Bought a Dell M1330!

Since 1996 the computer I’ve worked has been notebook sized. I have always loved the portability of notebook computers although their weight hasn’t exactly cooperated with my desire for portability.

1996 – 2001 I owned a Micron notebook which weighed about 8 pounds, about as much as my son when he was born.

2001 – 2004 I owned a Sony Vaio ultralight which was a tiny little thing that weighed around four pounds. I loved the Vaio not only because it was so light; it was also small in dimensions and very stylish with a grey metallic powder coat and lavender trim.

Eventually, however, the Vaio’s processing speed and limited hard drive (3 Gigs) began showing its age. In addition, the battery no longer kept a charge and the powder coat on the bottom right side of the key pad began to blister and peel.

Although I loved the Vaio, I was disenchanted with the tradeoff between portability and performance so I tried buying a ultralight from Dell. At the time their smallest, lightest computer was the Inspiron 300m. First thing was the size. Even though it was relatively small and light it still dwarfed the Vaio and was considerably heavier. Problem #2 was the flimsy keyboard. Every time I traveled with the 300m individual keys would loosen and I’d have to push them back into place.

Eventually a couple keys just fell off and couldn’t be replaced because the underlying metal frame had gotten bent out of shape. Another annoyance was the way the printed legend for the cap lock, number lock, and so forth began rubbing off almost immediately. And of course the “E” on the E key has more or less rubbed off.

In 2006 I began doing more recordings and creating mp3 files and the 30 gig hard drive actually filled up.

So in 2007 now, I was once again faced with the same dilemma as in 2004: do I buy a sexy little Vaio or a different brand. In addition to the Vaio, I also looked very seriously at Lenova’s ultralight thinkpad. It turned out that Dell had just announced a new ultralight, the XPS m1330 which is not only thin and light but has very high processing speed, 2 gig of memory and a 120 hard drive. So that’s what I ended up buying.

Alas, the m1330’s are new and there is a one-month lead time between ordering and shipping so I anxiously await the new notebook. My waiting is all the more difficult because Microsoft Word 2000 has stopped running. I’m not sure why. Has something to do with a defrag program I bought which probably screwed up a setting on my registry.

Still, I do all my word processing using Microsoft Word. I loaded Word Perfect hoping to use it as a substitute until the new computer arrived but it’s interface is so incredibly different from Word’s that it hasn’t been an easy transition.