 or 9.53 mm) and key spacing (.0625" or 1.59 mm) that cause problems. I'm a good touch typist. I was able to use my skills only on the U100 by keeping my fingers above, not on the keys. In this way I was able to see the letters on the keys. Technically that's not touch typing, but I was able to type faster than by hunting and pecking. For the record, the Dell Latitude X1 has the best keyboard of the four ultra lightweight laptops covered here.

Keys on the Libretto U100 travel just about the right amount vertically. However, I found them too stiff for my taste. The stiffness was probably designed in so fat fingered folk like me couldn't easily push down the wrong keys that their fingers frequently landed on. With my quasi-touch typing I was often frustrated when I hit the right key, but failed to push it down on the first try due to the stiffness.

Very small laptops don't have room for mouse touchpads. Thus both the Toshiba U100 and the Fujitsu P1510D use joysticks as opposed to touchpads. To be frank, I hate joysticks. Touchpads are difficult enough to use, but try to move accurately around a display with an always too-stiff gritty feeling joystick and you get a taste of what Hell might be like. Both I and most of my friends immediately plug in a USB mouse when confronted with the dreaded joystick.