Posts Tagged: gadgets


6
Apr 08

A Sony DSC-S700

My dad caught Sony Cybershot DSC-S700 on a big sale a couple of weeks ago, so now, both my eldest sister and I have a digital camera too. I played with white balance (First thing I checked out. ;-) Thanks, Mutya.), effects, scene modes, and other configurables today, and it seems there will be a lot of photographs of practically anything under the sun coming.

(Irrelevant: My parents do not play favorites, my other sister got hers some time ago. And we got other things that time, alright? Although gifts are not important.)


26
Jun 06

Desktop computer for sale!

Because my second sister barely used her laptop anymore, my eldest sister started using it, and it has been more than a year since then already so we just decided to sell my eldest sister’s desktop computer. Here are the specifications she gave me:

Intel Pentium 4 1.7 GHz
40 GB Seagate hard disk drive
256 SDRAM PC-133
ECS motherboard
NVIDIA TNT2 32 MB AGP video card
32-bit audio card

52x Asus CDROM drive
1.44 Mb floppy disk drive
56k internal modem
K5000 keyboard (without separate number pad!)

Hehe, I will try to get more details next week.

As far as I know, the price is very negotiable. Please let me know if you are interested.


25
Feb 06

Some reconsiderations

On second thought, the Dell XPS M140 seems pretty good. Yay!


23
Feb 06

A new laptop

I have been working with a rather defective [HP] Compaq Evo N800v for quite a while now. I got my notebook around three years ago, right before I took the plunge into college. Only three years of use, and now, the battery is busted, I get a hard disk failure warning upon boot, there are dents and cracks all over the chassis, most of the black, rubber paint is gone, and I suspect that the RAM is no longer well either. All wonder how my laptop got to that condition, but it is also a wonder that I am still able to use it. I have already gotten tired of periodic, hardware-related system crashes, having to repartition my hard disk every once in a while to try isolating bad sectors, having to backup my data each time I repartition, and having to reinstall an OS afterwards though.

Just this month, my father got himself a Dell XPS M140. Upon realizing that the notebook has too many features that he is not likely to make use of, however– a CD/DVD writer, a removable memory card reader, 1 GB of shared DDR2 SDRAM, and even the 40 GB of hard disk space –and upon learning that my computer is no longer well, he talked me into switching laptops with him. He told me he was not going to use the computer for much anyway: he just needs a word processor, and he is going to be okay. I, on the other hand, need and will be able to make use of more computing resources, which the XPS M140 offers. Because it is the more practical thing to do, we agreed to switch.

I am looking at the specifications of the XPS M140 right now, and I could not help feeling bad. First of all, the laptop is too bulky. I am not picky when it comes to aesthetic design of devices, but bulkiness is another issue. Second, it weighs 5.47 pounds, just a little lighter than my current 5.6-lb laptop, which is already too heavy to keep bringing around. Third, I cannot help thinking of how much the pre-installed software packages, which I will not be using anyway, added to the cost of the laptop. Fourth, the 1 GB of RAM is too much even for me, as I am not a gamer. Fifth and last, I really would have appreciated it if the laptop came with at least a built-in wireless device.

Dell XPS M140 has a number of features that I do not really need, and it lacks some others that I really want. But that’s enough for now: I’ll postpone all complaining until I see the laptop for myself. I really wish my dad had consulted me or any of my sisters before getting it though.