Bigger is better, or so they tell me

These are the boxes that my new laptop arrived in the other day. I had some brief moments of worry, thinking that they may have sent me a massive desktop machine instead of the notebook I'd ordered. And as for the box of 'accessories'... well now... my idea of surge protection is an unpgraded bettery charger. The suppliers idea of surge protection is a 4 way plug adapter. What the hell?

I also found out that no matter how funkily customisable the touch pad may be, it's still a complete arse to use. My old notebook (Sony Vaio PCG - C1VE) used a pressure 'nipple' in the middle of the keyboard, which I thought was a far better pointing device. Still, it's nothing a quick trip to the shop couldn't sort out. I now use a optical mouse when I'm at home.

And the machine itself. I've put this puppy through all the tests I can think of and it hasn't let me down once. My only complaint is that my old machine had marginally better battery life. But then again... I think the new XP2600+ processor probably chews some more juice than the old 600Mhz Pentium 3 that was in the Vaio.