Yeah yeah, call me impatient

A dreadful 10 day wait, but I was welcomed with a surprise last Wednesday as I head over to collect two things:

First, my visa. Phew, not like I’m in a rush or anything but did I hear that it took supposedly *5 working days* to process it? In my case I’m not in a rush, I’m leaving for UK on the 28th which is like...few weeks away. Not in the case of my other friends who are leaving within end of this week though…

Honestly I thought the visa application went fine; though when I first arrive at the office to submit all my documents,...wow. Actually not surprising, I came late around 10am and there were like 30 people ahead of me in the line. There were so many people waiting that the guards had to cram us into the US Visa office which is next door (which was relatively empty)! Waited for dunno how long, probably about an hour or so before I went over to the counter and submitted everything, which took a rather quick 5 mins. Then another agonising wait for my biometrics…Honestly I found it kinda efficient though. All 6 counters were open, perhaps the bottleneck is the biometrics room as there were only two, however taking a photo and scanning your fingerprints didn’t take too long either…

And next. Ok this was a rollercoaster ride…Rather unpleasant experience hopping by Lowyat every few days or so deciding,

But FINALLY, it arrived!

I had to look around different shops, all giving me different bullshit excuses like “oh, we have it in stock”, or “give us two days to order it”…up till 2 weeks! Worse of all, one of the shops I’ve been to has conflicting statements from different staff! In the end I opted to call up the company HQ in Malaysia to direct me to certified vendors just to be on the safe side…

…which took almost 2 weeks for them to get the darn laptop in stock.

Funny thing is, few days after I placed my order, another shop which I left my contact details with gave me a call and told me that they just brought a fresh shipment in of 12 of those laptops! I just gritted my teeth and said “sorry, not interested anymore…”. Darn it! Reason being I placed a customer order with that other shop, so I had to deposit 150 …agh.
The next day, the guy called me up a second time saying now there are only three left in stock. Honestly I’m not too surprised if its true though, everywhere I’ve been doesn’t carry any in stock.

Anyway, lets proceed shall we? And see what got me so anxious waiting for these 10 days

Typical brown packing box:

Contents:













OK not so fast! Here's the carrying case:


























A pic stereotypically speaks a thousand words; this one speaks only one word. Four letters.













And now the main attraction, under the spotlight:













Nice white box, I'm a sucker for clean packaging

Unboxing again...:













...Here we go! In virgin plastic protective sheets:




































Battery goes in:













In all its glory:













The touchpad is a little odd. Has your horizontal and vertical scroll to the bottom and right side; however if you tap the top right corner of it, the touchpad goes backlit in blue; enabling the multimedia functions on it, its possible to suddenly activate it when scrolling through webpages...

Lets start from the top. A 1.3M webcam with vertical swivel (small angle though), quality-wise I found it rather clear...:

























Specs (full details for the geeks!):
-Intel Core2Duo T9400 2.53Ghz, 6Mb L2, 1066MHz FSB
-2+2Gb RAM, 800Mhz
-Nvidia 9600M GS 1GB
-500GB 5400rpm HDD
-15.4" WSXGA+ 1680x1050 res.
-Blu-Ray (Read-only), DVD Combo drive
-1.3M webcam, vertical swivel
-Intel ABGN Wireless, Bluetooth, infrared
-Vista Home Premium 32bit
-2 year Global Warranty

...I went for this solely for gaming performance, initally I opted for the Asus G50, however its not out yet here and I needed a laptop asap.

Now, the keyboard. First thing you'll notice; a numberpad crammed into a 15.4" laptop! Personally I don't use numberpads much though...:












Either I'm not used to the keyboard, or its really hard to type on! It tends to skip some letters...Or I'm too used to desktop keyboards. If I were to type normally I'd get something like: "Helloy myname is CJ and I love making tyops"



































































































Overall the laptop runs rather cool; except the exhaust vent to the left; I kinda had a BSOD (when Windows crash; what some like to call *the Blue Screen Of Death*) once when leaving it on the bed, not sure if thats the cause though...(Maybe I overheated it or something)

Performance wise, I pulled out C&C3 and experimented. 1680x1050, highest settings no AA, no Shadows...Lovely. Rather smooth gameplay I must say!

This is my first foray into Vista; True its 32bit so I don't use the full 4GB RAM it came with...Under Windows Experience Index the laptop scored a 5.0 (though I don't really refer to that; I'd use other benchmarks)...So far so good.

The gloss surface overall is killin me though! Was tough to photograph with the dust here and there...and the low lighting (thankfully I finally got a DSLR; huge stepup from my phone cam...)

Last shot: