The Envy slinked on stage at HP’s Connecting Your World media event

While touchscreen displays are priced at a premium over passive panels, this approach would contribute to lowering costs because there’d be no need for separate production runs based on keyboards for different languages – the UI would generate the virtual keyboard layout in whatever format was specified by the user or the operating system’s language settings.

“PCs have gotten faster and faster yet PC boot time takes forever, or seems to take forever” observes Splashtop co-founder and CEO Mark Lee, who describes the common daily ritual of starting your PC and then going to fetch your morning coffee while the Toshiba PA3612U-1BAS battery system boots up.

While the software is available only to OEMs, and lives in a 512MB flash memory chip to which users can’t add applications, vendors can work with Splashtop to modify the build and add modules for quick access to contacts and a calendar as well as playing music, videos and IPTV. Asus’ customisation work includes a photo browser and access to online games.

The Envy slinked on stage at HP’s Connecting Your World media event, being held in Berlin this week, joining the TouchSmart IQ500 touchscreen desktop PC as HP unveils its ‘Summer 2008’ lineup of an insane 17 notebooks plus a new 24in desktop monitor, a BlackBerry-styled iPAQ smartphone and four new calculators (we kid you not about the later – HP takes this stuff seriously, you know).

We’ll admit that 1.5mm is the tiniest of differences, and Toshiba PA3591U-1BRS battery we’re sure HP’s designers had the micrometre out at every step of the way, ever-mindful of trimming every possible fraction off the dimensions of the Air.

Put simply, the government has been paying for hundreds of thousands of laptops for taxpayers almost completely every year. It seemed too good to be true, and perhaps it was -- Kevin Rudd's budget introduces changes to curb this practice.

Changes to tax laws mean you can no longer buy an fringe benefits tax (FBT)-exempt notebook PC through salary sacrifice and also depreciate it over a number of years. But does this mean you can still get a new laptop through your work and save money? APC got the full story from the Australian Taxation Office.

Local MSI distributor Altech has confirmed to APC that the first batch of its much-anticipated Wind 10 inch mini-note, which goes on sale this week at $699, will comprise only of units fitted with a three cell Toshiba PA3612U-1BRS battery. This shipment is limited to 150 units, while a second delivery of 600 units will include the standard six-cell battery.

(If you’re still super keen to ride the Wind, shop around for the best deal – we found that OzDirect already has the Wind marked down to $639, with a $15 delivery fee)

The Notus A12’s design is minimalist, so much so that it doesn’t have any branding on the lid or anywhere else on the casing. It’s still attractive in an understated way, though, with a black magnesium alloy casing that doesn’t attract fingerprints the way a glossy finish does. The wedge-shaped construction actually bears a strong resemblance to the Portege R500, and while the sturdy metal casing makes it heavier at 1.37kg, we feel the trade-off is worth it for the extra durability.