I’m putting up the last post sometime today, but you can check out all of the others here. We hit all of the major notebook vendors from HP, Acer, and Dell on down to Samsung, MSI and Fujitsu (with a lot more in-between). If you’ve ever owned a laptop, please click on the company’s post and let us know how you’d rate your experiences with that brand.

We’re looking for both positive and negative feedback on everything from how long it lasted, how often it broke, how tech support was, how much you loved using it, anything.

Also, if you’re in the market for a laptop, you might want to check out the posts to see if the brands you’re interested in are likely to have the features you need.

However, a small minority of people I encountered didn’t understand why iPad immediately brought to mind maxipads. They pointed out that people use words like mousepad and notepad and even the phrase pad of paper every day without devolving into absorbancy jokes. So why is iPad funny? Having given this far, far too much thought, I’ve been able to identify three key reasons why I think it’s happening.

1. As the MADtv skit showed, it’s long been funny to put the little i in front of words to make fun of Apple’s naming conventions. Sure, Apple has been very successful in branding the iProducts, and that’s part of why the jokes work. iPad seems like it should be a joke even though it’s not.
2. Pad is a weak word. Just say it out loud: paaaaaad. That long a doesn’t help. Most other iProducts have pretty strong words after the little i. Pod, Mac, Work, Life. They have plosives and hard K sounds and short vowels. Pad needs words associated with it that sound strong or right in order to blend seamlessly into the vocabulary. Mousepad, Trackpad, Notepad, even CrunchPad. And though women refer to Always and etc. as just pads most of the time, that’s shorthand. The full word is Maxipad. There are just some words in English that sound somewhat weak on their own, and Pad is one of them. A weak word like this cannot support the little i, therefore the name (regardless of the jokes) just doesn’t feel strong or desirable.
3. Regardless of the many other uses of the term pad, most of the time when someone asks for a pad they’re asking for a maxipad unless in context it makes far more sense that they’re asking for a pad of paper. Other than that, how many times have you used the word pad all by itself in normal conversation in a non-specialized context^[1]? The little i is not the most important aspect of iPad, it’s so ubiquitous and familiar that, even as we say it, our minds and tongues are gliding right over it to the real word on the other side: Phone, Pod, Mac, Life, Work. That is the whole point of the little i. Therefore, the iPad is just basically Pad, and pads bring very few specific images to most American minds, and one of the prominent ones happens to be maxipads.

So there you have it. This is why I think the iPad name instantly became the butt of jokes or at least disappointment. Apple has some strong reasons for choosing iPad I am sure. I’m also sure they have some smart branding people whose job it is to think about these things. Maybe they had an off day? Maybe they’re all men. Maybe they thought that eventually people would stop tittering and just accept it, because none of the alternatives worked for whatever reason.

In the end, it doesn’t matter much. They’ve gone with iPad and have to stick with it. And we’ll have to live with it. As others have pointed out, the Wii encountered much the same reception upon release and, lo these many years later, we’ve all gotten used to it (or over it) and happily use them all the time. I’m sure the same will happen with the iPad. Still, I’m longing for a decal that I can stick on the back to turn my iPad into a maxiPad.

Notes

1. i.e. it doesn’t count if your workplace uses something called a pad for everyday workplace operations. It also doesn’t count if you roleplay Star Trek on a regular basis.

First we had the JooJoo, which inspired a rash of ethnic jokes best left unsaid. Now comes the iPad, which has already been subjected to various feminine hygiene jokes with more still to come.

Was iSlate not sexy enough? Did iTablet not occur to anyone? One thing is for sure, there probably weren’t too many women involved in the development of that tablet, as they would have pointed out the consequences long ago.

Which moniker do you think is worse, JooJoo or iPad? Vote in the poll below (you may have to click the permalink, depending on where you’re reading this). If you’re a comedian, you should probably choose which one is best for you.

On a related note, kudos to MADtv for making what is likely the very first iPad joke over two years ago:

Click here to view the embedded video.

According to a poll over at MacMost.com, what most people want out of the upcoming iSlate is to be able to read books. My god, you people think so small.

I must say: the puppet is right. Seriously, people? You’re going to use the tablet mainly for reading? What do you do with your computers all day, play 8-bit Tetris? Dear Gozer.

Anyway, go read Mosspuppet because he’s far funner about all this than I am. I’m too appalled at how unimaginative the people who took that poll are to be witty today.

I really hope this career wins because I cannot wait to see the accessories she’ll come with. There will probably be a laptop (I see licensing opportunities, think she’ll have a Mac or a PC? Dell or HP?), but she’s going to be an engineer, so she’ll need some tools and some cables at least. If they package her with pink cat5e spools I will die of happiness.

What accessories should come with computer engineer Barbie? Also, will her degree be from MIT or CalTech? What should she wear? Leave your answers in the comments below and I’ll pass them on to Mattel when I see them at the Toy Fair.

New York City is the kind of place you’d expect to find plenty of cafes and coffee shops with free wi-fi and that’s true, for the most part. Apparently it pales in comparison to Seattle — not surprising. There are plenty of issues, though. Like entire neighborhoods bereft of free wi-fi and even some places without anything resembling a cafe. There are places you’d think had free wi-fi, but no! They charge you, instead. Exorbitant prices. There’s a Starbucks every 5 feet below 135th, but is their wi-fi free? Not exactly. And the well-known spots are, of course, well-known, and thus are packed full of people who show up at 9am and don’t leave until the places closes at the ridiculously early hour of… 10pm.

Cafes that close before 1am should be banned in this city.

Anyway, this is all an extremely rambly way to get to the reason I’m making this post. Last week McDonald’s announced that in January they would be offering free wi-fi at the locations where they currently offer non-free wi-fi. This comes just a little while after Barnes & Noble started offering free wi-fi and Borders followed suit in order to keep up. Just thinking about the numbers of B&N’s plus Borders plus McDonald’s in this city my heart starts to go pitter patter because, well, there’s barely a foot of space below 125th street that isn’t covered by free wi-fi.

It’s like some kind of beautiful dream.

Except. Most of that wi-fi is from McDonald’s. And, well, I don’t really want to spend any time in McDonald’s, much less a whole day. Then again, in my neighborhood free wi-fi is sparse, and the cafe around the corner from me is wonderful but has horrendous, horrendous seating. Even more horrendous than McDonald’s. So if I want to get out of the house and get some work done, where am I better off?

This is, of course, just a gimmick to get more people into McD’s and it will most likely work. I’m not the only freelancing writer in need of outside wi-fi. Here’s the thing I wonder: how long will it be before every McDonald’s in the city looks like a Starbucks? A sea of laptops, nary a seat to be found, and obnoxious people complaining about the quality of their latte.

Oh yeah, this is a glorious new era.

The $700 price tag doesn’t excite me. Nothing over $500 ever does. If we ever get a 10-inch CULV notebook I would hope that the price would drop to that, at least. And then my poor Sammy netbook would be in a bit of danger.

Now that Acer has taken this step, I hope other computer manufacturers follow. If\Samsung updated their N line with CULV netbooks there would be no keeping me from the store.

The idea of a netbook as an accessory to your busy or even not-so-busy life is a fine one. But the Samsung promo video I posted over on LAPTOP’s blog today has me truly mystified.

Brad Linder claims that it’s supposed to highlight the netbook’s all-day longevity. Could have fooled me. All it seems to highlight is that model’s ability to stretch her lanky body and possibly to warn young ladies from trusting that their boyfriends will pick them up at the train station as promised. Seriously, go look (and please comment there, I am eager to watch you all apply your creative minds to the plot and message).

When I compare that video to this one Nokia did for their new netbook, I find myself much more drawn to the Booklet 3G. This video tells me what this device is, what it does, what makes it special, and even includes some heart-tugging music that somehow makes me want it even more.

But if we must have models, here’s what I’d like to see: women actually using netbooks in some way that shows off what netbooks are good for while providing the eye candy that someone is convinced consumers need. That way it appeals to those of us to buy tech for what it does and those of us who buy anything because hot women are peddling it.

I shall not be buying an iPhone because I dislike paying gobs of money for crappy service. I’ll pay a pittance for my crappy service, thank you.

I shall not be buying this Kingston $900 flash drive… yet. When it’s $100 I’m all over that.

Okay, I needed a third thing and that’s all I got.

I was prepared to watch another vaguely interesting segment about whether the new PC vs. Mac ads were making a difference to consumers, etc., but instead I spent almost the entire time making this face: >:O  I was so completely appalled by how much CNBC Silicon Valley Bureau Chief Jim Goldman was straight out lying about Macs.  It wasn’t just that he got a few things wrong, he took wrong, fed it some steroids, and then sent it to the gym for 6 months.

It was a lot of wrong.

Avram does an excellent job of taking Goldman’s points apart on Laptop’s blog.  I think I started to see red when the guy said that Photoshop comes with a Mac but you have to buy it fr the PC.  I don’t know what crazytown Jim lives in.  Or perhaps he’s never had to buy a Mac for himself, therefore doesnt know that these programs do not magically appear on the hard drive. 

I had a fleeting thought that maybe he was talking about iPhoto, but then dismissd it.  No one would mistake iPhoto for Photoshop.  After all, I have not yet been able to figure out how to make the free version of iPhoto that comes with Macs resize an image.  Yes, a basic function such as resizing is beyond iPhoto’s capailities as far as I can tell.  If it can resize, the functionality was hidden.  Mac people are free to correct me.  

Another thing he said made me roll my eyes forever:  ”If your PC breaks down — Macs tend not to — if your PC breaks down…”

Stop right there, Sunny Jim.  I know too many Mac users to even give you credit for being ignorant on that one.  Macs break down, crash, get messed up, just like any other computer.  They may be more durable overall, but they are not so much less likely to break that you can make a statement like that on national television.  All technology breaks, whether through manufacturer flaws or human error.  And I’ll bet the percentage of problems caused by human error is about the same on both kinds of computers.

This is why people do not respect Mac cultists.

And its a shame because, as Avram pointed out, there’s no need to lie in order to make a case that Mac gives users value over PCs in some instances.  It depends on who you are and what you want.  This is a partculrly egregious lie because Jim Goldman is supposed to be a journalist.  But he’s no better than a blogger.  And we all know about them.

If you end up getting one, tell me how you like it!

Having a 12-inch system stretches the definition of netbook a bit, I agree.  My boss told me long ago (I think the day I interviewed) that he felt consumers who go for netbooks really want 12-inch ultraportables that don’t cost an arm and a leg.  Figure out how to combine the 12-inch form factor with a $350 asking price and you can go swimming in the money you’ll make.  (I’m paraphrasing here.)

Dell came out with the Mini 12, but it had a slow hard drive, 1 gig of memory, and Vista.  Yeah.  Even though you can get it with XP now, I don’t see the Mini 12 tearing up the netbook charts.  The NC20 may have a better chance — after all, the 10-inch version is pretty popular.  I think it all hinges on our review :)

As does, I suppose, my true desire for it.  We’ll see how I feel after I’ve played with it for a bit.

Also, about that Acer Aspire One…

When we first tested the battery it lasted almost 8 hours.  Like 3 minutes shy of 8 hours.  And all across the land there was rejoicing.  Then we found out that Acer didn’t plan to put that battery on all the Aspire Ones, just the first batch.  Subsequent batches have a lower capacity battery (why?  I don’t know. ) and thus less life.  We actually got that “normal” battery in yesterday and the test results are in today:  4:24.  Ugh.

Yeah, 4:24 isn’t horrendous, but it’s not 8 hours!  It’s not even 5!  Meanwhile, the Eee PC got over 7.

ASUS really stepped up their game with the 1000HE (even if it could use a better name).  I’m pleasently surprised.

But I’m still buying a Samsung.

Perhaps I’m being a bit curmudgeonly.  I use my netbook to get work done, so I need it… working.  But for developers, figuring out how to port things to different platforms and hardware is work.  Still, I always look at news of this type with a bit of skepticism.

Yesterday Brad Linder (of Liliputing) and Adam McDaniel put up instructions on how to create a LiveUSB of the HP Mi Edition version of Linux (which is basically Ubuntu with some semi-extensive tweaks).  This is big news for anyone interested in the Mi OS because up until now you could download it but the install would overwrite everything on your hard drive.  Most Linuxes have the ability to make LiveCDs or LiveUSBs so you can try a distro out and, as far as I know, all of them can install alongside an existing OS (in theory).  But I don’t know if HP expected there to be this kind of interest in the Mi Linux.

Anyway, Brad and Adam spent some time figuring out how to tweak things, so now anyone with a lot of time who isn’t turned off by using Terminal can spend an hour making a LiveUSB of this (admittedly sleek) OS.  Does this fall into Because You Can?  Maybe not.  After all, the OS is usable and meant to run on a netbook.  On the other hand: look at all this tech speak!

I’ve already been promised that I don’t have to do it.

Some laptops come in red, and that’s cool. The Samsung NC10 comes in dark blue, also cool. There’s pink… well, I have issues with pink, as do some other people. I don’t dislike pink totally. But I do dislike the idea that making a notebook pink means it will appeal to women.

There aren’t enough patterns, as I said. And there are some tragically overlooked colors: green, purple, dark orange, brown, teal. I could start whipping out the names of shades from Benjamin Moore, but you get the point.

I think that netbook makers are being especially remiss in not doing something similar to Dell’s Design Studio. I think many people would buy a netbook with less than perfect specs if they got the chance to choose from over 100 really cool designs.

Also, it looks like branded netbooks might be on their way. Yesterday my colleague Dana went to ToyFair and saw some netbooks at the Sakar booth. For those of you who don’t know, Sakar makes electronics, mostly for kids, that are branded with some popular toy or company name. Hello Kitty, Crayola, G.I.Joe, etc. If you go into a Radio Shack, say, and pick up one of those $20 Hello Kitty cameras for little girls, Sakar is probably behind it.

They had pink, purple, red and silver on display. The pink is very hot pink/fucia, so perhaps not intended for Hello Kitty. It’s more of a Barbie pink.

Right now the netbooks run a kid-friendly Linux, which is apt. Click over to Laptop Magazine’s blog for the deets, if you’re so inclined.

No patterns as of yet, but if Sakar plans to use these netbooks as the base for branding, then we’ll probably see something cute and different. Keep your eye on the local Toys R Us!

Hello Kitty isn’t really my thing, I admit. I would not run out to buy an HK netbook, no matter how cute. But maybe this will prompt other netbook makers to get more creative in their designs and consider putting something funky and different on the chassis. I await this day with great patience…