Welcome to the Family!

As some (or most?) of you already know, I'm transferring to my university's main campus in Melbourne this July. This means preparations, LOTS of them. From getting my IC and passport done to finding accommodation in Melbourne.

A dilemma immediately comes to mind. I'll need a computer if I was to survive 2 years there. My new netbook that I got a few months ago? No, no, no can do. Netbooks are useful for light browsing and light typing, i.e emails, IM but DEFINITELY not doing any serious work. The screen is simply not big enough to handle documents.

So the netbook is definitely out of the picture. Now those who know me know that I'd take a desktop over a laptop in a heartbeat. Why? Because a desktop is simply more powderful than a laptop. But in this case I can't move my desktop over to Melbourne, it is simply not practical.

That leaves only one other option. I'd need a laptop then. Now what laptop could you get a stingy, desktop-preferring, power-crazy, big-screen loving, graphics whore? Well those list of adjectives pretty much sum up what the laptop had to have.

• Cheap
• Big screen (14.0" is small to me)
• Powderful processor
• GRAPHICS CARD

There wasn't a lot of choosing to do. Other laptops either had the hardware and a fucked up, obscenely high price, or obscenely cheap prices with no hardware.

So I ended up with this.

Oh YES, Yes I bought an Acer.

And yes, people have been giving me their opinions on laptop brands. And one thing was common, they ALL unanimously hated Acer, for various reasons I could never for the death of me comprehend.

On the cover: The unmistakable Acer logo, and anti-fingerprint contours

One of the side reasons I got the Acer is to prove to those Acer-haters out there that Acer isn't half as bad as they think it is. Like what I always say, the computer is only as good as its owner. Treat it well, it serves you well. Treat it like shit, it fucking dies on you.

Keyboard layout: Macbook, anyone? :P

The retail price of this piece of treasure was RM 2,999. All over Low Yat Plaza retailers were offering "free gifts" along with the laptop. You could refuse the free gifts and get a lower price. In the end, I found a shop selling this laptop for RM2,899. As a comparison, getting a Dell which has all my laptop's specs would cost RM3,730, almost RM1,000 more.

"What specs! What specs? What specs!!"

Intel Core i5-520M (2.4GHz with Turbo Boost to 2.93Ghz), Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, NVIDIA GeForce GT 320M

15.6" HD LED Screen (That's a 30cm rule)

Other info: 2.26kg(I think I read this somewhere), 4GB DDR3

It has a pretty big touchpad, not that I'm going to use it often, but here's a look at it.

Touchpad: Monolithic buttons

Because its screen is so large, there's enough space to put in a full-sized keyboard, INCLUDING the Number Pad, something which I find a lack of use for.

It might seem similar to the Macbooks' keyboard, but it's not. The keys might not respond if you press on their sides

The laptop is made of mainly tough plastic to save cost. Here it's been made so as to mimic brushed aluminum, and you can't tell the difference from a distance.

The laptop came with a lot of pre-installed junk, all of which I deleted the moment I got home. The boot time(the time it takes from power on to desktop screen) improved from 2 minutes to 53seconds. Which is still slower than my 4-year old desktop(45 secs). See why I love desktops now? :)