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<<I *like* the "ludicrous under-the-keyboard design"! Perhaps you don't put your notebooks through what I do on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps you've not had the problems I have had in the past. Perhaps you don't doubt the logevity as I do since you may change models more often than I. I have used the 770 a bit, and it seems a nice design. I still think that we have yet to see how the latches they have used hold up to hard use. >> Yup, I still label it as FUD. There is absolutely ZERO reason to worry about the latches failing. Actually, pointing to a particular bit of technology, and with no good reason at all [in this case not even having seen it!] asking ominously "what if it failed?" is classical FUD. Are you absolutely sure you don't work for Toshiba :-) Anyway, my opinion, having examined the technology in question is that this is the most solid design I have seen for external batteries. Your worries are completely groundless. One of the major attractions of the Toshiba was a relatively decent battery design which would allow one to change a battery without dismantling the machine (and in particular without unplugging the CDROM - what an incredible goof in design that was). On the other hand, the lack of positive latching on the Toshiba did on a couple of occasions cause me the annoyance of battery fallout (although to be fair this was when using 720 batteries on a 740 -- I can't see that the little bit of plasic crap that is in question makes a difference, but who knows). THe 770 design is really nice. The devices fit snugly in their bays, and indeed require quite a bit of effort to dislodge. The mechanism is first to release the catch on the front. This frees the device and releases a lever on the front. The device is still nowhere near coming out of its slot. You can turn the machine on its side and shake it and the device (battery, CD ROM etc) is not about to come out, even with the latch released. To release it you have to apply quite a considerable amount of force on the front panel lever, and then the device dislodges and you can then remove it. Once again, the thing I really like is that you can pop a battery in either side, and change one while the other is going, so that you can change batteries without even having to suspend (if you don't need the CD ROM right then). The other thing I think is improved in the design is the keyboard. SO far, it feels much better than the 760 keyboard, which was a piece of junk, and indeed IBM had to redesign it (I never did see the redesigned version). I am sure that it helps not to have to make it tilt like the old one (that tilting mechanism was also a real design flaw. For one thing it made the machine noiser, and I disliked the way the entire keyboard bounced up and down as you typed on it.