You make good points and I wasn’t trying to diss the Toshiba. Each manufacturer makes choices based on what they think will sell.
I feel for you on the big hands thing. I’ve got a friend that has huge hands and even on a full sized keyboard, he’ll sometimes hit three keys at a time.
It’s not just the keyboards, I don’t like the scratch pad mouse substitutes either. If I absolutely needed the mobility, which I probably don’t (but would not mind at all having around), I would just carry a USB mouse as well, and live with the keyboard. I picked up one of those rollup silicone keyboards last year ($7 at Staples) as another move in my lifelong campaign to squander money, but without a mobile (and significant amounts of beach weather in the summers here these past two years, and high gasoline prices) there’s little reason to use it.
I have what I think is a great idea for a mobile computer, but the only way I’d ever see it come to pass is if I had the cash to develop and market it myself.
I have one of those i7 Toshiba laptops. The quality and feel are very nice. It has provided me with the most satisfaction from the purchase of a new computer since I moved up from an 8088 to an 80386. I had my doubts about Win 7 but have been pleasantly suprised.
I’m doing things in an evening on that laptop that used to take days. I ran my last laptop day and night crunching video, literally wore the cooling fan out.
That being said, I would be tempted to switch to Mac full time for this piece of kit. That is one impressive list of specs. It’s even faster than my screamer and doesn’t look shabby either.