Law Technology

New Laptop Toshiba Portege R500

I finally broke down and got a new laptop. For those who are long time readers, they know I’ve been searching for a laptop for awhile.

I dearly loved my Japanese Panasonic Y2 but after three and a half years, it was time for an upgrade. After the third system failure in nine months, it really was time to get a new one. About 6 months ago, when the laptop went down, I was going to get a new laptop, but they got the Panasonic up and running and I put the new laptop purchase off. A month ago, the Panasonic’s hard drive completely and totally went out again and it was time to upgrade. Here’s what I have on the Toshiba Portege R500:

• Ultra-light – 1.72 pounds
• Ultra-thin – .77 inches thick
• Solid State Hard Drive – 64 gigabyte solid state drive
• Windows XP – Some non-Vista operating system love.
• Full size keyboard – I will have to double check, I think, there is a silght reduction in the size of keyboard (1mm – 2mm reduction), but it is a very nice full size keyboard that doesn’t take time to re-train your fingers to deal with.
• 12.1” Wide screen monitor – I’m nearly 44 years old and my eysesight isn’t what it once was (macular degeneration). I was a bit concerned about bumping down from a 14.1” monitor to a 12.1” wide screen monitor. My previous laptop before the Panasonic was a 12” laptop and I really think that’s too small. The new Toshiba has a widescreen which means it is actually the same size width way as the 14.1” monitor, but it is just not as long.
• Great LED display – Very crips display. Very nice look. It has an outdoor button to turn the backlighting off. The sunlight then bounces off the screen and brightens it. It actually does work. Neat stuff.
• Lots of Ports – 3 USB ports, 1 PC Card port, VGA out, SD card slot, firewire.
• Removeable battery – You can get a second battery for travelling, or a larger battery for when you want to be away from a power supply for an extended period of time.

So far, I’ve loaded up the software and am loving it. I’ll let you know more as I go along.

Full post as published by South Carolina Trial Law Blog on March 26, 2008 (boomark / email).