A few things:
1. We don't have control over the entire process. Every company is dependant
on dozens if not hundreds of others. The quality is limited to what is
available. Doing more extensive design and development is not going to happen
without significant investments and more demand.
2. We would love to do this. What we need (not ThinkPenguin specifically,
although I'd love for us to take the lead) is more people purchasing the same
old crap. Because purchasing from a company that is selling the same crap as
us is going to do nothing to change things.
3. We can't fix the laptop problems. We can fix other problems and are. The
USB N adapter is a good example.
4. We are working on fixing some things. For instance, we are trying to put
out a new model that's similar. The problem with the Royal is that of the
design which is specified by Intel. It's nothing to do with this particular
laptop.
5. We have a 14 day return policy and have received many returns on this
model. We are not making money on it. I have been very sympathetic and tried
to make customers aware of the problems some people have (ok, many). However
many customers don't listen or actually like the laptop. I have two people in
the office in fact who don't have a problem with it. We have sold multiple
units to some people separated by months. If there was a design issue it
would have become clearly apparent by now.
As far as newer laptops in general go I think they keyboards aren't that
great. Again- it's not our keyboards. It's like the widescreen. I don't like
widescreen. However they don't make 4:3 displays any more. Nobody ships a
laptop with a 4:3 screen. Everybody is different. Some people prefer
widescreen. Some people don't. Some people don't mind gloss screens. We give
you an option because we *can*.
The T61P I believe shipped with an ATI graphics card. This laptop won't have
3d acceleration in Trisquel. It may be more desirable in some respects and
not so much in others. Another problem is that it has digital restrictions on
the wifi slot. It may be that you have a version which you were able to
install an atheros wifi card in. However you probably won't know that before
purchasing it.
Long story short. No matter what you do it's not ideal. I appreciate the
support the Trisquel community has given us. It's done a lot of good in
bringing more hardware to market and making more readily/easily available.
