Laptop Fever

I recently purchased my very first laptop. I had always thought a laptop would be a good idea. For too long I've lugged my home computer around whenever I'm out of town for lengthy periods of time. This is not a fun process - especially when you have other bags and suitcases to go with you.

When I first started going to the West Coast for summer employment I would leave Calgary with everything I deemed essential. Clothes, Pillows and, of course, my computer and monitor. If you've ever lugged around a 19 inch CRT monitor and a fairly heavy computer tower, you can understand my pain.

So, finally the day arrived when I had enough. We were quickly coming up to a period at sea, and I wasn't looking forward to moving my computer onto the ship once again. (It's actually more of a pain when we get back home, when lugging it off the ship with all my crap becomes more than slightly inconvienient). I went to Dell and surfed through some computing options (their words, not mine). My main reason for not buying a laptop years ago was the big performance hit you used to take for the sake of portability. I'm a fairly big fan of graphically intensive games, so I was still skeptical I would find a laptop that met my needs.

In order of importance then, I made up my top five priorities:

1. Powerful processing
2. Minimum 256MB Video Car
3. Good battery Life
4. Portability
5. Larger screen size

So, with those set out, I went surfing through the dell site like a madman. I looked at various models and quickly realized that it was MORE than possible to find a good laptop that met all my priorities. So I added a sixth priority:

6. Not ugly or full of useless LED lights

Any of you who have gone around the Dell site know what I'm talking about here. The dreaded XPS series laptops. While VERY powerful, they look more like a laptop a 12 year old transformer fan would own.

So I was stuck. The XPS had the performance and terrible looks. The 9400 didn't seem to have the performance. I felt dejected.

Then, after a chat with a buddy I realized something that most people would have recognized right away - YOU CAN CONFIGURE THE 9400 BEYOND WHAT IT SHOWS YOU INITIALLY. Well duh, I guess clicking that link could have helped.

Suddenly I got excited. I felt a wave of nervousness come over me. "Is it possible to XPS this much better looking laptop?".

The answer.... YES!

So, I am now the proud owner of a not ugly at all computing powerhouse:

2.0GHZ Dual Core Centrino Processor
2 GB of RAM
256MB ATI X1400 Video Card
DVD Burner

Now, many will say, "But Lucas, the X1400 is a dog of all laptop video cards". I will admit that it certainly isn't the most powerful - but it is easily a leap ahead of the 9800 PRO in my home computer. But, aside from it's performance (which is more than adequate by the way) it meets another one of my priorities far better than the NVidia Go series would:

3. Good Battery Life

All told, I can sit here quite happily surfing the net and listening to music for over 4 hours. Try that with a comperably equipped NVidia graphics laden beast.

So, I have now, after years of being nothing more that an internet geek, finally moved into the portability enhanced future...

Now I just need to find another wireless spot closer to my current temporary residence.