It's Here!

A brain dump of my first impressions of my new Dell Inspiron 1720 and first look at Windows Vista Home Premium. Don't expect any serious analysis or journalisitic production values. This was jotted down, point by point as it happened. It hasn't been spell or grammar checked ;)

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arrives at 9:30.
unpack, finger prints over the matt black case. (note to dell wear gloves at all stages of production).
not as heavy as I feared I only have the 6 cell battery though.
it's huge I mean big, really big.
the PSU is quite light, my mate at work has a dell precision and his psu weighs a tonne.
plug it in and switch on.
very quiet, hardly hear the fan.
very slow to start up, windows initial checks?
agree to windows eula
set up user and password
start windows (very slow)
switch off all the welcome screens from microsoft and dell
the screen is gorgeous, no dead pixels (phew)
set-up wireless network. type in wpa key and then remember to add this machine to router's settings to allow access.
windows keeps asking my permission to make changes to the wireless network...feck off, I've already told you what to do.
connect to internet, swamped with google bar eula, mcafee updates and eula (need to decrapify this machine).
mcafee wants to restart machine... no says i
windows connects to update automatically. 15 updates available... sheesh!
very slow, can't see how much Mb is being downloaded...??? strange
windows wants to restart machine now... no says I
first impression/feeling of vista... very slow, like moving through treacle.
plug in my optical logitech notebook USB mouse. installs auto no issues...i hate track pads!
where is windows explorer?
where is control panel to check processor, graphics card, memory etc
where is notepad/wordpad to start jotting down first impressions?
windows asks again to restart... no says I
it's very pretty
where is task manager to see cpu and ram usuage?
ctrl-alt-dele does the job
showing notepad and 2 windows uptes running
cpu usage 5% idle!!!!! google desktop is runnin multiple instances (3 off)... thats all for the chop
76 processes
memory 34% GOOD GRIEF! 720Mb what the feck?
it really is very pretty but so so slooooowwwwww!
windows wants to restart. no says i
google desktop eats lots of cpu time is it the news feed cpu? or wallpaper cycler? or weather widget? or what is it doing?
going to reboot now. i hope it's quicker
nope that took an age... to configure updates. i'm going to reboot again... how do i shut down?..i used the reboot to install updates the last
time but how do i shut down in vista? found it... tiny little arrow in the vista menu
quicker but chris it's slow when compared to xp or win2k... need to decrapify to be fair but gawd that wait is annoying. need to run
timers against xp pro and win2K
christ with notepad running mem is at 36% OMG i did read that vista use mem as a cache for the os and gives it up when
apps require but still its a bit scary.
changed the font dpi from 96 to 120 that's better for this 17" screen and res 1920x1200 i'll try it at this for a bit but i may switch back to 96dpi later
getting plagued with dell support pop ups. need to switch them off but how? ah they want me to buy some auto tune service! no
is the answer to that.
why does it feel so slow... it's a feeling rather than fact all those fades and animations it's just too slow.
sped up the mouse pointer. its a big screen and it takes some effort to move the mouse pointer from one side to the other.
seems faster since i sped up the mouse pointer.
now idling at 2% cpu and 32% mem
google toolbar on IE will have to go.
thats interesting switching to 120dpi has fecked my blog template, bugger. side bar doesn't fit now and is at the bottom of all the posts. looks like the google search box is the one causing the problems. good to know that, note to self to fix. fixed it in my blogger template!!!!
why is there no network traffic icon in the taskbar i like to see it lit for data flowing back and forth? ok right click the icon and
switch on activity animation (another resource hog)
taking ages for the blog template change to publish but that's bloggers fault and the fact it's a big blog now
download blender for a quick render test.
windows has inbuilt zip facility now but it's a bit odd to work
oh my god blender looks fab on this screen
default cube 1 thread 2.15 seconds 800x600
2 threads 1.14 seconds woof
abstract blend 2 threads 34 seconds woooofffff!!!
blender renders looking absolutely stunning on this screen... a revelation.
i'm so happy, so happy..... i'm singing are you dancing?
how much do i love this panel? wuxga with gloosy truelife ultra whatever... the screen reflection hasn't been an issue so far.
even though this is a low end core2duo (T7100 1.8ghz 2mb cache) it's good and fast if blender's render times are anyhting to go by
just vista that makes it look slow. i smell a purchase of a win xp licence coming on
the keyboard is lovely and as it's full size it has a numpad too
even with a large blender render the machine stayed very quiet. hot air coming out from the left though. wonder if there is a temp monitor somewhere.
so what crap needs removed? dell support centre, google desktop, internet from bt, mcafee security centre
ornage internet, roxio home creator, tiscali internet and thats just the crap with desktop icons.
thats a bit better. reboot called for
definitely quicker to boot up without all that google widget crap. still need to streamline it a lot though.
playing with media centre now (comes with vista home premium) quite smart
using the media controls of the inspiron to control volume (nice)
speakers OK but as Lesley is babysitting 2 sprogs I can't hear much :(
need to see if I can get my dvb-t usb stick to work but that'll be much later too much to play with now.
i like the wee preview window that pops up when you run over the open programmes in the task bar. very handy for blender preview render window.
eughh some of the sample music in media centre is jazz, that'll have to go, spawn of the devil that stuff.
gone back to 96dpi fonts as I'm a resolution tart, so sue me.
the wrisrt ret is very comfortable with the curve (direct media access keys are on the curve) but you can't wear a watch while typing or you'll scratch the paint
due to the distance of the keyboard from the front edge.
the computer is fast (blender render proves that) but it just feels sluggish in operation. I'm beginning to think vista doomsayers are right, it's a complete dog, pretty
yes but a complete dog in the performance stakes. xp will fly on this thing. i'm a power user i expect things to respond instantly as fast as my brain expects them to, if they dont it
causes my brain to miss a beat knocking me off my stride, i don't think vista is for me.
playing a bit more with blender and the viewport (opengl remember) response is bloody fantastic. if only the desktop (directX)was as quick :-)
the silence is wonderful.
taking a break, been at it for 3 hours now, might just spell check this brain dump and blog it as is.
testing out the laptop when in sofa mode. lying on back on the sofa in the livingroom is where i use a laptop. it really is not that heavy compared to my compaq armada m700.
battery claims 95% remaining 3hrs 21 min hmmm, dont beleive that for a minute. this the 6 cell version (the 9 cell version sticks out the back of the machine poor, very poor).
screen is quite dull when running on battery (as you would expect to save power). Just as well I'll be running it off mains power 99% of the time.
usb port far left of rear, perfect as I use the mouse with my left hand while on the sofa.
it's so, so quiet.
bright blue leds, nice looking but the hard drive light is distracting flickering on and off irregularly (right hand edge). need to see what it's like in a darkened living-room.
now when i say vista is slow i don't mean it's crawling along, far from it, it's just that almost imperceptible millisecond delay which really shouldn't be there, then the animations (every window fades and expands and contracts, that needs either sped up or switched off. it's as if it's too smooth. maybe it's not slow at all it's just too smooth?
battery life, after 25 minutes 86% remaining 2hrs 52 minutes calimed, light browsing and writing this in notepad. not bad considering the size of machine.
OK the sprogs have gone and the sound from the inbuilt speakers are quite good. need to try with my own music but not bad all the same. they're located under the front lip so get muffled when I rest it on my groin area (my main browsing set-up).
media centre is quite smart. got a shared connected to my itunes library on my main workstation. need to buy a proper NAS though.

Category:

• Dell
• Laptop
• Vista