Oddball Update

It’s funny; back in the old days of the Oddball Update, when I would make entries using Microsoft Word (or, if you go back far enough, even the old Windows 3.1 accessory called “Write”), I would always lapse into fits of tech speak, feature blabbing and other miscellaneous scenery-chewing whenever my acquisition of a new computer was imminent. Before I would actually order the thing, I’d always have to write down every blessed part on the spec sheet and go into great, unnecessary detail about the purpose of each piece. This would invariably have to go on for several days, consuming page after page with mindless dreck until the computer finally arrived in its big fat box with the Dell “E” on the sides and I would promptly go into insulin coma from so much euphoria.

But I’ve just purchased a sweet new notebook, and I’ve done it without a damn bit of fanfare. Not, at least, on the Oddball Update.

More details within.

What is it with me and computers, anyway? I just thought I’d ask that question, mostly of myself. In the past two weeks I’ve filled my room with three old Dell desktops—okay, to be fair, I’m giving two of them away—and now I’m adding a new notebook to the mix. Where did this all start? Well, about three days ago, when my wife asked me if my notebook computer (the old Inspiron 3200 I bought back in 1998) could be used to transfer MP3s to the iPod. For instance, if we bought some music CDs in Thailand, could we rip them to MP3 and transfer them to the iPod for mobile listening?

My answer was no—there’s no Firewire (IEEE 1394) port on the old Inspiron, and I don’t have a cardbus adapter, plus I doubt the notebook’s kludgy old CD-ROM drive would be very good at digital audio extraction. This was just the latest entry in a long list of “Can it do this?” questions being posed of that old Inspiron, the answers to all of which were “No.” Then I got to thinking…wouldn’t it be nice to have a brand new notebook to take to Thailand later this year, and on other trips we might make? A mobile workstation with performance not unlike my desktop at home, which could do music ripping, CD burning, storge digital photos I could offload from my camera while away, and—dare I even suggest it—play games?

I realized I had half the cost of a new notebook already stashed away. That money was supposed to go to fix the fuel injection on KITT. But my time for such matters is short lately, and since I continually bring in extra cash with my outside web projects with no sign of stopping, I figured, why not use that money for the more immediate need? And so, to make a long story short, I ordered a new Dell Inspiron 8600 notebook this afternoon.

Okay…why a Dell? Well, I’ve had a lot of good experience with Dell machines, dating back to 1993. But the biggest factor was the price point. Dell’s machines may not be put together with all the strength of a tank—at least not anymore—but they still have the best bang for the buck out there. What really sold me, though, was the combination of discounts and promotions that were good only during Memorial Day Weekend. In addition to free shipping and no interest payments until October, I scored a whopping 20% off by digging up a coupon code on the Internet. The resulting discounts total up over $450. Unlike any other notebook from any other manufacturer I looked at, I was able to get all the features I wanted at a price I could actually afford. (Did that sound like a damn commercial, or what?)

The 8600 is somewhere between a desktop replacement and a mobile multimedia machine. It’s a widescreen notebook, so the display is a wide aspect ratio much like my 16:9 TV. The LCD array is WSXGA, meaning that its native resolution is 1680×1050—much better than the usual 1024×768 equivalents you see on notebooks in places like Best Buy. For a 15.4” screen, that’s pretty damn good. The video hardware powering this thing is actually an ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro Turbo with 128 MB of RAM, which is actually very competitive with popular desktop gaming cards from ATI. You can actually play games with this machine—real ones! New ones! 3D ones!

The notebook is a complete “Centrino” solution from Intel, meaning it has the low-voltage Pentium M processor (I picked a 1.5 GHz to save money, which is roughly equivalent to a 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 desktop processor) and a Centrino-compatible 802.11 B/G wireless networking solution. The hard drive is really spiff-tastic—it’s probably the fastest hard drive available in a mobile platform, a Hitachi 60 GB unit that actually spins at 7200 RPMs (unlike the typical 4500 RPM notebook HDD). This will help ensure stutter-free video playback, sound effects editing and gaming.

Since I was saving megabucks thanks to that handy little coupon code, I added some features like 512 MB of PC2700 RAM, a 24x CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive, and a spare primary battery. The final configuration is going to take a couple weeks to ship—apparently the Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro is backordered—but the latest update of the order status page estimates a ship date of June 14th.

As a side effect of the fact that this machine has such good internals, my wife can use it as her primary machine instead of the noisy, hot Falcon Northwest box she’s got now. The Inspiron 8600 reportedly keeps quite cool and its fans are nearly impossible to hear. At some point I’d like to get her a docking port and a nice flat-panel LCD monitor with built-in speakers to have here at home. Then it’ll literally just be plug and play, whenever we take the computer anywhere.

Now I’ll actually have a nifty toy to play with on the plane, and something useful for us both while we’re on vacation! I don’t have to buy such huge memory cards for my digital camera now, because I can offload my photos and movies to the notebook at any time to free up room to take more. The 8600’s batteries are purported to last 4-5.5 hours, depending on how you use the system, and we can even watch DVDs on the plane (Knight Rider season one boxed set, anyone?).

Now I just have to go back to work and earn some more cash so I can buy that new digital camera. Ironically, the fabled bikini website guy is delivering a new batch of work for me this week… “Money in the bank, Leela!” Whoa. Ancient Doctor Who reference.

Anyway, I guess it’s Oddball tradition that I post about every new computer I order—so now I feel better. The last time I bought a notebook, it was in preparation for a very important trip to Florida, during which I needed to keep in contact with a very special young woman I’d just met and was sending email to every day. That notebook cost nearly $3100. The new one I ordered today totaled out at just over $1700.

Kid in a candy store, I tell you.

Edit: I’ve just learned that Dell has recently revised the Inspiron 8600 so it no longer contains a parallel, serial or infra-red port any longer—apparently they’re trying to get rid of that old legacy stuff by forcing people to use newer equipment. Guess I’ll need to keep my printer shared out a while longer—my wife’s old printer is parallel-only!

Categorized as Computers