Saturday, June 2, 2012

Where did HP Folio 13 Laptop go wrong and well?

Mixed feelings:

i) Keyboard like Mac: and I desperately miss the pageUp/Down and Home/End. One of the most used keys for me when reading documents, editing...who's silly idea was to remove these?? I hate pressing Fn to get these from the arrow keys... OK, I know there is the 2-finger scroll, but does not always work in Linux.
ii) Touchpad is very unusual for a Unix/Windows guy like me, no middle click button, and right click does not work in linux. BUT as I discovered, middle and right clicks are well replaced by clicks with 1, 3 or 2 fingers (in this order), just like on a Mac;-) It works GREAT after all, HP! Touchpad is quite sensitive, but one does not have to click as hard on Mac, which I like.
iii) Integrated headphones/microphone jack is on the RIGHT, very inconvenient when using wired mouse, cables mix, I like headphones cable on the left anyhow.
iv) By default, the F-keys and Fn-accessed commands are swapped, but I used F-keys extensively, while Fn keys only time to time. Looks like anothe Mac-like feature, but disastrous for me. Luckily, can be changed in BIOS:)
v) Delete is where I had PgDn in Lenovo..very useful when navigating through emails...
vi) Display qulity OK for work and browsing, but I can see more then comfortably tiny grey pixel borders on white areas, and looking at my pictures, they seem as in bad quality, like printed in a newspaper.
vii) Installing linux was a nightmare, but this is unfortunately always the case linux...I need it for work, unfortunately. Problems with default backlight at minimum, wireless drivers before update, videoconferencing performance depends on the window manager, configurations lost, managers crash...Updates OK, though. But wireless often disconnecting while people around with Macs were OK. Damn, I don't wanna go for Mac, but all alternatives just don't work...

OK, some good things:

i) Can switch off touchpad in windows by a quick tap, can disable touchpad in linux while typing. Essential when typing, to avid the mouse jumping to different parts of texts or switching to other windows.
ii) Keyboard backlight, nice key touch.
iii) Very light and small, not quite like MacBookAir or Asus Zen, but good enough for me.
iv) Two-finger touchpad scrolling nice, but very innacurate (very sensitive)
v) Looks good, nice metallic feel.

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