Interested in Panasonic TB 51

1) Does anyone know what the viewing angles (primarily vertical) are?
2) How about brightness and contrast ratio?
3) How is the keyboard, especially in relation to IBM's? Is the <CTRL> key on the lower left?
4) Are the touchpad mouse buttons noisy, and how smooth are they?

Any other comments, pros and cons, are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ragtopgeek

 

1) Does anyone know what the viewing angles (primarily vertical) are?

depends on which version you're looking at (assumig you're some place where you actually get a choice). I have the XGA version (TN); it's not the best screen ever (yes, even I can admit that ) but I don't really care, it's still the only perfect laptop to me. They had a review of the UXGA version in Mobile PC a while ago and they said it was beautiful so I guess that one might even be IPS

2) How about brightness and contrast ratio?

it gets plenty bright, it's made to be readable outside... let's just say I never go above ~20% brightness (but I don't like very bright screens in general)

3) How is the keyboard, especially in relation to IBM's?

it's great. + it's got the proper kbrd layout (!) (ie. Ctrl where it should be, centered spacebar, no stupid extra keys where they shouldn't be...) I also love having the Del key by the arrows instead of top right corner. Only thing I did was the little registry hack to remap Ins -> Ctrl

Is the <CTRL> key on the lower left?
well... you could just look at a picture, but see above

4) Are the touchpad mouse buttons noisy, and how smooth are they?

I dunno what's a noisy button to you ; they click but so what... I barely use them anyways. and they are smooth

Any other comments, pros and cons

if you've read any of my other (disturbing) posts then you probably noticed that I love the darn thing I don't think I will ever be able to buy any other laptop than newer versions of this (assuming they don't stop making them/screw them up somehow)

con: I will be paying mine off for 3 years

 

oh and... yeah... go get one NOW