Tonight I went to the local Fry's and bought Megan a new laptop. We had been down there before and I knew she wanted the HP dv1000. They had two models in stock, the 512MB 1.6Ghz version and a 512MB 1.7Ghz model that was refurbished. I've never bought refurb before, but at $200 less that the slower machine, I felt I should give it a shot. The sales droid at Fry's was a bit of a jerk - he really strong armed me to try and get the extended warrenty. I've been using laptops for a long time, and yet to be in a situation where I'd want an extended warrenty. *And* the warrenty cost 20% the price of the laptop. ugh.

Oh, and the sales guy told me the laptop came with 1 512MB stick, so I bought a second. Of course it actually came with 2 256MB sticks, so now I have to go and return the memory or buy more or... ugh.

Anyway, we've had the machine for less than 3 hours now, but so far it seems nice. The physical build quality of the machine is adaquate. The keys clack a little bit, the lid doesn't quite close firmly, and the body has a lot of flex in it. However, the industrial design is nice, it's light, and the screen looks very nice.

The amount of pre-installed software is very reasonable, especially compared with the Toshiba M4's kitchen sink approach. The dv1000 boots with only about 191MB allocated, which is nice.

Anyway, Megan seems to like the machine, should be interesting to see how it holds up.

 

Oh, and as a side note, the Intel 915GM is DX9 capable, but i'm guessing won't be able to run glass in Vista...