But, I will make the code available for download for anyone interested in how it worked or want to make a personalized version of Digg Mobile, so check back soon.

Download the source

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.

I told them I’d accept a 1280×800 screen if they gave me a partial refund for the extra £20 I paid for the higher res screen since the chances of getting a non-grainy WXGA+ screen were downright low, if not impossible. Apparently, they can’t authorize a partial refund (booooo) and offered me a 1GB USB stick as a goodwill gesture. I don’t need a USB drive, I instead asked for more ram or a bigger HD. They still insisted they couldn’t, so I accepted their USB drive.

So now they will build a new laptop with the same specs, apart from the LCD, which should arrive in 7-15 days and then collect the old laptop.

If there is a problem with the new laptop, I think I’ll be keeping both the new and old one until I get a full refund. I’m just too fed up now to believe that Dell can get something right.

It’s a real shame that the screen is grainy on this LCD, the viewing angles are actually really good and I haven’t noticed any serious light bleed. Dell needs to have a word with these manufacturers about how they coat the screen with gloss, but until then, it will be the last time I buy a laptop from Dell.

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.

The tech at the other end insists it’s a problem with the video drivers, so I reinstall the drivers. Not luck there, so he tells me to go to Display Settings and claims I can select the 2nd monitor and choose the native res. there. Feeling pretty fed up now, I tell him I’m not buying it and they’d better replace the screen or refund me the extra I paid.

Finally, he agrees that a mistake has been made and will send out a tech. to my house with a new screen, replace it and check the res. is correct.

I seriously wander what kind of techs they use that can’t be fucking bothered to check the res. the laptop shipped with, and replace it with a correct res. LCD. Srsly.

For anyone wandering, the LCD Model is CTP141F.

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„¢

All this for a tidy sum of £470 incl. delivery.

Ordered on the 18th June, the ETA was 2nd June, but this got delayed to the 17th July :o. I gave them a ring and was told Dell was affected by the fire at a major battery supplier and there was a shortage of 6 Cell Batteries. Surprisingly, it got delivered to me on the 4th July, a delay of 2 days is fine with me.

I wiped the Vista install and nLited the SATA drivers into a Win XP CD and installed XP Pro \o/. Dell also gave the XP drivers on their drivers cd, which meant my downloading a torrent of drivers was pointless lol.

So far I’m enjoying the laptop, seems very fast and snappy, the C2D, 2GB RAM and 160GB HD outspec my old laptop by a long way. Also, the play/pause, stop, fast forward, rewind touch controls are a nice touch, but the volume control leave much to be desired. I also decided to sacrifice the ability to play proper games on this laptop for the sake of better battery life, my old laptop had an ATI x700 which was capable of playing FEAR at decent graphics

The good things about this lappy, more battery life, I got 2.5hrs on wifi w/ full brightness, very quiet apart from the occasional burst from the fan, and packed with connectors Two (!) headphones ports are included, not sure why lol, along with a HDMI port. It’s a shame the VGA port isn’t a DVI one but oh well. I also opted for a webcam which I dont really need

There are some drawbacks to the laptop though. The volume control is terrible, it’s a hardware based touch control, which means to turn the volume down, you have to hold the button down for a bit. This gets annoying especially when a scene is loud. My old laptop had a hardware based scroll volume control, which I still miss lol, it just makes life easier with a scroll wheel volume control.

Dell also decided to use Alps touchpad, which is completely featureless apart from the standard scroll emulators on the side. My old synaptic touchpad had edge scrolling, which speed up the harder you held your fingers down, touch zones to emulate specifc actions when a certain area was pressed, among other handy features, which again, made life easier.

Another thing I had a problem with today was putting a USB Flash drive in the USB slot next to the power plug :o It just wouldn’t go in because my USB drive is a bit wide. The power slot being half a cm to the right (or a smaller USB drive ) would’ve solved this issue.

A problem I noticed yesterday was with the LCD screen! It turns out, after much googling, some of the LCDs Dell uses has the problem that makes it look as if someone gave the screen a wipe with a wet rag It’s *very* noticable on white/light/vibrant backgrounds and a big annoyance. The LCD make I have (Samsung SEC3157) is widely affected by the problem, although not as badly as the other manufacturers. The only winner in this seems to be LG, who are much praised in forums for not having the problem with their LCDs. I sent Dell an email who replied saying I should phone them and that they will offer me a refund and they don’t do LCD replacments Hopefully by calling them, I can worm my way into some kind of deal where they send me a new (heck, even a refurb) LG LCD, I replace my LCD and return the old one. I really don’t want to wipe my install and my data , reinstall Vista, and pack the whole lot to them for an LCD replacement If they don’t offer me any solution, I might just have to learn to live with the problem I don’t think I will find good laptops with specs like these in my price range from other manufacturers.

Heh, that is a long post…..overall I’d rate this laptop 7/10. Will jump to 8/10 if I get a better LCD

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

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

Engadget Story

GSM Arena Post

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……

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!