I got myself a new laptop last week. I’ve never owned a laptop before and it’s taken a little getting used to (I refuse to use that silly mouse pad thingy and instead plug an external USB mouse in.) But at least now I have something to use between my (sometimes very large) gaps between classes.

I’ve also been in bed tied up with the flu, which means that I have a whole week worth of uni to catch up on. Its mid-semester break at the moment, so I at least have the opportunity, It just means that my Silverlight project has to be delayed

My laptop is an Acer Aspire 5520 which has an AMD Turion 2.0 ghz 64×2 cpu with 2GB of RAM a 160GB Harddrive and a Geforce 7000M videocard and Windows Vista Home Premium.

Some observations…

First of all Windows Vista is really cool. I don’t understand why people have been dissing it. (Actually I do, its more than likely the high system requirements) But it runs like a dream with 2GB of ram, multi-tasks extremely well and it looks really pretty.

Secondly the word laptop is a bit of a misnomer, while you can sit in bed and type with it on your lap - It’s just not that comfortable, a desk is still recommended. Also, the thing eats through its battery life faster than cookie monster in a biscuit factory - esp when trying to play games. I try to keep it plugged in as much as possible.

Thirdly, the Geforce 7000M supports graphics shader 3 - Which means that I can play some of the newer games that I’ve missed out on. Being a laptop graphics card its no where near as powerful as its desktop counterpart, but it does the job. I bought a copy of Civ IV Completete Edition to go with my laptop. Hey, theres no point in buying a new toy if you don’t get to see what it can do. Unfortunately theres that whole catching up on missed uni lectures thing that I have to do…