Russell Beattie

I got a new machine today... It was pretty fun how I did it. I stayed on the #mobitopia IRC channel via my telephone while I was wandering around the stores - I would type in the make/model/specs and the price and ask the guys online to see what they could find in terms of comparitive prices and to get their opinions.

Eventually after a while I find the price/performance I was looking for - a laptop from a company called Advent. It's an model Adv2011 with a Pentium 4/2.6Ghz, 512MB RAM, 40GB disk, 64MB ATI Video RAM, 15" screen and it cost 1,300� including tax.

I can't say that I'm super ecstatic with the machine because it has several problems, but I wanted the most bang for my buck so I grabbed it. A similar machine from Dell would cost around 500� more than that not including shipping/handling... Since I was already well above my limit of $1000 I set to myself while setting out today, this is a decent deal.

The problems are the following: 1) It's fucking HOT. The bottom left corner makes 12" PowerBooks feel cool. It's like a live flame under my left wrist. It's amazingly uncomfortable and I may have to bring it back for this reason. 2) It's got a Spanish keyboard. That's not that bad since I'm typing on one right now as well... and 3) It's got a Spanish OS (WinXP Home) this doesn't excite me at all. I *really* don't like having my OS in Spanish. I can understand all the words, I just don't like it. I program in English, I don't want to deal with Spanish dialogs and menu options when I'm looking for something.

So we'll see. It's a sweet machine in general, so I'm not unhappy, I'm just concerned that I won't get used to the heat. I'm going to play with it tonight and see if I can deal with it and the OS... if not it's going back tomorrow and I'll get something else - I saw a Fujitsu that didn't seem bad at all.

I may have to buy these pads...

-Russ