One of Vista’s new features, in addition to superior power and boot management for notebooks, is the SideShow add-on. Asus’ W5Fe is the first to include the technology: An externally visible, cover-mounted display that sits quietly, looking forlorn while displaying information to you “at a glance” and asking you why you don’t just open it up and use the computer proper. (“Battery and convenience,” you say, trying to comfort it.) “I feel like you’re taking me for granted; toiling all day to provide you with occasional weather and email updates, on a tiny screen that should make you smile, but only makes you wax quizzical, curious and questioning how you ever let the salesman talk you into this upgrade.”

“We’ve had this discussion before, SideShow. I appreciate that I can play simple games and check RSS feeds and emails from you. I just wish that you would do something truly useful, like send this data to my cell phone.”

Fortunately, the SideShow platform allows for such possibilities, but until someone makes use of it, having an external display for something like this just seems silly, and the Asus W5Fe probably knows it.

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