Heaven dropped some manna
Jun 13th, 2007 by Peter
Some time ago, my parents decided to throw all of us kids a bone (I have 3 brothers). My parents are in their 70’s and as they say: “We have all that we could wish for, so why not give you kids some money while we still can enjoy seeing you spend them”.
Talk doesn’t do it alone so out of the blue a check followed. Thanks Mom and Dad!
Besides knowing that our coming trip to China will now not be eating away on an already empty bank account, it also gave me us an opportunity to buy invest a new useful toy tool for our trip.
Monday a brand new laptop arrived with the mailman. It’s not the newest or the best outfitted, but certainly not the worst I could find. Normally I would have picked one 3.000kr more expensive, but had to make a compromise between expenses and greed. Sense won, and I ended out spending less than I had expected. I even believe I made a real bargain only having to spend 5.000DKR (approx. 900US$) for it, which is round 1.000DKR lower than I could find it in other shops. Even for the price the hardware specs seem decent too. Comparable laptops are at least 1.000-1.500DKR more, so in that regard I am satisfied. I know that for that price the quality can’t be expected to be top-notch, but that’s what I wanted to spend. Initially I was ready to post out 6000DKR, so finding one this cheap seems like a good deal so far.
The 3 downsides to it are that it only has 2 USB2 ports, short battery time and a mediocre quality screen. Fortunately I was prepared for all of those things after reading some reviews on the net and they didn’t scare me.
Anyway – the laptop I bought is a Toshiba Satellite L30-105. I would normally not go for Toshiba, but the price convinced me to try, as did a guy with same machine who praised it when I contacted him.
I never thought I should own a laptop, but now I do. Somehow it now seems like a wise decision for our coming trip to China, but it you asked me 4 months ago, I wouldn’t have thought so. Without it, I would have had some challenges updating this blog, and emptying memory cards for our cameras. With the laptop I can now write on my blog anywhere, use english spell-checker, use Danish characters, edit pictures in Photoshop and upload everything when I see a loose net cord (or get access to a wireless network). Also I should be able to logon to both my work’s Citrix system (if I’m THAT bored) and check bank accounts (if these ports are available from China, but I’ll just have to wait and see). C’s sister has a computer-school and there should be plenty of chances to plug-in there.
Btw: does anyone know if I can use Skype from the Harbin area or are all ports blocked in all of China?
For now I’m testing and putting stuff on it, but so far it hasn’t disappointed me. Only the pre-installed Windows Vista bugs me, but even though its a memory hog, I still getting the chance to fiddle a bit with it. I’m must admit that I am a bit surprised that the it’s speed is acceptable, and eye-candy always make nerds like me tick. For now WinXP is on hold.
The specs are:
- Toshiba Satellite L30-105
Mainboard: ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M / 533 MHz
Chipset: ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M Front Side Bus (FSB) Speed: 533 MHz
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core 1.6 GHZ T2060
RAM: 1 GB DDR II SDRAM 533 MHz (Max. Memory size: 2 GB)
Display (Projector): 15.4″ / 1280 x 800 / TFT active matrix
Hard disk: 80GB 5400 rpm Serial ATA-150
Graphics processor: ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic
Keyboard / Touchpad
2 x USB 2.0 / 1 x VGA Modem RJ-11: 1
Network: RJ-45: 1 Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX
Hi-Speed USB 4-PIN USB type A: 2
Video15-pin HD D-Sub (HD-15): 1
1 x CardBus
56 Kbps Fax/modem / ITU V.92
Ethernet / Fast Ethernet / IEEE 802.11b / IEEE 802.11g
Wireless protocol: 802.11b/g
1 DVD±RW
Battery: 1.5 hour® / Litiumion
Dimensions 3.7 cm x 35.8 cm x 26.2 cm / 2.74 Kg
Skype is OK from Dalian. So figure should be OK from Harbin. Skype has been a little slow lately, but I blame that on my connection – the housing block where I live has a shared connection and there is no way around it. I have to use it. So we are like 100 apartments sharing 8 Mbit connection – can be slow on times.
I have been thinking of buying a laptop too for my summer vacation in Denmark – my old Dell is too old (2000) to do anything real good job and it’s too heavy. My main problem is I have no connection in my summehouse and I will spend 95% of my summer there. So no laptop and more money saved.
And as you see – you’re back on from Dalian.
Tnx for all the info. This is much appreciated observations regarding Skype and this blog’s accessability, since both have tremendous effect on my coming vacation to China.
You SHOULD save the money on a laptop. Rumours have it that you have to spend 50.000DKR soon on other stuff ;-)