By the time you read this I should be in Venice beginning to revise the new book. As <a href="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/lenovo_thinkpad_edge_13_open1.jpg?p=3924">I wrote yesterday</a> I had planned to do this on an iPad. Why? For some things I need a small device. I’ve been using a MacBook Air since they first came out. It was a pricey luxury and it’s paid its way over the last couple of years.

But of late it’s just been slowing to an unusable crawl and the battery life is pathetic. Also it’s horribly hampered by having only one USB port and no camera card slot. If I were buying again today I’d give it a miss and go for the very attractive 13 inch MacBook Pro which has plenty of ports and a long battery life. It also costs more than £1,000. If I was going to use the thing every day then <em>maybe</em> this is justified. But I’m not and it isn’t.

So when I realised Word 2010 was a promising option I thought I’d look around and see what was on offer of a similar spec for Windows. My was that an eye-opening experience.

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<a href="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/lenovo_thinkpad_edge_colors.png"><img style="display:inline;margin-left:0;margin-right:0;border:0 none;" title="lenovo_thinkpad_edge_colors" src="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/lenovo_thinkpad_edge_colors_thumb.png" border="0" alt="lenovo_thinkpad_edge_colors" width="244" height="171" align="right"></a>The machine I settled on was a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13.3 inch with an AMD processor, 320 gb drive and 4gb of RAM. It cost around £390 plus VAT. Less than half the price of the MacBook Pro. Here’s what it looks like…

Lenovo is the spin-off from IBM hence the ThinkPad name and that little red tip for moving the cursor around. It comes with a trackpad too, of course. It’s a sturdy little box, light and&nbsp; fast. The battery life could probably be squeezed to eight hours, a little less than the MacBook Pro’s. But to be honest I’m not going to work for five hours straight on a battery so it’s fine by me.

<a href="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/lenovo_thinkpad_edge_13_open1.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-3936" title="lenovo_thinkpad_edge_13_open" src="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/lenovo_thinkpad_edge_13_open1.jpg?w=219" alt="" width="219" height="300"></a>The selling point was this – click for a better view. There are a lot of crappily-designed Windows machines out there. Lenovo, being a big company, spend a lot of time trying to make sure theirs aren’t among them. You can read <a href="http://lenovoblogs.com/yamato/?p=666&amp;language=en" target="_blank">more about that here</a> – interesting that they looked at the MacBook Air’s keyboard as part of this exercise.

The Lenovo keyboard is absolutely amazing. Without hesitation the best computer keyboard I’ve used in my life for typing – fast, fluent, quiet, with just the right amount of key travel and feedback. I use Apple’s chiclet keyboard for the desktop. That’s good but if I could buy a desktop version of the Lenovo one I’d get it straight away. Sadly this machine isn’t sold from the High Street as far as I can see so you may find it difficult to try before you buy. But for me – and I use the keyboard a lot – it’s magic.

So, with my Asus netbook, that brings the number of Windows 7 machines around here up to two, and I still haven’t spent two thirds of the money I would have done on a single MacBook Pro 13 inch. Are they as cool as Apple? Probably not. Do I care? Not one bit.

Apple’s business model is that they and they alone build Mac computers. Microsoft’s is that it’s an open market; they leave most hardware to others. Both have their attractions and drawbacks. Macs should, in theory, be more reliable because only one maker is involved but your choice will inevitably be limited. Microsoft’s should deliver you a better range but you need to be picky about what you buy.

I prefer the latter to be honest. With good manufacturers like Lenovo the hardware’s sound and reliable anyway. And I like being able to pick and choose the machines I want. I don’t want an iPad because it won’t do what I need of it. Apple won’t let me buy a Mac netbook because Jobs thinks they’re rubbish (spawning an army of people hacking things like Dell minis into clandestine Macs). There’s also a gaping hole in the Mac range between the tiny, closed Mac mini and the huge, expensive Mac Pro. Something ought to fill that but it won’t because Apple doesn’t want to produce it.

Is Apple’s stance sustainable in the long run? I don’t know. They’re certainly selling lots of machines on the back of the iPhone and there's no doubt Macs are very, very good machines. But any way you look at them they are expensive and very limited in range. If I can do the same job on something cheaper and with a choice of hardware then that’s the route I’m going to go.

Also I do wonder how interested Steve Jobs is in the Mac these days. Newer pastures – iPhones and iPads – seem to grab him more somehow. He certainly brings in more profit that way. One of the attractive things about Macs is that they last for a long time. I don't see me having a need to replace my systems -- that Air apart -- for years.

In any case when it comes to Word the choice isn’t between something that can do the same job. Word 2010 on Windows is actually <em>better</em> than the Mac, better than Word 2007 and Apple’s own Pages too. In fact, once you clear the junk out of the way – and there’s a lot of that – it’s a real revelation in terms of creative writing.

More on that later.