You probably caught wind (corny and probably overused, I know) of MSI’s latest U120 [Portal page] netbook, but you may not have seen a prototype at CES with a glowing trackpad. I’m not quite sure who this is supposed to appeal to, but we can at least be happy knowing that, as far as I can tell, this isn’t actually part of the U120 yet. I’ve always hated superfluous LEDs on notebooks, and this light-up trackpad is taking it just one step to far.

If they are going to make something glow, why not have a backlit keyboard? On a regular laptop, the screen is often large enough to provide the necessary light for typing in low-light situations. I haven’t found this to be true in my netbook experience. Unless you tilt to screen to shine on the keyboard (putting it at an unrealistic viewing angle) there often isn’t enough light on the keys. A backlit keyboard on a netbook might actually have some use.