Low-end Laptops with Wider Screens and Keyboards = Better Usability

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 12:42pm

I noticed two nice design changes in low-end laptops when I purchased a new disposable laptop this past weekend.

Wider (though) shorter screens and wider keyboards.

For cheap laptops screen sizes remain small. However, the trend now is to keep the height short while adding to the width across.

Wider screens provide a nice usability enhancement in that they allow for more application windows to be open across the width of the screen while the total screen area remains smaller (shorter in height) to keep the price down.

Since the laptops have wider screens, they can have a wider keyboard. I looked over a number of nice sized keyboards with an additional number pad as a standard. This enhancement is really great if you find yourself working with numbers and data often.

These simple but thoughtful changes provide some nice usability enhancements to the less expensive laptops while allowing their prices to remain less expensive.

Kudos to industry for these changes.

By the way I bought the HP - Pavilion Laptop with Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor for $550 from Best Buy.