On 3/29/2010 9:14 PM, usher99@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Appreciated the prayer for the stressed. Lenovo just informed me that the
> laptop I ordered in Feb, with initial ship date 2 weeks later will now ship
> in---- May. grrrr That's not the half of it, but don't want to rant.
>
Ah yeah, I meant to mention my new notebook. I'd been hemming and hawing
for ages about a portable. The one I had is still fine, but was never
just what I wanted, too big and heavy and with limited battery life
without a big, expensive additional battery. Now it's set up with
wireless keyboard and mouse on Carol's desk and she's happy as a clam
with it.
I wanted something really small and light. I kept looking at the
netbooks, as well as trying strategies to bring my ancient, W98SE mini
up to usable status. Finally, something led me to notice the next step
up from netbooks, 'ultra-portables'. Much more performance than any
netbooks for very little more size and weight. Perfect, too, for the
limited living/storage space in a small RV.
I got an Acer Aspire AS1410-2990 11.6-Inch Notebook just over two months
ago. Compared to netbooks, it has a slightly larger screen with more
pixels, full size main part of the keyboard, dual core real processor,
rather than an Atom, 250GB HD, 'n' Wi-Fi, SDHC card reader, bluetooth, 3
USBs. both analog and HDMI outputs and 6-cell battery with great run
time. So far the only drawback I have found is that the 2GB of RAM is in
two pieces, so upgrading would be a bit pricey, but I knew that going
in. I'll at least wait until memory moves on and prices for the older
stuff goes down, maybe leave it as is. I already had an external optical
drive, so loading software is easy.
I wasn't expecting all that much, something for email, web browsing,
storing images on the road, writing, and such light weight chores. But I
was wrong; it's really quite a capable little machine.One new thing some
may not know about in Vista and W7 is the ability to use a flash memory
card as a quick access cache. The lack of latency to move heads in place
and wait for the right spot to rotate around makes it perfect for some
OS chores. I've got 4GB SDHC cards doing that in the built-in card
reader, as well as on my desktop. I think it helps especially with the
slower rotating portable drive.
This little thing runs CS4 just fine. I wouldn't want to be doing heavy
duty editing of really large files, but it's very usable. My 'g' router
died in a power outage some months ago, and I'd been back on the old 'b'
version. I upgraded to a refurb Linksys 'n', and the performance with
the Acer is terriffic. I don't even need to bother plugging in the
ethernet cable for things like transferring image files from a trip onto
the desktop. Much more range wiht good signal than with 'g' and the
older Vaio.
Another thing that surprised me is the screen. It looks really good. I
haven't profiled it yet, but side by side with the 22" Samsung, the
colors are quite close and the saturation and contrast very impressive.
Images just look good on it. Not much vertical leeway on angle and not
much more horizontal, but that's expected. Not matte finish,
unfortunately, so placement is important outdoors.
Windoze 7 has been good so far. Stable and doesn't bog down the machine.
I had to wait a few weeks for the W7-64 bit driver for the i-GotU GPS
tracker. It's working now, both to download tracks and to use with
DeLorme Topo USA 8. HP is not going to update the driver for my 'old'
LaserJet 1000 for 64 bit. There's a work-around involving printing to
PDFon the Acer and installing software on the desktop that automatically
prints any new PDFs it sees in a defined directory on the LAN, but that
sounds kludgy.
Think I'll go with a wireless inkjet; doesn't cost much more than the
next toner cartridge. I'm thinking HP OfficeJet Pro 8000, fast, low per
page cost, built-in duplex, good reported print quality and wireless.
Canon hasn't released a 64 bit version or their image codec yet, so I
cant see the CR2 images in Explorer, but FastStone works fine.
I'm really happy with this thingie. Small enough to be easy to take with
me, but not crippled. And did I mention the battery life? :-)
Oh yeah, in the RV, a cheap cable makes the built-in Samsung monitor/TV
into an excellent external monitor. We can view the days' images as a
beautiful slide show. Rock 'n Roll.
A. Portable Moose
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|