Besides not being overall more cheerful and clean, one downside to the New Haven Metro-North train cars compared to their Hudson Line brethren is that there is not enough room to open a notebook computer in the seats (with the exception of the few face-to-face seats, which have their own kneecap intimacy issues)…

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This is a BIG problem, especially since with EVDO available throughout most of the line, there is really nothing else keeping a few hundred thousand business people from being productive on their long haul to work (and back),

One solution is a Tablet PC. For the uninitiated, a Tablet PC looks like a normal ultraportable notebook, until you swing the display around and it becomes a flat screen where you input with a special pen on the screen rather then a keyboard.

Personally, I would prefer to open the damn thing and use the keyboard, but for now, its one workaround which might work for you, and also could work quite well for watching movies on the train, since you dont really need to do much input while watching…

Dell Latitude XT Tablet Hands-On at Engadget