It was a very tough decision to make. I have always wanted a MacBook and recently made the decision to get one for non work related use. I have a NEC laptop that I use for work but I ain’t gonna replace it just yet. In case you are wondering … yeah I have to PAY FOR MY OWN NOTEBOOK to do work for the company. Duh!
Back to my MacBook dream. So I went around checking out the prices and specifications for one but … but … I ended up buying a normal Windows-based notebook from ASUS. Why? Despite being super cool (and tempting!), I wanted better specifications. For a MacBook with better specification … it could cost me almost S$4000 bucks! That doesn’t really sound very good (unless I strike lottery). So with about half the price of that, I picked up a ASUS U6SG 12″ notebook which was on clearance sale. So it’s goodbye Apple for now. 🙁 With a bright cool 12″ LCD, 4GB RAM, 250GB HDD and a Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T9300 2.5GHz processor … I am sure an Apple equivalent will cost me a bomb.
Despite being a 12″ notebook, the U6SG ain’t too light. Maybe because of the 6-cell battery that I am using. The other thing I don’t really like about it is the palm rest. It is leather covered in dark brown leather … and I hate brown. Haha. Okay, maybe my dirty palms will turn it black very soon.
They gave me a free upgrade to 4GB of RAM. I’ve always stayed away from using Windoze Vista but this time … since it comes with Vista Business edition … I have no choice. Of course I turned off some of those fancy stuffs that Vista boasts about but sucks up resources like crazy (like I do when it comes to beer).
“From afar, U6Sg´s mocha sheen gives off a fashionesque effect that compliments any sophisticated metropolitan. The high-shine cover, Voile, made by a 13-step process shines with underlying shimmering fibers gets its name from the equally delicate luminous fabric”
That’s what the ASUS website says but I don’t quite like the brownish shiny cover. It is a fingerprint magnet!!! I’m gonna get one of those colorful cool laptop skin to cover it up soon. Hehehe.
Yet to put it to full use yet but since it’s a notebook for play (no, not games … I don’t play computer games), I will running applications like Maya and Manga Studio on it. How will it perform? I guess I’ll need some time to play with those software to find out.
Call me vain but I kinda like the fingerprint & face detection login features. Haha. My fat finger sometimes need several attempts for the reader to verify though. Not sure if it’s the reader being too crappy or my finger is screwed.
The ASUS Smart Logon is cool. The webcam will display my fat face everytime I am at the login screen and it will try to figure out if it’s me that’s trying to login. As expected … it takes a little while to do so. Despite being quite fun … I don’t really fancy seeing the video of myself whenever I’m trying to login. For now it’s activated … but maybe later I’ll switch it off. I don’t wanna scare myself when trying to login in the middle of the night.
Specifications on the U6SG can be found here.
The recent week has been crazy. I’ve not been sleeping much since Fitzand has been waking up regularly at night, either for milk or crying. Maybe he has been playing too much and is having dreams too often. Last night, he woke up crying and saying ‘touch the big Pluto! touch the big Pluto!’. Oh my! He must be still in Disneyland in his dream!
Not sure if the bloody domestic helper will come back this Saturday but if she does … that will leave me a little more time to get more rest.
why didnt get mac.. chey..
@ymmij : I could only afford a Big Mac (without fries) 🙁
er…I think MAC is going to launch an economic range of new laptops very soon…..
@Jer : But … it’s not gonna be cheap too. 🙁
oh yah…true, especially when you have the add-on and on and on……..
lol…. BBB!!!! lets mac togeter….
and poor Fitzand,… kids tend to have bad dream and wake up in the middle of the night if they play to much…
@norya : Too bad I can only mac together with you at McDonald’s. 😀
unfortunately lots of people are comparing apple with orange.
4GB RAM on windows NOT = 4GB RAM on apple (because windows apps suck lot of memory)
2.5GHz processor for windows NOT = 2.5GHz processor for apple (because windows required more on processor)
etc… so comparing the 2 with hardware spec is not going to be accurate.
But anyway, since you have gotten the new machine, just be happy! New machine new inspiration? hehehe.
Oh BTW, all this just sharing with your reader, I’m heavy user on laptop (super long hours daily + heavy application), I used Toshiba x 1, Sony x 3 (each cost me more then 3,500 because of the highest specs, work requirement) in the past, but Toshiba = 1.5 years, Sony = 1.3 years in aveg. then it start to slow down my work.
On the other hand, I got my MacBook Pro at 3.1k (refurbish set) and now already 26 months and it still runs smoothly… (because job required, if it slow down means I have to change no matter what).
Just share with you which is cheaper in terms of running cost…
@kahong : Whoa! Cool. Thanks for the info. Yeah I know it’s not right to be comparing them. Haha. Windoze is a bloody resource sucker. I am sure those machines you work on are awesome. Perhaps you can consider formatting and doing a clean install for those ‘old’ Windoze notebooks. Stoopid Windoze will start slowing down after some time. Someday … I’ll definitely still get a MacBook to play with. Hehe. Maybe when you decide to sell your refurbished set at half the price. 😛
eeee
All I can say is…
you don’t need Apple Hardware to run osx and your new Lappie will run it really well.
I just did the same thing myself (I have been a mac user since 1984) and OSX is so much better, but in these tough times I just made an x86 machine and run OSX on it.
here the general info you need to do this:
OSX86 project wiki:
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/
Forum discussion about your laptop:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=124968
DO it, you will feel good running osx.
This was written on a DIY hackingtosh pro, core2quad Q6600, 8gb ram, 2 tb of drives, nVidia 8800GTS, which cost me $700 to make…
yeah.
(running OSX10.5.6, Ubuntu Linux, winXP and Solaris natively.)
@seabasstin : Thanks for the info. Yeah I did check out osx86 info but have yet to try it. Tried installing IDENEB but faced some problem where after installing … the OSX hangs at the grey apple logo while booting. Contacted some guys in the forum and was told that I might need to flash my BIOS for it to work. Duh. That’s pretty scary because I heard that someone grilled his laptop when the BIOS screwed up during the flashing.
I am still lurking around the community trying to find out more information before giving it another go. Thanks for the info. Appreciate it. I’d love to have OSX running on my laptop while being able to dual boot with Windoze. I have many applications that (sadly) need to run on Windoze. Haha.