In-n-out like lightening

Viks' 6+ year old Toshiba laptop has been on it's last leg. Pentium III with 256MB RAM running XP. It's unbearably slow by today's standards. Sure a RAM upgrade might give it a boost but that hasn't even been the major issue. It's been shutting itself off more frequently after being on for a short period of time. And it's been like this with proper ventilation and a new Toshiba battery. My own work laptop was also shutting itself down for a period of time but I noticed it did that right after installed Google desktop. Not sure if my CPU was pegged with the Google desktop (I didn't see this). Once I uninstalled Google desktop, my shut down issues went away. So with that said, I tried uninstalling all but the bare essentials on the Toshiba, running antivirus, and anti spy ware. The shut down issues seemed to go away for a day but returned again. For a brief moment I thought of re-imaging the Toshiba but given how slow it was and seeing how Viks always likes to use my work laptop when I am not on it, it became pretty obvious that it was time to just get a new laptop.

We ended up choosing the HP dv2715nr which was on sale at Best Buy. Four hours from research to purchase. That's a milestone for me. Normally, I'll spend weeks and months scrutinizing specifications, details, user reviews and checking if the model of interest is a known lemon. I have to confess though. The requirements for this laptop were fairly easy. Internet surfing, watching online TV, MS office, rip some CD/DVDs here and there, not too physically big, not too physically small, and reliable. That's pretty much it. Oh and not spend a TON of money ;-) Didn't really want to get an Intel Celeron or AMD Sempron class. But of course didn't need a top of the line dual core either. At first I had a prejudice against the AMD Turion from what I've known of the older mobile Athlon CPUs. But the more I read about the newer Turions, the more comfortable I became with them. The newer Turions supposedly run much cooler than the older generation and are a reasonable alternative to Intel's Dual Core. Again, keeping Viks' requirements in mind here. More than anything, I felt it was important to get 2GB of RAM than fuss over the CPU specifications. Because it's no friggin secret that Vista is a resource hog. But I am not going to bother re-imaging to XP. I spent most of last night uninstalling most of the bloatware. The AMD TL-58 CPU and 2GB RAM seem to make the laptop feel pretty zippy while not running too hot. Battery life is average at 2-2.5 hrs (I set it to MAX performance) but the laptop is intended to be stationary for the most part. I like the Vista sidebar widgets or whatever you call them. For the price, the build quality is also surprisingly very good. The laptop feels really rock solid and not flimsy at all.

Another thing I was glad about - and I never thought I would EVER say this. But I had the most pleasant Best Buy buying experience. It was also quick & easy. No rebate hassles. And minimal pressure to buy add-ons. I think the sales guy sized me up from the get go. I stated exactly what I wanted and he timidly asked me if I wanted any accessories or security software but I politely but firmly said "Just the laptop please." He didn't bother asking me if I wanted the extended warranty. Thank goodness.