Couch computer design ideas request

[Chris]

For years I had a borrowed laptop next to the settee. It was a Dell Latitude - very light - only 1.2 kg. It was really useful for casual web-browsing and looking up things when doing the crossword - without going into the study to use the desktop machine.

The laptop has now gone back to the friend it was borrowed from and I'm wondering about various options.

I could buy a laptop - but I have a couple of old desktops - and wondered about using one of them - set up in such a way as to be as convenient as the laptop was.

How about a small 15" TFT monitor on a swinging arm that could be at the side of the settee and swing in front when needed?

The computer case could be hidden away behind the settee.

Is there a wireless keyboard that contains a glide pad or trackball?

Any design ideas will be welcomed and appreciated.

[TonyK]

I have a PC plugged into my plasma telly with an IR keyboard and mouse. Great way of supervising and restricting the kids access to the web but also a very user friendly video phone and great of family email etc.

Only drawback is the noise from the PC itself. next time I'll go for a silent machine.

[meow2222]

Or use Win's mousekeys facility, which converts the numeric pad to mouse use. At first it seems awkward, but one quickly gets used to it and t results in less tota hand movement than mousing. Most app functions can be done with key commands, again an upfront learn overhead, but winds up much quicker in use. For most apps today I dont bother with a mouse it only slows things down. Just one or 2 where its needed.

The other option is you can get old laptops cheaply now, and even a p1 is ok for light use.

NT

[Colin Wilson]

Not sure about wireless, but you can certainly get them with either glide pads or trackballs - Scan sell 'em (I was looking at the ones made by Cherry the other day)

Try... (not made by Cherry though)

[.]

buy a pocket PC with wi-fi and hook it up to your wireless router. that way you get a skype remote control with a 10mbit connection.

works for me ;-)

[Doki]

The Logitech Trackman trackballs are great. I'd put that and a keyboard on a board and attach it to the TFT...

[Chris]

By the time you've bought a TFT and wireless keyboard + mouse it might work out cheaper to buy a 2nd hand laptop. Although possibly not. For just browsing you can get away with a pretty old laptop.

[.]

if, by old laptop, you mean 400mhz cpu and 128mb ram then you're deep into pocket pc territory.

[Chris]

My "sofa laptop" is even worse than than that. p120 with 64mb of ram, wireless. Fine for just browsing and webmail tho. I guess it depends what you wanna browse tho. I basically just look at webmail and imdb.com and occasionally ebay.

[fred]

What model do you use and is there anything that you would like it to do that it doesn't? Could be a nice toy to control a multimedia pc via remote desktop. I think they might be a bit small to use for browsing per the o/p.

[Staffbull]

Tablet PC's are best suited to this

[Staffbull]

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