My Monster VI laptop

With the coming of SharePoint 2010, I’ve had to consider my options on my old laptop.  I had an IBM Thinkpad T-60which had served me very well.  The only problem is that its 32 bit CPU won’t run SharePoint 2010 which is coming in all 64 bit format next year.  So in order to be able to deal with my VMs, I would have to upgrade.

I looked at all my options and wanted to get a new laptop that had enough iron to run all my VMs and more.  Since the latest Paradox Interactive release, Hearts of Iron III, was coming (I love that game!) and it had a hefty hardware, especially graphics, requirement, I decided to get a total monster laptop that would could handle everything I threw at it.  A desktop replacement or luggable to be sure.  I didn’t care.  I wanted the power.

I investigated all the options and even considered buying an Apple Macbook Pro for the job.  In the end there were three options I had to decide between.  A Dell XPS, an Apple Macbook Pro and an Alienware machine.  OK, I admit, the Alienware laptop wasn’t really realistic, but while you’re looking, you may as well dream, right? 

Of course price always plays into the equation so the Alienware laptop was eliminated right off the bat.  I wasn’t really ready to make a switch to Apple hardware because of the premium they put on their name.  The same hardware as the Dell, would end up being almost $1,000.00 more expensive!   I never quite understood that.  Still don’t.  Nevertheless, as I was getting ready to order the Dell, it occurred to me to check one more thing.  Back in 2002, I ordered a powerful off brand laptop (Sager) from a little company called Powernotebooks.com.  Even today it was a decent machine and back then it was top of the line.  It had a 2.4 GHz CPU with 1 GB of RAM and 128 MB of dedicated video.  It served me very well, only recently dying on me in the form of the power supply finally giving out.  I wasn’t sure if Donald Stratton (CEO) and his crew was still in business, but I decided to give it a try.  Imagine my delight when I found they were still booming along.  I customized a Sager with Intel i7 quad core processor and 6 GB of RAM (capable of holding 12, but again, cost of the top memory was just not justifiable) as well as 1 GB of dedicated video.  This monster would do it all!  The cost came in almost $1,000.00 cheaper than the XPS from Dell so I took the plunge and bought the monster Sager laptop. 

I’ve had it for a couple of months now and I absolutely LOVE this machine!  It was expensive for sure, but it’ll serve me well for many years to come… and the power supply even doubles up as a personal foot heater in winter!  

I’ve been so happy and so impressed with the guys at powernotebooks.com, that I happily recommend them to anyone in the market for some powerful portable hardware.

Cheers
C