With my old trusty laptop breaking down, that meant no torrent downloads, no chikka messenger service, no posting on the blog, no chatting, no skype-calling and no internet surfing. The laptop is not that really old. We bought it in Saudi on December 2003. It's a Packard-Bell configured with a P4 2.8 desktop processor, 512mb RAM and 64 mb built-in graphics accelarator, all for SR6250. Remember that it was 2003 then so prices were relatively high although the processing speed was quite good for my graphics need. I've captured and edited our videos, did development work, made my presentations, used Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator with it. As for it's weight, well, Mavis never did like chugging it around as it is almost 10 pounds and becomes a 20 lbs. monster the longer you carry it. It was a laptop which had been in great service and never really gave me any problems till last week.
Mavis and I decided to get a desktop instead of another laptop as with the almost 24/7 "need" to be online, a desktop would be best fit to assume that role as well as it would be faster than any laptop there is in the market without crashing your bank account. We went to Jarir to look at the ready-configured branded machines. We also went to the Sofitel Area to get quotations for your own configured machine. Of course, a higher priced- branded machine is more trusty in terms of stabiliy of the peripherals, good quality control and you get good service (that's what we're supposed to think) while a purpose-built machine is cheaper and you get a better configuration at that. I chose to get the "Sofitel" branded machine...he he he. Yup, cheaper(?) yet faster one.
Here's the configuration:
Processor: Intel 3.0 ghz Dual Core (4 mb Cache)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-81945G Pro
Memory: 1 Ghz DDR2 533
Hard disk: 200Gb SATA (Western Digital)
DVD: Samsung DVD +- R/RW Double layer 16x
Video: Intel Graphics 950 128mb (built-in)
Audio: 7.1 HD audio (built-in)
Network: LAN 100mb/1000mb
Case: Gigabyte with ATX 300W power supply
Front USB and audio connectors
1 Year Warranty
Free: Surge Protection Extension cable
Price = SR2925
Samsung F13n 17" LCD (3 years warranty)- SR 875
Dual Core. 2 processing power in one chip. Twice the amount of data that can be processed in parallel. All this power at a price. the chip alone costs SR1350. Way higher than buying it in the US. Still, you can never get this configuration from branded desktops at this price. I got the beast yesterday and already halfway in installing my programs. I already noticed a great significance in performance.I'm a multi-tasking freak and I usually have about 3-4 Internet Explorer open as well as a Firefox window with 2-3 tabs for surfing, 1 explorer window open, FTP program for my Xbox transfers, Chikka and/or Yahoo messenger, and Azurues downloading in the background. There were some bottlenecks in some instances as along with all these programs running, I was also installing and updating some programs but overall, I think using this machine would be fun for multi-taskers like me. I need to see how fast it is with Photoshop, Illustrator and flash opened at the same time. I'll probably finish setting it up on the weekend.
