Journal jawtheshark's Journal: Vista release + Bad AMD Turion sales 6
Means cheap-ass laptops for little sharkies. I've been tempted to buy a new laptop for a while. Last time it was a Core 2 Duo in nice 12" form factor, but it took time to tell me that it's the moment and that 999€ was an okay price. (For a Core 2 Duo, with 1Gig RAM and Intel graphics) When I decided to get it, it was sold out. Well, I'm glad that I didn't do it.
Today, I was grocery shopping and I saw this for a mere 799€. Yes, a Core 2 Duo is better than a AMD Turion X2, and yes, ATI sucks, and sure 1Gig isn't much these days. Yes, the keyboard is AZERTY and that's going to suck too. Oh, and battery life is going to suck donkeys balls... But frankly, I'm coming from a P-III 600MHz/512Meg laptop. I guess, the experience is going to be 100x better.
Pretty much all laptops were on sale. (Some were still very expensive, though) You and I know why: Vista is coming and these laptops are going to be unsellable next month. I didn't open the box of the laptop yet (because I needed to go back to work), but there is a huge sticker on its side (that was clearly put there afterwards) claiming "Vista Capable" in big letters. Of course the small text is much funnier: it basically says "you bought a crap laptop to run Vista on". Yeah, go figure: I knew....
It won't for hell be running XP Home as preloaded. (With Works and so! Whahaha, who uses that crap?) Perhaps initially, because I bought Halflife 2 and I never played it. I might just play it on that laptop and then reformat the whole shebang. My tendency goes to FreeBSD which worked perfectly fine on my P-III laptop, including wireless. We'll see.... I still have to get that Debian desktop running. (Okay, it's running just fine... I admit)
an opinion (Score:1)
i thought HL2 was a really fun game, but i was predisposed to like it because it's exactly the genre i enjoy, a shooter with variety.
Re: (Score:1)
Frankly... I'd have taken an Intel chipset. I didn't look what ATI chipset it was: the only thing that mattered was that it was not too big (I would have preferred 12"), had at least 1Gig RAM and was Dual Core. All the rest was irrelevant. I've got an Intel graphics chip on my work laptop (a Core 2 Duo / 2Gig RAM), and while I was on training in Brussels I took it for a little testdrive with diverse "Demo" versions of games. It was acceptable.
If the ATI performs as well or better than the Intel chip
Dude (Score:2)
One thing I can't abide on most laptops nowadays, especially the wide screen ones, is the lack of vertical resolution.
For whatever reason a majority of the market seems to have decided that only 800, or even 600 pixels is enough vertical resolution, even on a gigando 17" laptop.
Personally I'll take a crisp 14" 4:3 aspect ratio screen with 1400x1050 or even 1600x1200 resolution over a crap 17" 1280x800 screen any day of the week.
Now a 1920x1200 or even a 1600x1080 wide screen mig
Re: (Score:1)
Two words: bad vision
I've seen people setting big-ass-resolution 17" LCDs to 800x600 because they found the fonts too small.
I am still using a 15" LCD on my workstation that only does 1024x768. That one cost so much money (because I was a early adopter) that it's only going to be replaced once it's really broken. My work-laptop has the same resolution as this one. The only screen in my direct household that has a bigger resolution is my wifes LCD. That one is 1280x1024.
All, in all: I'm used to i
Re: (Score:2)
Two words: bad vision
Yea I suppose bad eyes is a good reason to go with lower resolution, but personally I'd just make the dang fonts bigger.
For that matter if/when my eyes start to go I'd get reading glasses that corrected my vision enough to let me read small text.
I am still using a 15" LCD on my workstation that only does 1024x768. That one cost so much money (because I was a early adopter) that it's only going to be replaced once it's really broken. My work-laptop has the same resolution as this one. The only screen in my direct household that has a bigger resolution is my wifes LCD. That one is 1280x1024
While I can applicate keeping things around when they aren't broken, there comes a time when an upgrade might be in order. LCD monitors are getting cheap enough that there really isn't a good reason not to get a decent 19" one anymore.
All, in all: I'm used to it. My dads P-III laptop has 1600x1200 15" and I wonder how he reads from it. I have big difficulties with that.
Man, I loved the 15" 1600x12
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personally I'd just make the dang fonts bigger.
You're going to find this sad: I do that on my work computer too (and, no, I didn't unpack the new machine yet... ever more sad.) Well, I only make fonts bigger while reading web pages. It's for my comfort, not because I can't read the normal fonts. If you turn up the fonts on a Windows machie, apps start to be really weird. It's not as bad as in the 9x days, but it annoys me (and others) enough not to use the feature.
LCD monitors are getting cheap e