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[OM] New computers [was IMG: Nathan's PAW 12: some London, some Alicante

Subject: [OM] New computers [was IMG: Nathan's PAW 12: some London, some Alicante]
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:29:54 -0700
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


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