I was uploading photos to my flickr when I realized I was writing long and non-sense descriptions on my photos.
It made me decide that it's time to blog.
I was actually posting this picture, I've been wanting to show off my new machine ever since I got it. My old laptop seems to have found a friend tricycle inside. It's making a crazy noise (KKKRRRRRRR! - something like that) whenever the machine gets hot every time I work. It has bothered me for months and gets worse and worse.
Almost close to tears, I decided same day that I'll get a brand new machine. See, I'm not rich, the money I used is from "our" savings - which means I still need too pay it back. In my line of work, everyone needs a kick-ass machine. This isn't that of a kick-ass but I do love it coz I am the first owner and it's a lot lighter than my previous machine, a Mac Book Pro. The Mac Book is perfect for my size =)
Anyway, what I was supposed to blog was the photo! I think it's geeky to take photos while you are opening a box of your new purchase. But I gave in --- it was Aram's idea - not mine! I don't want to post the rest of the pictures (as in I have a step by step pics during the box opening) coz I've said, it's way too geeky for me.
i'm so bored.....
Watch this Family guy episode wherein brian smells quagmire come from manila and making love to 2 filipino women... and a man... LOL :D it's around the 5:48 mark.
Are you having a headache in finding the right ultra portable laptop for you? With myriads of ultra portables coming out in the market nowadays at a price of a mid-range phone; soon anyone will have its own ultra portable. Started by the now ubiquitous Asus EEPC, now you have every manufacturer jumping on the subnote bandwagon. We now have MSI Wind, Lenovo Idea Pad, IBM's X61, Fujitsu's U1010, HP's mini note, Astone's UMPC, and many more. Now, how would you decide to buy the ideal ultra portable for you amidst several options in the techno jungle? I'm going to share a few points in this article to help you decide the right one but i will focus on reviewing HP's ultimate tablet; The HP TX2500 series with the latest Puma platform from AMD.
Choosing the right ultra portable.
What type of person are you? Are you the type who loves to watch movies and listen to music on the go? Are you the business man who travels a lot and brings the entire office with him? Are you the multimedia /gamer who spends a lot of time tinkering with his laptop looking for a better game plan? Every ultra portable excels in one area so you have to know your needs and prepare your budget. An ultra portable today is priced between Php 16,000 ($340) to Php 28,000 ($600) at different computer resellers. But high end subnotebooks can cost as high as Php 60,000 ($1,200) to Php 100,000 ($2,100). You have to get the best value for your money.
For the young professionals who often use office programs and presentations all the time, you can live with the Asus EEPC series of ultra portables, Blue H1 or the New Blue Lithium, price between Php 16,000 to Php 24,000. That's a good price without leaving a deep hole in your pocket. The subnote is powerful enough to run your regular suite of office applications and it's light enough to be carried around without adding too much bulk in your luggage. You also have a choice for the screen size between 7 inches to 10 inches. I wouldn't recommend the 7 inches since you'll likely spend most of the time proof reading your presentations because of the small screen.
For people who likes entertainment on the go, with enough juice to run your favourite movies and music without skipping frames, you're better off with HP's mini note, MSI wind and Acer Aspire one with a price range between Php 24,000 to Php 30,000. I'd go for the HP mini note for full size keyboard and stylish finish.
For the gamer and power users, the best ultra portables include the Dell XPS M1330 , Sony Vaio SR series, and HP TX2500z series. They have the fastest processors and most powerful architechture among the ultra portables, enough to challenge the performance of mid-range desktops.
In buying the right ultra portable, be particular with the processor speed, memory size, hard disk capacity, video card and expandability options. Hard disk and memory are easy to upgrade but not processor and video card memory, so you have to make a wise choice. A decent spec for an ultra portable that would perform most office and entertainment functions without difficulty should have at least 2.0 ghz of processor speed, 2 gb of ram, and at least 160 gb of hard disk space. Ok, so that should give you a brief idea when shopping for the right ultraportable laptop for you. Now on to my review :)
Introducing the HP Pavillion TX2500 series entertainment PC.
First impression. This is my first tablet PC so i'll try to be objective in my review. The HP Pavillion TX2500 is the much awaited upgrade to the already old but still reliable HP TX1000 about a year ago. Unboxing the HP TX2500 and setting it up is a breeze. Coming from an all Mac computer to a Windows machine, i immediately noticed the difference in their packaging. While the Mac is usually encased in a high quality package cocooned with high quality paperboard molded to fit the shape of its accessories and the unit covered in dust resistant plastic, the HP is boxed with the same old boring brown box. Like just buying a new microwave or what not. The unit is securely encased by styro sheet though to be fair. The box includes the wacom pen, the tablet pc unit, the power adapter, the battery, and the weight saver accessory (an blank light plastic that you can use in place of the DVD rom drive to save some extra pounds).
Holding the unit for the first time, makes me feel that its an expensive gadget. The HP TX2500 is covered with a glossy scratch resistant shell inlaid with an echo pattern that runs from the LCD to the palm rest. I think it gives the unit a nice aesthetic touch and makes it ideal for digital artists like me. The unit is bit heavier than my macbook air but more powerful, with enough juice to run for five long hours.
Quick specs. I got the high-end model and using it for a week now, i keep on losing track of time being busy playing with my new toy. Here is the lowdown on the specs. AMD X2 Ultra 2.2 ghz ZM82, utilizing the latest and most powerful platform from AMD called Puma with Hyperthreading 3 and tight integration with ATI's 3200 graphics card for mobile. 320gb HDD at 5400 rpm and 4 Gb of DDR 667 mhz ram. I also got the 8 cell extended battery. This unit has a 12.1 passive matrix LCD with a Wacom pen enabled digitizer (Which means better hand writing recognition. With a Windows Vista performance index of 4.0 it's pretty fast for an ultraportable.
Features. The HP TX2500 is a convertible ultra portable tablet pc. Which means you can use it as a regular laptop with a full size keyboard or twist the screen and use it in slate format to bring out the artist in you. The tablet is adorned with all possible ports and expansion slots you can imagine situated on the sides and on the LCD itself. 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 RJ 45 or lan port, 1 modem port, 1 express card 32 port (which also happens to be a docking port for the included remote control for the media center), 2 headphone jacks with 1 supporting SPDIF, 1 microphone jack and a proprietary port called Expansion port 3 by HP. It also comes with a lightscribe enabled dual layer capable multi-dvd superdrive with a 1.3 megapixel web cam and microphone supporting stereo sound recording. High quality speaker is also provided courtesy of Altec Lansing. The LCD is also adorned with buttons as well; a DVD dedicated button with controls, a screen orientation button, a button that brings up the windows mobility center and a finger print biometric scanner...whew that was a lot for a package as small as this. The jack of all trades of ultra portables.
Performance. The Tablet PC perfoms faster than the Macbook Air and with a Windows Vista performance index of 4.0 utilizing the new discreet ATI Radeon 3200 graphics card, it performs suprisingly well on power hungry strategy games like Command and Conquer Generals and EA game's Lord of The Rings Battle for Middle Earth. The Adobe CS3 suite of application also runs decently with multiple applications open. A true multimedia powerhouse, i believed HP have a winner on this. But the true magic of the HP TX2500 lies in its LCD with an active digitizer. Using the included Wacom pen, you can easily turn the tablet into a digital canvass with different levels of pressure sensitivity, you will have precise control of the user interface in Photoshop or a more pen friendly program called Alias Sketchbook Pro. The unit also has a very powerful hand writing recognition software suitable for note taking.
Though the unit performs well on almost all task you throw at it, the unit emits heat when performing heavy tasks or when put under stress. Not really suitable for long period when you hold it in slate mode. Also, since the screen is passive matrix, it doesn't have a wide viewing angle, so colors may wash out if you view the LCD at a different angle.The LCD also seems to be a bit grainy compared to the LCD of other laptops like the Macbook Air or Macbook Pro.
The Verdict.
With a slew of multimedia features plus a Wacom enabled digitizer and an Entertainment PC at the same time, the HP TX2500 is a powerful tablet PC if not the most equipped and most powerful in its class. If not for high heat emissions and a grainy LCD, the HP TX2500 is a true winner. The unit is priced between Php 60,000 to Php 89,000 in local computer resellers.
Except the first 6 runaways digests, these are some of the comics I purchased during my stay in Singapore so far. I'll be going back home to Manila in a few days and I'm going to bring home those I've already read so that I can lessen my baggage load a little by the time I decide to end my stay here.
Support AJ Dimarucot in the $10,000 t-shirt contest at DesignByHumans.com by voting for his entry here
We finally have a new aircon installed after a week. Last August 17, we had our previous one cleaned up for maintenance and after a few days, it got spoiled and doesn't get cool anymore. So ever since that, we had to just use the fan in this humid Singapore weather. But all's good now :)
The new Google Chrome browser needs a bit of getting used to since it's different than your usual browser. The most prominent being the interface. Your usual menubar on top is gone and you tweak most of the options and settings with the button on the far right corner. The default page is a summary of most visited pages, recent search history and bookmarked pages. There is no bookmark manager present so I have no idea on how go around organizing them. I like how they maximized the use of screen space and the missing status bar appears subtly when you hover on linked items. The installer and application is very small in terms of file size. The browser handles loading time really fast and is super stable even with tons of tabs opened. I just tried opening around 40 tabs and I can quickly switch to any one of them and the application didn't even freeze. My middle click scrolling doesn't seem to work though but I hope they can fix it in future releases. You can read a behind-the-scenes comics done by Scott McCloud if you want to know more about the technology side of things.
