Out of disasters can come good things.. or, I love my new laptop :)

[Izulde]

Okay, so we apparently have bad wiring in my apartment that a couple weeks ago took out my 360, my 360 controller and the cable receiver. That was bad enough, but I thought maybe it was just a fluke run of bad luck.

Then this morning I wake up to my laptop and my Wii both fried. I immediately unplugged the TV, PS3, phone charger, cable modem, wireless router and desktop, because if those things go down, especially the BC PS3, I'd go psychotic.

But that still leaves the fact that I need a laptop and as soon as possible. I'm thinking just something cheap to last me till fall and I'm hopefully in an MFA program somewhere.

So I hop on the bus and go to Best Buy. I'm walking along, looking at the laptops, figuring I'll maybe spend about $500 or so. I'm checking out the Gateways and thinking about one of them since they seem cheap enough and I haven't heard anything horrid about their durability.

I'm thinking about it as I start to leave the computer section and head over to the games section.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I see white backlighting.

I go over to the endcap and sitting there is a stunning, 18.4 inch monitor black Toshiba with a few white blacklit elements.

I look up at the specs tag overhead and read the list:

Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 Processor (Hmm, okay. Duo is fine)

Windows 7 (At least I won't have to upgrade)

500 gig hard drive (That's awesome!)

6 gig video memory (Highest I've seen so far. Very, very sweet.)

Blu-Ray drive (....Did that just say... Blu-Ray?! I LOVE!!!!)

Then I let my eyes drift over to the price, expecting it to be some Mac-level amount.

$879.99

I nearly fainted right there. I couldn't believe it was that cheap.

And so I couldn't resist. I ended up getting it.

The speakers on this thing are the best I've ever heard on a laptop and the keys and touchpad feel awesome beneath my fingertips. While I do wish the keyboard was backlit as well, at this price point, I'm okay with that. And I love the backlit elements it does have.

It's a very new laptop apparently, as I had trouble finding reviews even on its line, let alone the model #. But I did find this little snippet from a review on a different model in the line very cool, as it validated my impressions of the speakers:

Originally Posted by review site

The last notebook that really impressed me with the onboard speaker system was the Toshiba Satellite A305, giving rich audio from oversized flush-mounted speakers. The P505 continues that trend with an impressive harman/kardon sound system. Unlike the majority of notebook speakers, you can actually hear bass and midrange, although not enough to shake picture frames off walls or annoy neighbors. For a small room the sound system is more than adequate for watching a movie or just playing music in the background. For larger areas, headphones or a stereo system would still be preferred.

I'm also very much enjoying 7 over Vista. It feels much more intuitive and pleasant to use.

Getting a Toshiba laptop was also a homecoming of sorts for me. I'd used Toshiba laptops a lot when I was younger and they were absolute tanks. My first one, probably about 12-14 years old now, still runs extremely well (I gave it to my uncle some years ago) and it was only my frustration with its slowness that made me switch to Sony, then Acer. I had problems with both Sony and Acer, especially the latter with the keyboard and touchpad's durability. In fact, it was the Acer that fried this morning and I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. It had numerous busted keys and a broken left mouse button on the touchpad.

So now I'm back to the old durable Toshiba and this thing is flying. It's the P505-S8980 if anyone's interested.


Apologies for the crookedness of the picture. I took it with my cell phone at a weird angle.

Still need to get a carrying case for it as it won't fit in my backpack. But thus far, I absolutely *love* this laptop and can't wait to play a Blu-Ray disc in it, even though I have my PS3.

Oh, it also has 4 USB ports and an HDMI port, which is good enough for me.

[Lathum]

You better get that wiring checked out.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Lathum

You better get that wiring checked out.

I will. I'm going to the manager's office first thing Monday morning.

And there's no way in hell I'm even turning any electronics on until I know for sure the wiring's fixed. Means I'll be camped in my office a lot until it's fixed, but c'est la vie and all that.

[Autumn]

I had a similar experience. Dead hard drive led me to just go ahead and pull the trigger on the new system I needed. I was looking at about $500, on desktop systems, looking for something quiet, low energy while still being high powered enough for multitasking and multimedia work.

I ended up with the Gateway SX2800, which totally blows away the budget competition. Quadcore, 4 gigs RAM, 640 gig 7200 rpm hard drive, 12 tons of ports including like 9 USB ports, and it has a super small profile, no audible noise at all and a real low power profile. All this for about $420 bucks. It's crazy, the competition at $500 is lucky to have dual core and 2 gigs of ram.

[spleen1015]

Surge protectors don't prevent your shit from being fried?

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Surge protectors don't prevent your shit from being fried?

Evidently not in this instance. I had my stuff plugged in whatever was top of the line surge protector too.

[sovereignstar]

I'd be a little scared of the onboard video card in that thing.

Notebookcheck: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD (GMA X4500MHD)

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Autumn

I had a similar experience. Dead hard drive led me to just go ahead and pull the trigger on the new system I needed. I was looking at about $500, on desktop systems, looking for something quiet, low energy while still being high powered enough for multitasking and multimedia work.

I ended up with the Gateway SX2800, which totally blows away the budget competition. Quadcore, 4 gigs RAM, 640 gig 7200 rpm hard drive, 12 tons of ports including like 9 USB ports, and it has a super small profile, no audible noise at all and a real low power profile. All this for about $420 bucks. It's crazy, the competition at $500 is lucky to have dual core and 2 gigs of ram.

Yeah, the Gateways are the ones I was looking at and probably would've gotten if I hadn't seen this beauty.

[spleen1015]

Well, that's not cool.

[sovereignstar]

Guess I don't know what kind of games you play, so maybe not such a big deal.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

Guess I don't know what kind of games you play, so maybe not such a big deal.

For PC, text-based sports sims, turn-based strategy, etc. mostly. Paradox's games is the closest I get to real-time. I don't play MMORPGs and for anything action-based, such as the Elder Scrolls series, I go with consoles the vast majority of the time.

But I'm guessing this won't handle FM 2010's match displays well then?

[sovereignstar]

Going strictly off of the rankings on the right-hand side on that page I linked, I'd say you should be able to play with the 3d. My soon-to-be replaced Vostro 1500 has a 8400m gs and I was at least able to use the 3d if I wanted to. Never cared for it too much, so I stuck with the 2d. Anyways, you're card is just a few notches below it, so you should be okay. Might have to stick with low settings though.

[stevew]

Can you turn this stuff into renters insurance?

Also is the landlord paying for your stuff?

Your surge may have some kind of coverage as well.

[stevew]

Dola. I'm not really into big laptops but that does look nice.

[sovereignstar]

What size battery did it come with?

[DanGarion]

6 Gigs of Video RAM? ???

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

6 Gigs of Video RAM? ???

No.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1218123210151

[M GO BLUE!!!]

Shiny... Looks like Darth Vader's laptop!

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Izulde

But I'm guessing this won't handle FM 2010's match displays well then?

Easiest way to find out is to install the demo imho (no idea off hand, some machines seem to handle it better than others the RAM definitely won't hurt FM's performance ).

PS - I've the 'baby' version of that laptop as the 'family' laptop here - not quite that funky a spec, but its a decent machine and has held up very well in the year and a bit we've had it.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by stevew

Can you turn this stuff into renters insurance?

I'm not sure.

Also is the landlord paying for your stuff?

I doubt it. I'll talk to them Monday and see what's what. I'd hope they'd at least pay for the electrician or whoever to come in, but they're very stingy with paying anything.

Your surge may have some kind of coverage as well.

How long are warranties on those generally?

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

What size battery did it come with?

No idea. The battery life isn't great, though. Only about 3 hours.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Easiest way to find out is to install the demo imho (no idea off hand, some machines seem to handle it better than others the RAM definitely won't hurt FM's performance ).

PS - I've the 'baby' version of that laptop as the 'family' laptop here - not quite that funky a spec, but its a decent machine and has held up very well in the year and a bit we've had it.

Good to hear, thanks. I'll download and try it out.