In looking at hundreds of laptops over the years, the one thing that’s always struck me is how hard it is to innovate in this category. I mean, there are only so many slick design enhancements that you can put into a limited amount of case space, made all the more complicated by thermal and other restraints.That hasn’t stopped vendors from trying to push the laptop-design envelope, which has resulted in some “interesting” notebooks–and I use that term loosely. Asus in particular has gone into overdrive on this front, announcing a slew of quirky notebook cases over the past year that are made of carbon fiber, leather…and even one modeled on a banana-yellow 1970 Lamborghini Miura (I guess they never saw the Acer Ferrari series laptops).But the Vista-based model that Asus trotted out at CES–the W5Fe SideShow–takes the cake. The laptop looks like your average ultralight, with the exception of the 320×240 color LCD built into the backside of the lid. So, it goes like this: lid up, you view the regular 12.1-inch LCD that hovers above the keyboard. Lid down, you look at the tiny LCD implanted in the top of it. A rocker navigation button sits to the right of the tiny display to help you scroll through your menu. I thought of one thing when I first saw this new Asus laptop: my personal notebook. To be more precise, the scratched-up, somewhat trashed lid on my personal notebook. And I’m not even that hard on my laptops; just moving them around even semi-frequently seems to bring with it a whole lot of wear and tear. True, we throw our phones and Blackberrys around somewhat as well. But a lot of those devices come with hard-shell cases. I also couldn’t help but wonder if this mini-LCD will compromise the structural integrity of the main LCD under the hood, which needs all the support it can get from the lid that surrounds it.I understand the need for fresh design ideas, but in a way, this one seems…backward. At the least, I’d want to see some durability results (like the kind I discussed in my first blog entry) that demonstrate the screen’s ability to hold up over the long run. Does this notebook represent a giant leap forward for laptop kind, or is it a step in the wrong direction? You tell me at techtreks@gmail.com. Technology Industry