Whats up with Hatim!

more pics here

A friend of mine who was coming to Pakistan from USA for vacation was kind enough to order an Acer Aspire 7720-6604 laptop from newegg.com. I have previously used newegg.com and like their service. Initially I had waited for the launch of Apple Mac Book Pro with Penryn processors, but after the launch I was not very impressed with the specs. It was same MacBook Pro with a little better processor. I searched for the first few laptops and decided to buy this Acer machine for my self.

This laptop comes with Windows Vista Ultimate and an HDMI connector, but it does not come with a BlueRay. I am suspecting that with the recent new of impending demise of HD-DVD, upcoming high end Acer laptops will come with BlueRay as an option.

Overall I am satisfied with this laptop. It has a nice exterrior and an OK interior. Its finish is not as bad as it looks in the pictures. The real deal is in the specs. It has whooping 3 gig of RAM. I have nver worked on a machine with this much RAM before so it would be intresting. It also has 512 MB Geforce 8600 GT graphics card which would be very good for PC gaming. But I am no longer interested in gaming.

Windows Vista comes with trail/crap ware, alot of games from Oberon media with 60 minutes demo. The first thing I did was to uninstall them. They left their shortcuts, which I would delete once I log back to Windows. Windows Vista has neat looks, but Ubuntu's compiz is way much more configurable.

After having few hours with Vitsa, I wasted no time and installed Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy on to my machine. Apprently the 64-bit version of live CD was not able to work properly so I selleted for 32-bit one. Every thing worked fine except for sound driver. The sound card in this particular is based in intel high definition audio. I tried few Ubuntu recipies here and there, but I guess the real problem was that snd-hda-intel module had to be loaded with correct parameter, which was essentially one small line at the end of /etc/modeprobe.d/alsa-base

options snd-hda-intel model=acer

I chose for Ubuntu (and not Kubuntu) because of its better integration options (in terms of compiz and multimedia). I plan to make a Gentoo machine out of this laptop, but frankly Ubuntu fulfills most of my needs.

As for the bads of this laptop, I really don't like its keyboard. Perhaps it is because I am used to keyboard of previous laptop. Also this laptop get heated to some extent. I always thought that upcoming chips would probably produce less heat as they consume lesser power, but it is almost the same. I would recommend and one who has a need for a serious devlopment machine to get this laptop. I actually got it for a very good price (1368.51 US$, or around 83000 Pak Rupess at the time). Hopefully this laptop would be a good investment.

I have finally decided with a heavy heart that I won't be buying a MacBook Pro (at least this year) even after the rumors came true and new MacBook pro was released last Tuesday. The primary reason for dumping Mac is price. What ever strings I am trying to pull I will not be able to make a purchase of a new MacBook Pro nearly less enough from its retail 2000$ price. The education discount version comes at a price of 1799$ and that too without a remote control (which is sad as that costs an extra 19$). The only major reason for me to buy a Mac Book Pro was to be able to work on MacOS X leapord, but then I realized that this was not being true to my slef as an open source software developer. Following is a run down of why I am not going for Apple's MacBook Pro.

• It's too expensive. It's not like they put some really cool hardware in it. Infact the model of Acer has more RAM and Harddrive, things which I would require from my portable machine. Also the screen size of MacBook which I was planning to get is some what smaller than screen size of Acer. For programming a bigger screen szie would be helpful.
• I am an open source developer and the OS which is focus of my attention is Linux (I also some times play with open solaris and freebsd). With this laptop I will have a retail version of Windows Vista Ultimate which I can boot just to check how my programs fare on the other side of the force. I could theoretically install Mac OSX onto my Acer, but that would be against the EULA of Apple.
• Laptops dont necessarily die if you use them properly. Although apple computers age better I don't intend to keep my newest laptop for more than two years. So a sturdy Apple Care protected laptop won't do me much good.
• I was expecting that Apple would be releasing a BlueRay based MacBook Pro, but this didn't happen. I am not planning to play alot of movies any way on my laptop. Besides with the money I save I can buy a SonyPlaystation 3.

I have already ordered the Acer Aspire from newegg.com. I will get hold of in second week of March (hopefully). Following are the specs of the said laptop.

Model
Brand Acer
Series Aspire
Model AS7720-6604
Part# LX.ANS0U.011
General
Operating System Windows Vista Ultimate
CPU Type Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 2.1G
Screen 17" WXGA+
Memory Size 3GB DDR2
Hard Disk 320GB
Optical Drive DVD Super Multi
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Video Memory 512MB
Communication Modem, Gigabit LAN and WLAN
Card slot 1 x ExpressCard/54 slot
Dimensions 15.9" x 11.7" x 1.5-1.7"
Weight 8.1 lbs.
CPU
CPU Type Intel Core 2 Duo
CPU Speed T8100(2.10GHz)
CPU FSB 800MHz
CPU L2 Cache 3MB
Chipset
Chipset Intel PM965
Display
Screen Size 17.0"
Wide Screen Support Yes
LCD Features Acer CrystalBrite Technology
Display Type Wide XGA+
Resolution 1440 x 900
Operating Systems
Operating System Windows Vista Ultimate
Graphics
GPU/VPU NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Video Memory up to 1280 MB of TurboCache (512 MB of dedicated GDDR2 VRAM, up to 768 MB of shared system memory)
Graphic Type Dedicated Card
Hard Drive
HD Capacity 320GB
HD RPM 5400rpm
HD Interface SATA
Memory
Memory Slots 2 x DIMM
Memory Speed DDR2 667
Memory Size 3GB
Optical Drive
Optical Drive Type DVD Super Multi
Optical Drive Interface Integrated
Communications
Modem V.92 56K
LAN 10/100/1000Mbps
WLAN 802.11a/b/g/draft N
Ports
Card Slot 1 x ExpressCard/54 slot
USB 4
IEEE 1394 1
Video Port 1 x VGA, 1 x DVI, 1 x S-Video TV-out
Other port CIR (consumer infrared)
Audio Ports headphones/speakers/line-out with SPDIF support
microphone
line-in
Audio
Audio High Definition Audio support, Dolby Home Theater
Speaker 2 surround sound speakers + 1 subwoofer
Input Device
Touchpad Yes
Keyboard Standard
Supplemental Drive
Card Reader 5-in-1 card reader for optional MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO or xD-Picture Card
Webcam Yes
Power
AC Adapter 90-watt AC adapter
Battery 8-cell lithium ion
Physical spec
Dimensions 15.9" x 11.7" x 1.5-1.7"
Weight 8.1 lbs.
Manufacturer Warranty
Parts 1 year limited
Labor 1 year limited

Previously I had posted that I am looking into buying a MacBook Pro for my self. I thought that updated MBPs would be available by the end of Feburary. But so far there only have been rumors about an update. I am thinking of skipping to buy a Mac this time and go cheaper with Acer. The reasons are simple, its cheaper, it has all the things which I really need most important of all its available. With BlueRay gone from the scene, it probably makes sense to get a laptop with BlueRay player. But I am thinking of buying me self a Playstation 3. I will be asking a friend who works in USA to order a the said laptop from newegg.com and bring it along in hist next trip to PK which is next month. All of this provided that Apple does not release a new version of MacBook Pro in coming few days. It is possible that Apple releases the new laptop but it is not readily available for my friend to buy. Now that would be a shame.