New Dell XPS 15 Touch Screen Laptop

The new Dell XPS 15 Touch Screen Laptop might be my next laptop. The touch screen part doesn't affect me in any way as I'm not accustomed to the touch interface via tablet or smartphone. I just need a light, powerful, portable laptop with resolution higher than 1366 x 768. I prefer at least x1024 because I don't like huge icons or text. I make due with it on my ASUS G50VT-X5 because it's a work horse desktop replacement—rated one of the best at it's time of inception about five years ago.

This is a little pricey...like a Mac Book Pro or Air but I'm a long-time Windows user and I don't feel like learning a new operating system or keyboard shortcuts.

We'll have to ponder this decision a little longer...

Stop the insanity!

Please! Please! For the love of God, stop creating laptops/notebooks with number pads!

If someone really, really needs to have a keypad, they can buy a USB/Bluetooth accessory. This is a the ASUS G75VW-TS71 currently being advertised at CircuitCity.com (link while it lasts).

Look at the beautiful real estate on the keyboard of this computer. The important keys (all of them but the number pad) could be centered as well as the touch pad to the screen versus askew to the left. I mean how many desktop users do you know that like to have their movable keyboards to slightly to the left or right of their monitors? Very, very few and that's because it's their choice. This notebook keyboard layout is not by the user's choice. Also, if the keyboard was centered, the space on each side could be used for decent quality and sized speakers. Or maybe some biometric fingerprint reader. Or something other than a stupid number pad.

Oh well, if more consumers would complain, maybe they'd change their form factor. Maybe I'm the only one.

RE: Which laptop/notebook/ultrabook to buy?

Since nobody chimed in on my previous post, I waited and pondered a little longer.

I finally came across an informative article that said something like "should I wait to buy a laptop?" I read it and I decided that I should wait.

If the article is correct, the screen resolution hang up that I have will be solved. The article said that the "next generation" screens (bigger than 1366 x 768) and processors (Ivy Bridge) will be coming in the months to follow. It will probably be the best "deals" around August which is what...the "back-to-school" sales. "What about if I'm not going back to school, can I still get the deals?" That was sarcasm.

However, my waiting is not just because of this article. I asked myself the motherly/wifey question we all have heard at least once in our life, "DO YOU REALLY NEED [insert product here]?" My answer is undeniably "No" but do we really need anything!?

My current beast of a laptop, ASUS G50VT-X5, is still working. It's in pretty good shape and I currently am having no issues with it. <<knocks on wood>> Well, other than the secondary hard drive I have installed occasionally makes a noise like it needs oil but that's an additional part not an original to the machine and is easily replaced when needed. It's heavier than I'd like at this time but only because I have been carrying it around a lot. I bring it back and forth to work because I am in an office where I remotely log into my office computer from my laptop. I do this because there is no telling when my boss will decide that I need to return to my cubicle versus an actual office even though he's said he doesn't plan on me having to do so. I don't trust him/them because they always say one thing and do another...like parents! LOL!

Anyway, while typing this between working and not working over the past day, an article at Gizmodo was posted simply stating,

If you're thinking about buying a laptop any time soon, don't. Just don't do it.

So, I think I'm definitely going to wait. Partly because of the specs of machines that are about to come to market but also because I have a few other things that I'd like to do/buy with my money at this time. Especially, since I said that my current computers/laptops are working just fine.

∞
That's all I got to say about that!
 

Dammit! My ASUS G50VT-X5 crashed!

Sunday night I woke about 2 a.m. to a clicking noise. It was consistent and constant.

I walked toward the restroom in our bedroom which requires me to pass by my desk with my notebook. This is where the clicking was coming from...the ASUS notebook. Someone reviewed/photographed it here.

Dammit again!

I purchased this machine from Best Buy roughly a year ago and I was smart enough to get a service agreement on it. I'm not sure if they will replace the hard drive, probably not...more than likely not.

I've spent the past couple of hours trying to restore it to a Hitachi 500 GB notebook drive. It's taking a long time. I've reinstalled it the software twice and have yet to get to a final boot screen or a login screen.

I'm getting frustrated. Pissed off.

That's why I think it might be a Best Buy Geek Squad thing. If it's not taking to the drive as simply as running the install disk, there's got to be something more wrong, right?

Anyway, I've been waiting about 20 minutes now and I am still seeing the green vertical lines scrolling across the bar in the boot up sequence, thinga-majob.

I'm going to throw it...okay, not really but I feel like it.

∞
That's all I got to say about that!
 

Notebooks with number keypad intergrated in the keyboard

I'm so tired of these notebooks with built-on/added-in/integrated number key pads. They are not functional enough.

I can touch-type ten-key. Which is basically the same thing as a number pad on a full-sized keyboard. These are not correctly laid out. So why put them on the notebook if you are going to keep them uniform? Duh!

I don't know the exact model of my "huge" notebook but it's an ASUS. I'm sure I posted about it before/when I got it but it had a built-in number pad. I didn't buy it for that fact but I thought it was an added bonus. I was half right.

I like using the number pad when I am typing a lot of numbers, especially when I'm entering things in Excel for home or even doing work (rarely) at home. On my full-size keyboard number pad, I know where every +, -, /, *, and . is because in my experience all the full-size keyboard number pads have been universally the same.

Not so with the notebook number pad. The period/decimal is in a different place for one. With my checking account register in an Excel file, this is a big disappointment because it really slows me down on multiple-keyed numerical entries from the number pad. It's become a inconvenient convenience.