Reisunorg

I recently switched to Cingular/AT&T so I could get the Cingular 3125 (HTC Star Trek) phone. I really like clam shell designs, as I dont have to worry about accidentally turning on something as with candy bar designs. However, in the short four months I have managed to beat up the 3125 a lot, and the battery cover keeps coming off at the most inopportune moments.

So, I am looking for another Windows Mobile smartphone, and since I am stuck with AT&T for another year and a half, I have decided I want either of the following:

• HTC S730 The second version of the S710 (see below), it is a dual keypad/sliding keyboard design. Upgrades include WM6, HSPDA (3G) and a faster processor, but with the same capacity battery (1050mAH), battery life should be lower.
• HTC S710 The original dual input device smartphone. WM5 and a 200Mhz processor. There has been a lot of discussion about the microphone dropping out after a few weeks of use, which has me concerned. 

In the meantime the 3125 is still working, so I will wait until reviews for the S730 come out before making a purchase.

An update on my Stepnote. On the whole I’ve been pretty happy with this cheap laptop. I have XP installed on this, over the original Vista. I bought an XP SP2 upgrade CD and it installed fine. I have since heard about “slipstreaming” SP2 on a non-SP2 XP install CD. More details here: http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/winxp-sp2-bootcd.html

I wish I had found out about this before I bought the upgrade CD!

Well it looks like I have to look into linux on my new Stepnote. I tried installing XP on it, and it hung too, this time on pci.sys. I tried installing windows 2000 first and then xp, but no go. I may purchase another (newer) XP version that comes with SP2, but not willing to pay for it without knowing it will work.

 In the meantime I will try linux on this thing, specifically ubuntu. Ubuntu has the problem i mentioned before, about the PIO/MMIO mode for the Realtex ethernet chip. I found this site that gives a distribution of ubuntu that doesnt have this problem (it fixes the sdhc driver problem as well). It is nominally for another laptop, but I believe this will work.

http://www.fitzenreiter.de/averatec/index-e.htm

More on this once I get this installed.

The Dell Latitude X1 laptop that I have been using for the past two and a half years has slowly deteriorated, in that the LCD screen is starting to wash out, and no matter of twisting is correcting the problem. This laptop was bought by my employer, and since the workplace is switching over entirely to a corporate network system (details left out to protect those guilty of this fraud, waste, and abuse), I am left with either using the corporate laptop, which is locked down too tight, or buying my own.

 Bestbuy had the Everex Stepnote SA2053T on sale for $679. Here are the specs:

• Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core mobile processor T2080 with 533MHz frontside bus, 1MB L2 cache and 1.73GHz processor speed
• 1GB PC4200 DDR2 SDRAM
• Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with double-layer support
• 12.1″ WXGA TFT-LCD widescreen display with DiamondBrite technology and 1280 x 800 resolution
• 100GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm)
• Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with up to 224MB shared video memory
• 4-in-1 media reader supports Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick and Memory Stick PRO
• IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interface and 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports
• Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g); 10/100 Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connector; V.92 high-speed modem
• Weighs only 3.9 lbs. and measures just 1.4″ thin for lightweight portability; lithium-ion battery and AC adapter
• Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition operating system preinstalled

All in all, except for the Vi$ta install, not a bad system. Note breathtakingly fast, but for $679 it’s a pretty good deal. After spending a few hours with it, some observations

• The lack of expandability (>1Gig RAM) isn’t too bad so far.
• I thought I could install Linux on this, but apparently the network chip on this thing is incompatible with the boot up mode that current Linux distros use (MMIO vs. PIO). I could download an older distro, compile a new kernel with the proper mode, then upgrade, but this sounds like a lot more work than it is worth. I have to wonder with everyone saying how great Linux is, how such troubles exist when even the almost universally hated (by geeks) Windows Vista has managed to boot up without hanging because of an interface mode.
• I have configured the Vista interface to mimic an XP one, and I am pretty happy for now. Granted, I havent installed any major applications yet, but for now I’ll keep the Vista installed.
• 3.9 lbs sounds light, but the Dell X-1 was lighter. I went to Staples to buy a computer case with roller, to save my back, which coincidentally started to hurt last night.
• Having a DVD player builtin (which the X-1 doesnt have) is really nice.
• The screen is too shiny, I can usually see my ugly mug when I stare at the screen head on, mostly when viewing DVD’s.

All in all I am pretty happy with my purchase, it has been a while since I bought my own laptop. Not really a game machine (other than the ones I buy at Matrixgames.com) but sufficient for Office, text editing, web surfing, and some light programming.

I will be going to Japan in September, and will take this with me.