New Laptop

[yettitheman]

Long time, no speaky.
Well, since I've been working midnights and haven't had a hankering to acquire new equipment for a while, I've been gone

However, I was getting tired of my other laptop, and it's winter, so I can't exactly paint it right now. It'll be a future project.

So, I went to tesB yuB and got me a new one. Actually, almost 6 years since I've had a new machine, so, really anything new was probably an improvement.

I blew my stack on a new Toshiba R705-P35:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Portege+Laptop+/+Intel®+Core™+i3+Processor+/+13.3"+Display+/+4GB+Memory+/+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Blue/1260752.p?id=1218243759243&skuId=1260752&st=r705&cp=1&lp=1

It's a exclusive model to only them supposedly, but regardless, what I wanted. Extremely light, full voltage i3, decent battery life (no 8 hours yet), and relatively thin. WiMAX is a plus, although I won't be using it anytime soon.

Yes, the screen is a TN, and slightly glossy (but not overly), but it's eye socket gouging bright indoors. The HDMI out seems to work better than I was expecting (1080p output with 2ch stereo), but I have around 3-7% overscan on the Samsung 7 series. Haven't hooked it up to my 57732 yet, but that ought to be fun.


All in all, it seems to be doing it's job well so far. It makes me glad I didn't get that MacBook Pro

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Congrats
Magnesium alloy casing - very nice!
Recently friend of mine got himself HP envy 14" - very nice one as well and it included decent dedicated gfx card, but I have the feeling you don't need one

 

[pzaur]

Toshiba makes nice machines! My father-in-law has one that is incredibly powerful and light.

May you have much better luck than my wife and I. We recently purchased an HP Pavilion DV7-4060US. Chances are real good we won't be purchasing another one anytime soon. Specs on ours look fabulous - Phenom II triple-core, 1 gb ATI graphics card, and other things. It's a shame that the damn thing wouldn't always come out of sleep, rebooted itself once while in use, and would completely lock up intermittently when in use. Just sent it in to HP for warranty work. Pain. In. The. Butt. Should've convinced the wife to get the ASUS or Lenovo.

-pat

 

[Warpdrv]

Congrats
Magnesium alloy casing - very nice!
Recently friend of mine got himself HP envy 14" - very nice one as well and it included decent dedicated gfx card, but I have the feeling you don't need one

I just got my kid one of those, he loves it, he's getting into IT so I finally got him his HS grad present. I would imagine he really didn't need all that but I splurged anyways.

Congrats yetti on the new tool / toy

 

[yettitheman]

I've been looking off and on for about a week or so; honestly, finding the right one for me is impossible.

When I first saw this at the store about a month or two ago, I was extremely surprised by it's weight and overall construction, but wasn't in the market to buy and thus, didn't really remember anything else about it.

Since then, I've looked at Apple's offerings (Get the Air or the Pro; the MacBook is useless and should be shot off), Lenovo, Sony, HP, and even Alienware. I wrote the last off first, the M11x was too expensive for base price; it's cool looking, but not as fast as the other offerings, and it's made by Dell. No Dell for me if I can help it.

The ThinkPad was a logical choice to me, seeing as I have a 750cs I bought ages ago. Thing still runs and looks almost brand new today. The problem with them now is Lenovo. I'm not 100% sure on this subject, but enough reading scared me off of them for a few years; mainly service horror stories. If I'm going to have warranty work done, it's got to be good. Otherwise, just cheapen the price and let me work on it. So, while I would have really wanted a T40, that kinda scared me off.

HP's Envy was a contender, and I'm still wondering if I should have bought one of those instead. But, I've had enough HP for a while, and while they have given me mostly reliable service, I'd rather just buy their printers.

Looked at Sony's EA and EB series, as the base price on them was a bit cheaper and had a few more features standard. I would have had to order the one I wanted, and it was going to be more pricey than this.

Apple had me stuck in a rut between the Pro and the Toshiba. From a construction standpoint, the Apple edges out slightly. But, the lack of removable battery (or easily and non warranty voiding change) and the $1200 for a Core 2 Duo, just kind of sat off with me. The Air eventually turned me off, with it's soldered in RAM, and rather anemic sized SSD, hence why I was looking at the 13" Pro. Comparing it in the store though, it was heavy as a brick.

Really, I don't have any reservations about this. I wish they would have backlight the keyboard, and improved the tactile response, but I'll be logical; I'll use the screen as my keyboard light and I just won't be able to type as fast on this keyboard as I would my full size desktop.

I think it will be a competent road warrior

 

[Hi Ho]

I have been eyeing that laptop for a while. The only thing really holding me back is the lack of an ExpressCard slot. I need a compatible FireWire chipset for my recording interface and and ExpressCard is about the only way to get it.

My hopes seem to be coming true:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/13/toshibas-13-3-inch-portege-r700-gets-a-pair-of-wimax-models/

They're adding an ExpressCard slot! This may well be my next laptop.

I think you did right by going with Toshiba. HP has the highest defect rate of all laptop manufacturers.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/17/laptop-reliability-survey-asus-and-toshiba-win-hp-fails/

I have had my current Toshiba laptop for over three years and it has been perfectly reliable.

 

[rnatalli]

I've never had a problem with a Toshiba laptop. Darn things keep ticking no matter what.

 

[yettitheman]

My AST still runs, does that count?

I decided to mess with the brightness tonight; F@CK!
It melted my eyes completely out of my sockets. It's insane!
I'm almost wondering if they put LED backlights in this one...

The P41 series has LED for sure, but Toshiba's web site specs are a bit convoluted.
Found it:
http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/product/pdf_files/detailed_specs/portege_R705-P35.pdf

Sweet!

This thing keeps surprising me. And I'm just starting to find out how fast this little guy is.

I still need a few more pieces of road warrior gear and I'm set!