I claim another downfall is its existence as a laptop that, it would appear, cannot be easily used while on your lap.

Seconded to Sony sport headphones.
I would like to say, though, that they do *not* survive extreme bike rides. Been there, done that. Personally, I like to buy cheap ($20 or less) behind the head or behind the ear phones. When they break, I keep the good parts around ... and then when the next set breaks, I can often fix them with the spare parts. Soldering iron for the win.

Someone mentioned bluetooth instead of wired. I know the wires cause problems, but bluetooth headphones weigh more and can fall off and get run over more easily. Most cyclists use wired headphones and just run the wire under their shirt to keep it out of the way.

The chirp is just part of high performance hard drives. Early 2.5" 7200rpm hard drives meant for gaming systems, most 15K rpm scsi drives, and most 10K rpm sata drives make a similar sound. I was once told it had to do with platter vibrations, but at this speed it seems to me that platter vibrations would cause a head crash ... so I really don't know what the sound is.

What I *do* know is that it's inherent to the drive, not the firmware. The only way to avoid it will affect drive performance. This is why many PC's OEM bios's have "Performance" and "Acoustic" modes for the hard drive controller. Acoustic mode typically slows the drive to eliminate sound.

I don't mind the noise in my desktop. With a high-quality case, I don't even hear my velociraptors. In my laptop, though, the old 7200RPM hard drive I tossed in there is annoying. It's surprising that Apple, with their heavy focus on user experience, didn't think of the hard drive noise from the start.

I have to make the upgrade path needlessly complex:
1. Back up data to spare 160GB hard drive lying around.
2. Rebuild AthlonXP box as 8-core workstation with 3x Velociraptors striped for the main drive, 2TB standalone drive for backups.
3. Install Win7 in the first partitions on the RAID volume.
4. Install Linux Studio 64 in another partition on the RAID volume.
5. Use the remaining space on the RAID for data storage. Format as ext3, install e2fs drivers on Win7.
6. Restore data to storage partition on RAID volume.
7. Create cron job on Linux partition to automatically back up RAID to standalone SATA.

+1!
I've been playing with Linux for several years now, and have used Linux exclusively on my own computers since last year when, after telling WinXP to repair the master boot record, it chose to erase it instead ... partition table and everything.

Ooo, me please! My stereo is from 1994 and the only "surround" is from me splicing the stereo outputs to power an extra set of speakers.

This would make a great tournament prize for our LAN party - http://aitp.augustana.edu/lan

I'd be an appreciative recipient! Please? Engadget rocks!

Does it really only put out 10 lumens, or is that an error? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think 10 lumens is anywhere close to enough to produce a visible picture, even in a darkened room.

This is actually a legitimate question, I was gonna post it myself. Some of us, even if we haven't already scarred our hands or lost fingers, have damaged joints or poorly-repaired broken fingers that change the way we use our hands.

Understand that life isn't easy for some people; there are people who can't afford their heating bill and have to cut and split firewood to heat the house. Believe me, even if you're doinitrite that's hard on your hands.