Loving my Lenovo

Mostly unrelated to my recent desktop PC incident (see previous post), I've recently bought a new laptop, a Lenovo 3000 N100, which is a sturdy and very durable computer that's brand new on the market in New Zealand.

Lenovo is a relatively new company who've taken over manufacturing computers from IBM. This model was recommended to me through the guys who do the computer category purchasing at my work, and I've been very impressed with it thus far.

My old laptop, a battered Sony Vaio, was a free hand-me-down my uncle. He'd used it whilst travelling the world in his capacity as a underwater wildlife cameraman for the BBC, and understandably it had suffered quite a few knocks and scrapes on its travels. This poor old Vaio laptop whirrs loudly whenever it's on, takes ages to open any applications and generates enough heat to double as a sort of electronic hot water bottle.

The new laptop is very quiet and extremely fast. It comes with a tiny built-in webcam, a built-in wireless modem, a and a fingerprint reader which can bypass the need to enter passwords.

I've also finally equipped our house with a wireless router (something I've been meaning to do for months), so we have broadband Internet access without needing to stay couped up in the study. I can now multi-task whilst sitting in front of the TV, lying in bed, or whilst cooking dinner - as I did last night. Of course this new laptop has the added attraction of doubling as a portable DVD player, and whilst the built-in speakers are too tinny to be of much use in this capacity, the sound quality through headphones is exceptional. I tried out a DVD on it a few nights ago and was so impressed with the picture and sound through the laptop that I ended up watching the movie all the way through.