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After the previous problems I had with Dell, it was agreed they would send me a new laptop with the WXGA screen instead. It arrived yesterday, and thankfully had no grain and was an LG (LPL0301) My excitement was short lived though after seeing the viewing angles on the new screen, it was only slightly better then the CTP model Apart from that, the screen was noticeably brighter (it actually started hurting my eyes) and had no backlight bleed. I do miss the extra space I had on the old WXGA+ screen, an AU Optronics replacement for the CPT one, and it’s a huge shame the screen was so grainy. Even though it wasn’t as bright, it was pretty much perfect for me Thankfully, viewing angles will be a rare problem for me, but maybe sometime in the future, I’ll get tired of it and get an exchange……

Another Dell engineer came yesterday with a new LCD but with the wrong part (WXGA), despite me explicitly telling the tech woman to put down a note the screen MUST be 1440×900. Seeing how Dell support is incapable of understanding simple english and my chances of getting this resolved with a good WXGA+ screen were so poor, I offered to keep the WXGA and get a partial refund. The tech team made a note for me to be called back, but they never did Another engineer came today, compared the screens and decided it wasn’t worth replacing the screen with one that had the same problem.

Also yesterday, on the advice of bma, I sent an email rant to michael_dell[@]dell.com. Today, I got a phone call from their Customer Relations Department wanting to know the solution to the problem.

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I got annoyed of the sparkly affect all over the LCD shipped with the laptop, called Dell support who agreed to replace the LCD. Now this is where things get funky.

The native resolution of the LCD shipped with the laptop was 1440×900, and naturally, I’d expect them to replace the screen with an LCD with the same res. Once the laptop was delivered to them (minus the hard drive ), I rang them up and asked for the part number they’d replace it with. I googled the part number, and it turns out that it’s a 1280×800 screen :o So I ring them again and tell them that’s the wrong part, and they assure me they’ll fit it with a 1440×900 screen.

Today the laptop arrives, I boot into the BIOS, check the video settings, and find the native res. is 1280×800. Feeling pretty pissed off and booting into Windows, I notice major backlight bleed on the XP boot process background, half the screen looks grey instead of black, and the shitty viewing angles. Feeling even more pissed off now, I give Dell support a ring and demand Dell replaces the screen or gives me a refund for the extra amount I paid for the higher res. screen.

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So my old laptop broke after taking a hit, luckily, the HD was not damaged and all my data was intact, although, if it was broke, it would have been more of an inconveniance then anything, since all my stuff is backed up.

I went for a Dell seeing as how they get good reviews quite often, and the laptops were within my price range. So I went for an Inspiron 1525, with the following specs:

Inspiron TM 1525 (N0652507)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5550 (1.83 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2 cache)
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
Internal Keyboard Uk/Irish (QWERTY)
Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100
160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English
56.6k V.92 Capable Internal Modem & Adapter - UK
8x DVD+/-RW Optical drive, including SW
Dellâ„¢ Wireless 1395 802.11b/g Mini-Card - Europe
1Yr Limited Warranty - Collect & Return
1 Year Base Warranty
65W AC Adapter
6-cell 56WHr Li-Ion primary battery
2.0 Mega pixel web camera
Midnight Blue Colour with Microsatin Finish
15.4″ Wide Screen WXGA+ (1440 x 900) Display with TrueLifeâ„¢

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So finally, my exams are over for this year I reckon I did alright in them all, although I might do badly in my Software Engineering paper, but hopefully the project’ll make up for it lol. Holidays for me now until October or something Also, finally got around to buying Assassin’s Creed, didn’t buy it all this time because I knew I wouldn’t revise lol. Now off to watch some Doctor Who and Smallville Finale and then have a looooog sleep

Oh yeah, I need another job lol, might as well earn some dosh while I have free time.

Do want:

I think I’m gonna sell my PDA when this comes out.

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So, my old External HD is now filled up, after a year and 3 months I needed a new one, was gonna buy a 2TB one and RAID it, but I’m skint so thats not gonna happen. After googling around a bit, I found this 750GB Western Digital (698GB formatted, ftl), and after googling around a bit more, found it on Play.com for £120 2 Firewire, one USB and one eSATA connection = win.

This is the new design one, but I think WD did an amazing job on the looks. The white bar is supposed to indicate how much space is left, but I don’t think that works at all. Its a nice cosmetic feature though, and when its turned off, you can barely see the white strip. Nice work WD My old HD has the blue rings which didn’t work at showing how much space was left either lol. Surprisingly, the 750GB is a bit smaller then the 320GB one , but not by much. Also, there is no rubber on the case like my old one . Hope its still as durable as the other one. :s
Overall the design is more or less the same, just the front has a different indicator and the power button is at the back. I wander how long this one will last……

The odd time I used a crack for the lulz, I wandered how to get some the music that played in the background, I used to find the tunes really good, and using Audacity or something to record made it sound really shit.

Anyhow, after some googling, I found KeygenMusic.net, where they have a MASSIVE collection of those tunes. I downloaded all their files, after going through about half of them, I found some tunes that I thought were the best out of the ones I heard, and I thought I’d share The files (in xm format) can be played in VLC or XMPlay. I converted them all to mp3, but 101MB is too large for me upload on my shit connection

You can find the uploaded rar (1.01MB) here. Enjoy!