New Computer!
It was a month over four years ago that I got my free weather channel laptop. I polled some friends on their computer life expectancies, and I think 4 years was pretty much the end of the line. Which my experience agrees with… the lappy can’t keep up with day to day things anymore… lots of lag and lots of noworkyworky.
So I’m pretty excited about a new computer I ordered on Saturday. I was this close to getting an iMac, but went with the PC instead. Mostly because it was cheaper and had several hundreds of dollars worth of extras that I would have wanted to add to the Mac. What I’m upset most about in not getting the iMac is that they’re having their free iPod Touch promotion now, and I’m not getting one. I guess, though, that’s evidence I made the right choice about the computer.
Here are the specs…
HP Pavilion Elite m9500t customizable Desktop PC
* • Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
* • Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Quad processor Q8300 [2.5GHz]
* • 6GB DDR2-800MHz dual channel SDRAM [2x2048,2x1024]
* • 640GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
* • 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 9300 [DVI, HDMI, VGA adapter]
* • Blu-ray player & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD burner
* • Integrated 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Ethernet, No wireless LAN
* • 15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, 1394, audio, video (for TV Tuner)
* • TV tuner, dual format ATSC-NTSC with PVR, remote
* • Integrated 7.1 channel sound with front audio ports
* • HP wireless keyboard and HP wireless optical mouse
* • Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
* • HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope
HP w2558hc 25.5-inch Vivid Color Full HD Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor
So, there we go. The monitor has already shipped, and is scheduled to arrive Wednesday. The Computer is supposed to ship by Wednesday, and will probably get here Friday or (if they deliver) Saturday.
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5 comments
You should have gotten the Mac.
I’m curious: what hundreds of dollars of things came with this beast that pushed you over the edge?
In the very least, I won’t become one of those horrible Mac fanboys that always say ‘You should have gotten the Mac’
I got 6gb of ram compared to 4 w/ the iMac
blu-ray drive
tv tuner & PVR software
wireless keyboard & mouse
Those things would have cost another $500-600 in addition to the iMac pricetag. I also got a separate video card w/ 256mb of memory… that would have been a $300 increase in the iMac cost (though, granted, that would also include a 2.97GHz Core 2 Duo processor (what I got is a slower clockspeed, but quad core).
Also, while the idea of an all-in-one computer really appeals to me, I’m glad to have a separate monitor (w/ multiple HDMI inputs.. also a bonus!) that I’ll be able to reuse (either as a monitor again, or just a hdtv) in another 4-5 years if/when this system can’t keep up anymore.
Does *happiness* have a price tag? You should have gotten the Mac.
Still, congrats! Looks like a monster of a computer. I must say, though, I’ve been disappointed with multi-core CPUs to date. Most of my day-to-day software isn’t yet written to take full advantage of them…so when work “upgraded” my 3.2 GHz single-core machine for a dual-core 2.7, I noticed some stuff was actually slower. Hopefully that’s a problem that will continue to go away, though, as software adjusts to the world of multiple cores…
Well, hopefully I won’t notice anything being slower! My laptop is 1.7 GHz, and is maxed out at 1gb ram. So even a single core 2.5GHz should run circles around it… using the the other three I can just consider bonus.
Another plus for the PC is the Windows software I’ve purchased and use regularly… I’d either have to buy (or find something free) something else for the mac, install windows on the mac and have to reboot every time I wanted to use it, or buy parallels or VMware to run them.
It wasn’t built on the 3rd, and it definitely didn’t ship on the 3rd. Or the 4th. Probably not the 5th, according to the sales rep I chatted with this morning. So I guess I should set my sights on next Friday, and be happy if it gets here before then.
I did get the monitor though… it is a BEAST. i’ll have to post a photo
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