Gateway 675E
My Gateway 675 E custom laptop arrived on Friday...
It really is a "desktop replacement". It fits comfortably on my lap, but it is nearly 10 lbs. THis beast sports a 3.2 gig hyperthreaded Pentium 4. I went with only 256 MB of RAM, and a 30 gig/5400 rpm hardrive; both of those items are easily upgraded later on. I chose to also go with just a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive since my tower already has a DVD-RAM drive in it. These choices saved me several hundred $$$. I also got free shipping, and 4 years of support only cost me $60 !!!
But the biggest feature is the 17.1 inch wide screen. I've already run Visual Studio on this baby, and all that screen real estate makes coding a much more pleasant task.
I had trouble with the wirless routing... it was constantly cutting out. But I pick up two other networks in my apt. complex, so I figured out that by switching channels on the Linksys wirless router and in the wirless device driver in the laptop, that the conection has been rock solid; I was probaby picking up interference on the default channel of 11.
SO now I can sit anywhere in my apt. or on my porch and have complete internet access, as well as access to resources on my original tower machine.
I am not crazy aboot the touchpad. It is set up by default to perform "double clicking" like on a mouse button. SO I found a few times where I had to lift my finger off the touchpad, and placing it back on to complete a scroll actually was interpreted as a double click. I accidentally opened things I didn't want to open. But I found that feature could be disabled, so the touchpad is a little more tolerable.
I found that by performing routine tasks that don't tax the harddrive or the DVD, I can squeak aboot two hours out of the battery. I may elect to purchase another battery this summer. My goal with this laptop is to be able to work on my SetFocus coursework ANYWHERE, thus preserving my sanity since I shall be so busy for the next 9 months.
Now I just hope I don't drop this beast. :-)
It really is a "desktop replacement". It fits comfortably on my lap, but it is nearly 10 lbs. THis beast sports a 3.2 gig hyperthreaded Pentium 4. I went with only 256 MB of RAM, and a 30 gig/5400 rpm hardrive; both of those items are easily upgraded later on. I chose to also go with just a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive since my tower already has a DVD-RAM drive in it. These choices saved me several hundred $$$. I also got free shipping, and 4 years of support only cost me $60 !!!
But the biggest feature is the 17.1 inch wide screen. I've already run Visual Studio on this baby, and all that screen real estate makes coding a much more pleasant task.
I had trouble with the wirless routing... it was constantly cutting out. But I pick up two other networks in my apt. complex, so I figured out that by switching channels on the Linksys wirless router and in the wirless device driver in the laptop, that the conection has been rock solid; I was probaby picking up interference on the default channel of 11.
SO now I can sit anywhere in my apt. or on my porch and have complete internet access, as well as access to resources on my original tower machine.
I am not crazy aboot the touchpad. It is set up by default to perform "double clicking" like on a mouse button. SO I found a few times where I had to lift my finger off the touchpad, and placing it back on to complete a scroll actually was interpreted as a double click. I accidentally opened things I didn't want to open. But I found that feature could be disabled, so the touchpad is a little more tolerable.
I found that by performing routine tasks that don't tax the harddrive or the DVD, I can squeak aboot two hours out of the battery. I may elect to purchase another battery this summer. My goal with this laptop is to be able to work on my SetFocus coursework ANYWHERE, thus preserving my sanity since I shall be so busy for the next 9 months.
Now I just hope I don't drop this beast. :-)