Hi all,
After lurking on these forums for several months, I was all set to purchase a 5680 when the opportunity to buy a used Eurocom D500P appeared. The laptop is in near mint condition (minor color wear on wrist pad) and still under warranty. It saved me $1000, and the specs were close enough to what I was originally going to order, so I jumped at the chance:
P4 3.0Ghz w/HT
512 Meg DDR3200 (1 SODIMM)
15" UXGA
ATI 9600 Pro Turbo
60 gig 7200 RPM hard drive
CDRW/DVD Combo Drive
Internal Bluetooth
---------
The laptop was shipped on Thursday 3 day express. Monday during the day, my wife calls me at work to say I got a package - unfortunately it was not the laptop. She likes to bug me like that.
That night, I got home and was in charge of the kids while my wife went out on errands. At around 7pm, I thought I should double-check the mailbox. My wife is short, and sometimes she misses small items (like maybe a card telling me that I missed a package delivery) that are at the very bottom of the mailbox. So I look outside, and there on the front porch is a 2' x 2' box waiting for me.
I tear it open and let it warm up inside (it was -30 outside that evening). After enough time passes, I turn it on.
First impressions were: Incredible screen! I love 1600x1200 on my 19" monitor at work, and was anxious to see how well the resolution translated to a 15" screen. Well, quite frankly, I prefer my 15" lcd to the CRT even at these resolutions - the colors are so much more vibrant and the clarity is way sharper. And no dead/stuck pixels. I guess an advantage of buying used is that there is some burn-in, and you can be sure the quality of screen your getting.
I did a full reformat, a fresh install of XP, all service packs, latest drivers, and all software. I just got an MSDN Universal subscription, so lots to install
I must say, this was the easiest system I've ever built. No problems or errors, and the satisfaction of a totally clean, up-to-date machine. Nothing beats that feeling.
I immediately began using the laptop for work and games. At work, I am now addicted to dual head 1600x1200 screen real estate. Having both screens up does improve my productivity a lot, and the envy factor at work is enormous!
Recently, I had to build some software that needed to run on clients at 1024x768. Having my crt at 1024x768 for testing and my main LCD for development is a godsend! I used to dread working on my laptop without an external CRT because I could only run 1024x768. Now I feel helpless at just 1600x1200. Well, not helpless, but you get the idea.
Having a 7200 rpm hard drive is all I dreamt it would be. After waiting close to a minute for my old Toshiba to come out of hibernation mode, it's a pleasant surprise to bring my D500P out in about 10 seconds! For a full restart, it will take about a full minute from the time I click Restart to when I'm back at the desktop again. Really nice!
I'm not a huge gamer, but I did want to try a few games to push the card a little. Tiger Woods 2004 runs almost as smooth as my home desktop (w/ ATI 9700 Pro) - certainly not noticeably different. I've also run Morrowind at max settings, and it's beautiful to see. For a more modern action game, I tried out the Halo PC demo. Had to cut back to 800x600 for smooth framerates over the entire demo, though it's playable at higher resolutions. Didn't try running the demo after loading the new Catalyst 4.1s, or after updating the bios to increase the clock speeds on the video card. I did run 3dmark2003 after those changes, and saw an immediate jump of around 80 points to around the 2950 range. Nice!
The only cons are the obvious ones:
1) Fans are on more often than my old Tosh (and they are louder too - though not significantly). I place a little piece of wood under the rear feet to give a little more clearance for the intakes, and that reduced the amount of time the fans are on. Looking at getting a cooler or at least a lapdesk so I can work when I'm not at a desk or table.
2) Battery clocked in at just under an hour. Of course, the only time I have been on battery for more than 10 minutes since I got the laptop was when I wanted to test the battery life. Figures!
3) Weight - not something I'd want to carry around (while on) with one hand for more than 30 seconds or so. But I have a decent laptop backpack so long distance walking isn't a problem.
I've been trying to convince our company's IT director to consider these laptops. No luck - I guess our deal with Toshiba is a pretty good one, and their service building is just down the road form us. Rats!
Overall, I'm extremely happy with the laptop. I'd like another 512meg stick and an internal wireless card, but these aren't immediate needs. I don't notice having only 512meg at all - probably means I don't need the full gig, though I would like to run in dual channel mode and also have bragging rights over my colleages
As for the internal wireless, I have a wireless PCMCIA card, so that works well enough.
My router is a DLink AirPlus which can run at up to 22mbps with DLink cards. I've heard the DLink 520+ PCI card is just a PCI card with a minipci card bolted on. I'll have to check that out.
Ok, I'm babbling now, but I don't really care. It's been over a month since my laptop has arrived, and I'm still very much infatuated with it
. Gee, Valentine's day is almost here. What do I do???
Anyways, thanks for letting me spout a bit here. These forums have been a great resource!
-Peter
After lurking on these forums for several months, I was all set to purchase a 5680 when the opportunity to buy a used Eurocom D500P appeared. The laptop is in near mint condition (minor color wear on wrist pad) and still under warranty. It saved me $1000, and the specs were close enough to what I was originally going to order, so I jumped at the chance:
P4 3.0Ghz w/HT
512 Meg DDR3200 (1 SODIMM)
15" UXGA
ATI 9600 Pro Turbo
60 gig 7200 RPM hard drive
CDRW/DVD Combo Drive
Internal Bluetooth
---------
The laptop was shipped on Thursday 3 day express. Monday during the day, my wife calls me at work to say I got a package - unfortunately it was not the laptop. She likes to bug me like that.
That night, I got home and was in charge of the kids while my wife went out on errands. At around 7pm, I thought I should double-check the mailbox. My wife is short, and sometimes she misses small items (like maybe a card telling me that I missed a package delivery) that are at the very bottom of the mailbox. So I look outside, and there on the front porch is a 2' x 2' box waiting for me.
I tear it open and let it warm up inside (it was -30 outside that evening). After enough time passes, I turn it on.
First impressions were: Incredible screen! I love 1600x1200 on my 19" monitor at work, and was anxious to see how well the resolution translated to a 15" screen. Well, quite frankly, I prefer my 15" lcd to the CRT even at these resolutions - the colors are so much more vibrant and the clarity is way sharper. And no dead/stuck pixels. I guess an advantage of buying used is that there is some burn-in, and you can be sure the quality of screen your getting.
I did a full reformat, a fresh install of XP, all service packs, latest drivers, and all software. I just got an MSDN Universal subscription, so lots to install
I must say, this was the easiest system I've ever built. No problems or errors, and the satisfaction of a totally clean, up-to-date machine. Nothing beats that feeling.I immediately began using the laptop for work and games. At work, I am now addicted to dual head 1600x1200 screen real estate. Having both screens up does improve my productivity a lot, and the envy factor at work is enormous!
Recently, I had to build some software that needed to run on clients at 1024x768. Having my crt at 1024x768 for testing and my main LCD for development is a godsend! I used to dread working on my laptop without an external CRT because I could only run 1024x768. Now I feel helpless at just 1600x1200. Well, not helpless, but you get the idea.Having a 7200 rpm hard drive is all I dreamt it would be. After waiting close to a minute for my old Toshiba to come out of hibernation mode, it's a pleasant surprise to bring my D500P out in about 10 seconds! For a full restart, it will take about a full minute from the time I click Restart to when I'm back at the desktop again. Really nice!
I'm not a huge gamer, but I did want to try a few games to push the card a little. Tiger Woods 2004 runs almost as smooth as my home desktop (w/ ATI 9700 Pro) - certainly not noticeably different. I've also run Morrowind at max settings, and it's beautiful to see. For a more modern action game, I tried out the Halo PC demo. Had to cut back to 800x600 for smooth framerates over the entire demo, though it's playable at higher resolutions. Didn't try running the demo after loading the new Catalyst 4.1s, or after updating the bios to increase the clock speeds on the video card. I did run 3dmark2003 after those changes, and saw an immediate jump of around 80 points to around the 2950 range. Nice!
The only cons are the obvious ones:
1) Fans are on more often than my old Tosh (and they are louder too - though not significantly). I place a little piece of wood under the rear feet to give a little more clearance for the intakes, and that reduced the amount of time the fans are on. Looking at getting a cooler or at least a lapdesk so I can work when I'm not at a desk or table.
2) Battery clocked in at just under an hour. Of course, the only time I have been on battery for more than 10 minutes since I got the laptop was when I wanted to test the battery life. Figures!
3) Weight - not something I'd want to carry around (while on) with one hand for more than 30 seconds or so. But I have a decent laptop backpack so long distance walking isn't a problem.
I've been trying to convince our company's IT director to consider these laptops. No luck - I guess our deal with Toshiba is a pretty good one, and their service building is just down the road form us. Rats!
Overall, I'm extremely happy with the laptop. I'd like another 512meg stick and an internal wireless card, but these aren't immediate needs. I don't notice having only 512meg at all - probably means I don't need the full gig, though I would like to run in dual channel mode and also have bragging rights over my colleages
As for the internal wireless, I have a wireless PCMCIA card, so that works well enough.My router is a DLink AirPlus which can run at up to 22mbps with DLink cards. I've heard the DLink 520+ PCI card is just a PCI card with a minipci card bolted on. I'll have to check that out.
Ok, I'm babbling now, but I don't really care. It's been over a month since my laptop has arrived, and I'm still very much infatuated with it
. Gee, Valentine's day is almost here. What do I do???Anyways, thanks for letting me spout a bit here. These forums have been a great resource!
-Peter
