It finally arrived!

My old laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1150, is still functional (and yes, a bit slow, but perfectly usable under kubuntu – I’ve even done basic video editing on it), but the screen hinges have both broken, and by cannibalising one I was able to make the other barely fixed, but it’s only a matter of time for it. So it’s getting a noble retirement alongside the Toshiba Tecra 850 and I’m getting a brand new machine with some sweet specs:

CPU is a T8100(2.1GHz), there’s 1GB RAM (I’m ordering more from memoryC right now), 160GB HDD, 14.1in 1280×800 LCD, Intel X3100 (yeah, the graphics won’t play CoD4 which is a shame, I’m wondering if an upgrade is even possible), CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11a/b/g wireless, Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, WinXP Pro. I’ve kept XP Pro in its own partition (split the HDD evenly because I keep all my mp3 and video stuff in the Win32 partition so both OS’s can play video), but I don’t do any work in XP anymore (except for IE testing and a single project in Visio that I’m trying to migrate to something more usable like Xfig ) so all the work files and data goes into the Kubuntu partition. Might try to get compiz to work just for kicks at some point as well.

The laptop itself is about the same width as the old Inspiron, but not as deep by a good few inches, and while the screen is not as tall (giving a kindof squished look to it), it’s got higher resolution overall and per square inch, so when you actually look at what’s on the screen, the R61 wins out fast. Speaking of fast, it’s shockingly faster than the old Dell. Even with just the … Read the rest