Geeky Info

My trusty Sony Vaio notebook died on the way back from Perth. The technical guys upon looking at it, reckon that it died due to a drink spill. I must admit I did spill a glass of red wine on the keyboard about 18 months ago, but I can’t remember spilling anything on it since. Oh well, the good news is that a drink spill is covered under my flexirent insurance.

So, what to replace it with…

Some considerations:

Primary Computer:
The primary consideration for me is that my notebook is not just my primary computer, it is essentially my only computer. This is for several reasons, but primarily because I become sick of attempting to keep multiple computers synched in terms of data and setup. So I simplified, and would not want to go back to having more than one computer for daily use.

This means that whatever I choose to replace my sony vaio has to have good processor speed and memory, as well as some reasonable hard drive space. It is true that usb2 external hard drives overcome this a little.

Cost:
I was not paying for my new computer but my employer would. This obviously meant there were some restrictions on the amount of money spent. Having said that, I am sure that if I was buying the computer out of my own money, there would be some pressure from the “she who must be obeyed” direction.

Portability:
As this is my primary and only computer, whatever I choose needed to be able to be portable, and so weight and size were a factor to be considered. I use my notebook everywhere.. for presentations, in bed, on the couch, and at both my office and home office connected up to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.

In considering all this I limited my exploration to three main areas. Let me explain some of my thought processes in my final decision.

Mac?
I must admit that I was pretty tempted to move to the “dark side”. I am a sucker for good looks and the wow factor and there is no doubt that the mac powerbooks have this in the extreme. I chatted to a number of friends who have made the move (some of them quite recently) and as you would suspect, I found them to be incredibly passionate about their new world. What is it with this mac cult?

In the end, I decided against moving at this stage for the following reasons:

1. I have enormous amount of accumulated knowledge in the dos/windows environment and while I would enjoy the challenge of learning a new operating system, I must admit that my forays into unbuntu and other linux distros have been frustrating, as every time something doesn’t quite work I have no idea what to do.
2. In talking to my friends and reading some reviews, it seemed to me that the mac environment was ideal for those who want software that just works – you know, those that want to get the job done using word processing, Internet and email. I want to do that too, but I love playing with software and I wasn’t certain that the mac had the same amount of free software to play with as windows does. I guess if I wasn’t looking for the computer to be my primary computer then this would not have mattered as much.
3. The cost of replacing all my software was scary. I have quite a bit of investment in software for windows and so I had to add that into the price too.
4. Mac also seems to lack the range of games that windows has and even though I don’t play lots of games – I do own a number.

Tablet PC

As readers of this blog would know, I am quite keen on the tablet pc platform. After seeing Cameron Reilly’s tablet I was keen to investigate whether I could get a good tablet pc for my new notebook. I thought that as I attend many meetings, the tablet pc might be good for note-taking etc, as long as it operated as a normal notebook as well. That eliminated a pure slate tablet but there were a few good options in terms of ones that could be use either way.

 As I looked at the tablet’s available in Australia, I discovered that essentially you pay an extra 1000 dollars for a lower spec’d machine. Again, as this is my primary computer I couldn’t justify it. The only tablet that I would have considered to have the specifications that would have been sufficient would have been the ‘eric mack’ tablet in the Toshiba M4. But the price is just too prohibitive at the moment.

I did briefly consider purchasing a desktop for the office and a cheaper (maybe refurbished) tablet for ‘on the go’ use. But, my experience in simplifying my computers, as mentioned previously, has been too good.

So, I reluctantly decided not to move to the tablet platform this time.

High performance notebook

So, the search moved to finding a high performance notebook that I could use as my primary computer.

I looked at the Sony’s as I have had such a great experience with my Vaio. One of my mac friends even said that the Sony notebooks were the mac notebooks of the windows world. But, having a look at the new Vaio I was disappointed. They still look very sexy but the specifications were low for the price. I also couldn’t find one that matched the form factor I was looking for.

So, I had a look at the Acer’s, Toshiba’s, LG and then I got to the Packard Bell notebooks. I walked past the Compaq machines without looking at them in great detail as in the past I have owned three compaq notebooks and have had considerable trouble with them. Compaq have probably fixed the problems since then, as admittedly that was when notebooks were in their infancy but I still have an emotional reaction when I see a compaq notebook.

It doesn’t look like the Packard Bell have my actual model on their web site which is weird. But, the specs are these:

Easynote R8 2000
Processor Intel® Pentium® M 2.0GHz
Memory 1GB/333MHz DDR (2x 512MB)

Hard Disk Drive

1 100GB 5400RPM

Audio On Board

Video Card ATI Mobility RADEON 9700 Video Memory 128MB

Modem 56K V.92

Keyboard US
International Mouse Glide Pad

CDWriter DVDRW Super Multi Drive

Network Card On board

PCMCIA 1 Card Reader 4 in 1 Card Reader

USB 3 (USB 2.0) IEEE 1394 Firewire

1 Video Out 1 x VGA and 1 x S-Video

Analogue Audio 1 Line-In + 1 Line-Out + 1 Mic built in

Screen 15.4″ WXGA Service & Support 1 year RTB

Additional Feature 1 Subwoofer Additional Feature 2 Subwoofer

So, there you have it. I have been busy rebuilding my computer to the way I like it and I will post up some of my journey in that regard soon. So far, I really like my new notebook but it is early days.

Some of the features I am enjoying:

1. wonderful keyboard (but for some reason the apostrophe key keeps giving me two apostrophe’s – any ideas anyone?)
2. great screen – nice and big and some of my games look brand new.
3. The speed, the speed – did I mention the speed? The extra memory means that I can now keep outlook (and heaps of other applications) open all the time and switching between them is instantaneous.

Well, I am back to more installing….

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 29th, 2005 at 1:14 am and is filed under us. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.