Your views and feedback from email and the web
Laptop lite
I’ve never understood why nobody sold a laptop without a screen or a battery, especially in days gone by when even simple laptops cost a couple of thousand pounds. The battery and screen were two of the most expensive items on a laptop, and if you asked most people they only ever used their machine at either work or at home – and then they plugged them into the mains and attached them to a desktop monitor.
With that in mind, manufacturers could have put the mains adapter in the battery space, which could have reduced the price by around £1,000. Even now I think the idea applies: few people seem to use a laptop without being in easy reach of a mains socket, and with screen casting technology now available any laptop could be wirelessly connected to a cheap smart TV, significantly reducing the price and weight of a laptop.
Michael Albin
Editor-in-chief Tim Danton replies: You’re definitely going against the modern trend of more displays rather than none (see my reviews of the ThinkPad X1 Fold, p58, Asus Zenbook Duo, p60, and even Honor’s Magic V2 phone on p70), but it’s an interesting question. And almost a philosophical one: at what point is a laptop a laptop? Moving rapidly on, one project I’m watching with a tingle of cynicism but also some interest is Spacetop (sightful.com), which went on sale in the US only in January. It’s a $2,150 laptop without a screen, using AR to display a 100in screen instead. Let’s see if it ever makes it to the UK.
Recurring nightmare
I read Lee Grant’s article (see issue 354, p113) in which he mentions recurring subscriptions, and I would like to add a footnote. I recently received an email from McAfee telling me my antivirus subscription was due for renewal on my Toshiba PC and that would be £79.95 please.
I now use an LG laptop and before that it was an HP. As I remember, the McAfee came installed on the Toshiba when I bought it. I used the “lost password” prompt and logged in to the account to cancel the subscription, only to find out that the payment had also been set to recurring on PayPal, to a closed McAfee account. The renewal email said I would receive a refund if cancelled within 14 days, but the PayPal payment may have complicated things a little.
A very different experience from Microsoft when it came to my Office 365 renewal, which asked me if my payment method was still relevant and req
