After about a month of almost painful deliberation, I finally screwed up my courage yesterday evening and bought myself a laptop. Talking to Abby about it, I told her that the more you know about computers the more difficult it becomes to choose one. I wanted dual-core, but I also wanted 64-bit, and I wanted at least a 5400-RPM hard drive, decent graphics, and at minimum 1GB of RAM. I preferred something smaller than the fairly standard 15.4" screen, which tend to weigh in starting at 6.5lb, and I wanted built-in wifi with bluetooth. Also, I didn't want to spend very much.
Easy, right?
I spent a lot of time on Dell's website, trying to finagle a deal with coupons and instant rebates. Even with the $750 rebate on certain Inspiron notebooks of $1999 or more (which technically meant I could get a $2000 laptop for $1250), I was unenthused about my specs. Poking about on Newegg.com, I noticed that the Turion 64 X2 notebooks were much cheaper than I had figured they might be, but that they didn't have one that really matched my every little desire.
Long story short, with the help of NoteBookReview.com and HPshopping, I decided on a very snazzy, classy, black Compaq V3000Z, tricked out to match my exacting standards. So what did I get? Check these babies out:
- AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-52 (1.60GHz/2x512KB L2 Cache)
- 14.1" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280 x 800)
- NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150
- 2.0GB DDR2 533 SDRAM (2x1024MB)
- 80 GB 5400 RPM Serial ATA Hard Drive
- LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD+/-RW w/Double Layer
- 802.11a/b/g WLAN and BlueTooth
- 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- 1-yr Standard Warranty
- Dimensions: 13.15" (L) x 9.33" (W) x 1" (min H)/1.54" (max H)
- Weight (6 cell): 5.5lb
Curious what a 1.6ghz processor might be in AMD-terms, I checked Newegg, and it appears that, were the processor single core, at least, it would be a 2800+. That sounds nice and snappy to me, though I'm sure your mileage varies. The only part I'm not completely tickled about is the integrated video, though evidently the Nvidia GeForce Go 6150 is the cream of integrated video cards for notebooks at the moment. A dedicated card it's not, but since there aren't any x2 notebooks available right now with dedicated graphics cards, I won't take that too personally. Besides, it could be detrimental to my health if the notebook were able to play games too well. Willpower and all, you understand.
Two features that have me particularly thrilled are the wifi switch on the keyboard, which allows you to easily disable your wireless capabilities, for security as well as battery-saving purposes, I would imagine. The other one is the HP-proprietary Quickplay, which is described in the review as:
Quickplay is possibly the only software pre-installed which is worth keeping. Quickplay or QP for short is HP's take on the media center and unlike the media center QP can run without booting into windows and play DVD's, video, pictures and movies located in the shared documents folder. It is a nice tool if you watch movies or just play music on the laptop. It has a dedicated button which can launch QP from within Windows and even when the laptop is turned off. The optional remote might be worth buying as it is capable of controlling the Quickplay controls and will be useful when watching a DVD.
That sounds pretty damned neat, and I'm excited to try it out.
One of the main reasons I was so damned picky in choosing a notebook is that I wanted it to be (surprise) Windows Vista compatible. Fully compatible. Which means a 64-bit processor and the graphics power to handle Aero. This baby should, I think, do the trick. Now, about that Vista release date …
The only real pain about the entire situation is that it isn't estimated to be built until August 7th, and then it's being shipped 5-7 day ground. Who can be expected to be that patient after blowing that much cash on a laptop!? Do they think I'm some sort of saint? Cross your fingers for me that they finish it sooner, because I want to play around with it a bit before I start heading eastward. Also, if you like, feel free to suggest some names. And carrying cases. I'm in the market for both.
One reply on “Sit and spin: a laptop story”
This computer moron didn’t understand seventy percent of what you just said, but I am excited for you! New toys are always fun. Enjoy and I will, in fact, keep my fingers crossed that they finish it sooner.