Taciturn

Mum picked up Lucy's birthday/xmas present laptop today from Harris Technology. It's an HP nx9005 and cost $1999 for the 2000+ variety. Lucy wanted me to check it over to make sure it was all good, and then put it away until birthday/xmas, but things got out of hand and now she's copying CDs on it. I've got some kind of fascination with laptop PCs, as any SPLC friends from grade nine will attest, although I'd prefer they didn't. It's a beast, I tells ya. For the price, it's golden. The 256 MB RAM seems a bit tight for trying to run the pre-install WinXP, but it still seems to be pretty blazing fast. My current PC is a desktop Athlon XP 2100+, so I'm not just wowed by new tech. I have been considering selling off most of my desktop PC in favour of a notebook considering I'm pretty well out of the gaming circle. The nx9005 is equipped with a not-too-shabby ATi Radeon Mobility, although I haven't 3DMarked it yet. I suppose the big test is how well Linux will work on it. I should be able to test that on Lucy's just by inserting a live CD and seeing what works and what doesn't. Now, the possible issues I've found, just in case anyone else is checking out that particular device. Firstly, the USB connectors on the back are close enough to the power connector so that you'll need some kind of USB extension to use a thumb drive, but considering it's a laptop, you probably won't be (much). Other devices with regular-sized USB plugs (such as USB mice, cameras, extension cables) are, of course, given ample room. There seems to be a dead spot just to the bottom of the touchpad, about half a centimetre from the ridge to tell your finger that it has hit the boundary. Last of all, I find some of the keys don't register when I press them. It's not nearly as major or as often occurring as it sounds, and is probably just a result of me trying to use it like a desktop keyboard. Overall it's a bloody nice machine and I'm pretty keen on getting myself one. Any takers for the non-storage hardware in my desktop PC?