Disclaimer: NO I haven’t done a clean install, no 3DMark tests here, I’m doing that this summer, life allowing.
WAYS…
I know it’s only been a month (if that) but here’ s some quick hits. Or more accurately, “misses”. But no worries, they are minor.
Keyboard:
-The smaller keys continue to feel wiggly and sound weak. I type a lot, and the HP never gave me pause. These still do. Additionally, there’s more gap b/t keys than I’d like, and chics with long nails might get them caught on rare occassions.
- Copper colored number keys = still hard to see in low-light. Using qwerty #s for in-game shortcuts is a bitch.
-Left function key where ctrl should be. Again, an in-game annoyance.
Web-cam:
-Stil finicky as hell. I have a $10 web cam that is less picky.
- Cam doesn’t work with yahoo messenger 8. Gateway already has a page for this in their support section.
Monitor:
- Crappy viewing angles. I knew this going in, it’s well documented elsewhere, but after looking at my friend’s HP 15.4″ I was irked all over again. Really atrocious given the price point. On par w/ lappy from 3 years ago. Note: I’m picky, maybe most won’t care.
I could try to spin this as a positive. Crappy viewing angles = free privacy screen!
But I won’t.
Processor/mem (non-game):
- I have seen some lag w/ CS3 Browse (drawing thumbnails, sometimes not properly drawing portions of screen). Note: latter bugginess might be software-issue. If you want to know how it fares in games, see the “Hits” section.
Gloss:
- It’s sexy as hell for the first day, then after couple decent gaming seshes you go OCD cleaning off all the hand/finger grease. I dunno, maybe it’s a girl thing, but it bugs.
Size:
- No joke. 17″ is a big mofo. Not a crit against this lappy, per se– if anything it is much more slim and sleek than my friend’s 17″ XPS. More a warning. Your in-store bag choices at the moment are few. You’ll sometimes side-eye those teeny ultra-portable 14.1″. But the vid card needs the space, so deal with it.
Best Buy:
-Okay, this is not specifically against this lappy model, just me firing a bootless cry to heaven over the fact that Best Buy recently rolled out a slightly better configged lappy & free game for the same price. Damn. You.
* * *
So endeth the bitch session. On the positive/hits side:
Size (again):
17″ is great for doing layout, even with *just* 1440×900. It’s almost the same as my current crt, so I’m quite comfortable with it.
8800 (games):
It runs the games I’ve thrown at it wonderfully. Test drove Team Fortress 2 with no probs, UT3 deathmatches with everything maxed, and the not-at-all-vid-card-intensive-but-fun Audiosurf looks hypnotically gorge.
Against the holy-grail of Crysis: it CHOKES on the opening in-flight sequence with everything maxed– frame rates drop to ~10fps, sync is off, etc.
However, backing up to all medium settings looks fine: smooth framerates, white-caps on water, dense foliage, etc. I’m sure fine-tuning the settings will eke out an even better balance of detail/performance. What would also help is popping a damn t9300 in here some sweet day.
But ITMT, with my casual gaming/design workload this rig suits me fine so far. The workaround for the viewing angle is to double-check my work on a calibrated crt that I trust.
That’s the haps. I’ll check in next month, if anything a-splodes.
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May 10, 2008 at 3:18 am
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