jhaung

My New Year's resolution was to quit smoking. I failed to keep this resolution at about 45minutes into 2007.

Come to think of it, I wasn't hit too badly by that ad campaign. In fact I was actually shopping for the Sony TX series notebooks but it was running on Celerons, I didn't want to give up on performance for size. To be honest, this quick play media function hasn't once been used on my laptop since its purchase 2.5 months ago. I also have a remote control that I don't use. Guess I'm not using this notebook at its fullest potential.

Just thought I'd chime in on this subject. To me finding a reliable laptop for both work and place has been a life long task. My first laptop a dell inspiron 7800 gave me so many issues that it totally turned me off from Dell, the support sucked even more. So my next laptop was an Compaq something or other,again had several issues. I'm on my fourth laptop now, the HP Pavilion series, I like it mainly for the built-in camera and what I thought was an avante-garde cpu(Core 2 Duo). The cpu speed leaves much to be desired and the camera is now probably the primary fav in terms of features on this laptop. For work I use a company issued IBM R-series notebook in conjunction with my desktop at work. I think of all the laptops I've had thus far the IBM thinkpad is the only laptop that I can consider reliable(uptime of 8 months w/ AC charger and still ticking).

Things to take into consideration:

1.) Size - I noticed some suggestions in terms of getting a laptop with a smaller size. I am also aspiring to purchase the Sony TX series or the IBM Thinkpad X series laptop. You must take into consideration that although technology is now advancing at a fast speed, laptops under the 14" diag size, deemed "Ultra portables" they will not be able to achieve the speeds you would get from a laptop that's around 14"-15". Additionally, they tend to be more delicate and the keyboards are super cramped.

2.) Quality - I've found that industry tested laptops, such as IBM or Sony have proven their worth in terms of reliability. Its like comparing a Toyota with a Kia or Hyundai.

Ultimately, you will find that a sacrifice must be made. Size will give way to less performance but portability. Quality comes in form of reliability. Don't buy an Avertec(laptops that are under $600USD) and expect it to still be functioning for months at a decent speed.

Key advice: Get a laptop at a price you are comfortable with and make sure that it is insured(Warranty) for its parts. Buying a laptop is like buying anything else in life, everyone has their own opinions on what's the best. Its up to the consumer to make the judgement. I'm just contributing my thoughts on this subject.

Below are two examples I mentioned above with detail:

Dell

haunted mouse cursor - If your thinking its the driver or caliberation, it wasn't. Support first blamed it on drivers which I admit was my first assumption too. Then it was a software that they thought was miscaliberated. Ultimately, the my support contract expired and they refused to work on the issue without charging me $50 per assistance. So make sure you get a good support contract and hardware maintenance.

Compaq

Poor harddrive quality, I suppose this can be blamed on the harddrive manufacturer but I think the Notebook vendor should share some of the blame since they are using a subpar company for their harddrives. The Hitachi drive corrupted after 3 months of use. Contacting support for Compaq now know has HP/Compaq was hellish at best. I was forced to explain the issue several times to their India team and none of them spoke coherent English for me to understand what and when they intended to replace the drive. Ultimately took 2 weeks for me to receive the replacement drive. 2 weeks downtime is not acceptable even for a consumer level notebook.

Old wanderer if your flying JAL Business class you'll have the luxury of using their bucket style bed seats. Its very impressive. I was bumped up to Business Class on my return flight from BKK to Narita and slept like a baby in those seats. Only gripe I had and this is probably true with a lot of Asia airlines is that people have the tendency to take off their shoes. Its erks me sometimes when someone is within proximity to me and having his stinky feet crossed and near me. But I digress, JAL Business Class is one of the best experiences I've had a long time. Comparable to Virgin Airlines, they're top notch also minus the slightly older and less attractive stewardesses.

I noticed that JAL wasn't listed as one of the options to vote on and figured I would share my impression of this Airline.

JAL stewardesses were very pretty, and also very accomodating. I took my first trip to Bangkok a few months ago and took a JAL flight to Narita(exceptional airport, very nice with great bars, smoking lounges and excellent little shops for tourists to buy snacks and electronics) and transfered flight from Narita to Bangkok. I noticed that most of the stewardesses spoke broken english but for my flight from NY to Japan I was surprised to see some speak very fluent Thai. Of course from Narita to Bangkok most stewardesses were Thai. Seats were semi-comfortable and though it was packed flying internationally, I didn't feel nearly as claustraphobic as I would on AA(American Airline). Though I don't tend to drink much on flights, I decided to order a few beers to pass time and get a good enough buzz to sleep through most of the flight, I was told that AA charged for liquors and drinks but not JAL. Are alcoholic beverages compt'ed on most asian airlines?

Just thought I'd share my $0.02 on this subject.

Thanks for the welcome guys,

nice. Is that the new HP?

Yes, Its an HP Pavilion dv2130us

If your thinking about getting one, don't. Although it's suppose to be Core 2 Duo it feels like my old PIII. I only went with HP because of the size and camera on this laptop, everything else kind of sucks. Specs are low as was the price

New to the forum, Just contributing. Here's my laptop photo taken from work.

Where can I get hold of this excellent brew in Bangkok?

I don't think I've had the pleasure of trying Dark Beerlao, or if there's any difference from regular Beerlao. I know they serve'em at the Mango Bar in Nana Plaza. You can locate it by doing a google search. In fact Beerlao beer is on their front page. Hope this helps!