New job, new laptop. After a few weeks of comparing, reading reviews online, watching viral videos (about laptops of course), buying laptop magazines at airports, etc… I finally decided what to get 2 weeks ago what to get and using it since today. Since I’m traveling quite a bit and spending more time away from a desk than on my desk there were a few key features the new laptop needed to have – in short I wanted a powerful lightweight ultraportable with long battery life. I had my mind made up on the Dell XPS M1330 for a while since it got some good reviews but finally decided for this:
Main reason for picking the Dell would have been the price tag, which is more interesting compared to the Lenovo X300 but overall performance and former Lenovo experience made me choose the X300 eventually. And no, I didn’t take the lame Dell-Manila-Envelope ad into account :) Truth to be told, in case I had to pay for it myself, it would have been the Dell XPS M1330 without a doubt.
So now it’s all installed, it’s indeed incredibly lightweight, the main battery gives me +3 hours of juice (and ordered an extra battery which should double that) and last but not least with it’s 4Gb or RAM it’s ultrafast :) Here’s what I installed, programs I need to have on my PC (it runs Windows Vista):
- Office 2007
- Windows Live beta (Full suite – see earlier post)
- Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 and Firefox 3
- Twhirl (and thus also AIR)
- Zune
- Live Mesh
- Skype
- Paint.net
- Silverlight 2
Yeah, I’m a PC. And I’m actually married to a Mac so probably our kids will turn out to be hybrids I guess (although more chance to see them turn into Xboxes or something)… Let’s not go there :)
'Cross The Breeze 
Funny to see you almost need no software so a basic laptop from 5 years ago could do… if the programs and OS didn’t become so heavy!
I like your blog entry :) At work, we ‘re made to use PCs and all those Windows apps, which in my book is a torture – big time.
Interesting how many people mix OSs and technologies :)
I need to have a chat with my boss about a new laptop. But I’m afraid it’s gonna be a short one. :-)
@Bart Still is quite a bit of software though – full Office, all WL apps, … etc although indeed a lot more happens in the browser than it did in the past. And also the OS gets bigger but lots of what extra software had to solve in the past is now part of the OS – search, defrag, firewall, … etc etc
@Frank go for it ;)
love the video and interest comments thank you for sharing