My new Super Computer
8/9/2006
I have not used a desktop computer for more than 10 years now. I have always used laptops. I did not even use monitors or keyboards because I hated switching. But finally I am gonig back to a desktop, or at least something with the roots of a desktop. I am building a portable super computer.
My current laptop is 2 years old. It has been upgraded and it is not exactly a sloth. It has a 5400 RPM 100 GB hard drive, 2 GB of RAM, and is a Pentium 1.6 GHz. But even a good 5400 RPM laptop drive is no match for an average 5400 or better yet 7200 desktop drive. In recent months I augmented my laptop with an external desktop drive connected by USB 2.0. This improved the performance quite a bit by allowing me to have two drives and divide the work. But as I experimented more and realized how much time I was wasting shifting data here and there in a constant battle for hard drive space, I began to think - What if I could build something portable? After all occasionally I need a laptop. But most times what I really need is something portable.
I still need a laptop
I still need a laptop. And when I need a laptop, I need something small. I currently have a smallish to medium laptop. With this new scenario I can get an even smaller laptop to suit my needs on an airplane, hectic travel, and so forth. In fact my new Toshiba M400 is a tablet and fits this well. However when I really need the power, I can use my portable.
Why not use a desktop replacement?
There are some very large laptops out there. Some are built well by good companies (Acer Ferrari, etc). Others are hacked together from a mixture of laptop and desktop parts and have serious heat dissipation issues and are not durable and quickly break. But they are too heavy and big to be a laptop and are not as fast, or more importantly expandable or upgradeable as a desktop. In fact when i need a portable, I do not need the battery and many of these desktop replacements have battery lives of less than one hour anyways.
So what is it?
I have been mulling over this for months and finally decided to act now that I am spending time in a country where hardware is readily available with a good selection and cheap prices. I'll be blogging over the next week or two about it and cool software etc I have found along the way. I have the prototype built in a tower case and spent the last 5 days installing and reinstalling Windows and other software to achieve the perfect machine. Stay tuned! (Update, here are the specs)
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