From the “Gita, I’m talking to you,” I think the cat is having trouble getting the woman’s attention. And I know our cats love the old, big monitors because they can drape their paws, tails, and heads over the top third of the screen, which gets them attention every time. The thin screen? They wouldn’t be able to do that. The cat is partially angry because the woman can now ignore it more easily.

I also think the Name is an inside joke, as well as the cartoon

But just to toss in a distractor, is there any chance the laptop is named Gita? And the cat knows that, and is making a direct and rather insulting profession of dislike.

On another tangent — it’s not quite synchronicity, but I have the impression of having recently seen almost the same joke in almost the same panel (maybe in Kit ‘n’ Carlyle), but with the cat announcing a dislike for “this new kind of laptop” — intending to contrast the old kind, a person’s actual lap, which the cat can more readily sit on.

Some speculations on a potential motivation:

1) Guy and/or Rodd felt compelled to specify that the cat wasn’t talking to himself, but directing his comment to the female, even though the text was displayed in a thought balloon (ala Garfield). “Gita” may have just been a “random” girl’s name, but unfortunately, by picking such an unusual name, it suggested to most of us there was something more to it. If this is the case, I suggest, “Hey, I am talking to you” would have worked better.
2) It is an inside joke to someone Guy and/or Rodd knows named Gita. The main joke was straight-forward enough, we all got the it; so they may have felt there was no harm in throwing in an additional inside joke.
3) Some combination of 1 and 2. Perhaps it was mostly #1, but the authors often use names of their friends and relatives whenever there is an opportunity to do so.