Alienware 14 (2013)
Well, after humming and hawing for two weeks I finally decided on the 2013 Alienware 14 from Dell.
The Inspiron 17R Special Edition (7720) I ordered back in May just didn’t cut it.
I sent back the Latitude E6540 without opening it.
I almost went with the Latitude 3540, but a few things just didn’t work for me.
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After being available for years in the US, Dell has finally launched the Advantage Loyalty Program here in Canada.
http://www.dell.com/learn/ca/en/cadhs1/campaigns/advantage-cards
We don’t get the free 2nd day shipping like they do in the US, but we do get the 5% cash back (via gift card) offer. I suppose it’s not really cash back as much as a discount towards your next purchase that expires in 90 days, but it’s better than nothing. 🙂
ComputerAbuser
Well, on a whim I ordered a Latitude E6540 from Dell the other day.
I’ve been waiting for a decent laptop with a Haswell processor and discrete graphics since July and the E6540 seemed to fit the bill. It wasn’t cheap ($1700), but it included an Intel i7-4800MQ Quad-core CPU and an AMD Radeon HD 8790M GPU. It would also work with my Dell pr02x dock, had a 1080p anti-glare screen and included a 500GB SSD (or so I thought).
I didn’t want to spend that much, but I figured for a 500GB SSD (worth about $400) it was worth it. After placing the order I read the specs closer and realized it came with a 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive, not a 500GB Solid State Drive. Man, rarely does one work make such a difference.
Without the 500GB SSD, I decided it was not worth $1775 to me, maybe closer to $1400 – $1500. I sent a request to cancel it (2 hours later) but the rep had left for the day. It will probably be delivered today or tomorrow. I’ve already notified Dell that I will be sending it back without opening it.
And so my quest for a new laptop continues.
ComputerAbuser
Well, somehow it took me 120 hours (according to Steam), but I finally finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution this weekend.
I was EXTREMELY thorough. Every computer or security panel that could be hacked, I hacked. Regardless of whether I had the code or not. I also played Pacifist and avoided killing anyone my entire play-though (or so I had thought, see below). The benefit was that I had an insane amount of XP by the end. I was able to upgrade almost every single augmentation.
Long before I reached the 2nd boss I had already upgraded everything that I wanted to.
Once the credits started rolling, though, I realized that the Pacifist achievement never popped up. I was also expecting the Foxiest of the Hounds achievement as well, but that also never came.
Turns out that I killed some people during the prologue (before you get augmented or are given the option of a non-lethal weapon), so I lost the option within the first hour of playing.
I know in my heart that the moment I was given a tranquillizer gun and given the option to not kill people, that not a single human was injured by my hand. I was extremely careful and continuously reloaded from my save files whenever something went wrong. It just sucks that I lost the achievement before I even knew you could play non-lethal.
ComputerAbuser
Another season of free movies, thanks to General Mills, has passed once again.
It seemed like there were fewer good movies in Feb (while the passes were good for a free movie) compared to last year. Things picked up in April and May, but 2 for 1 isn’t nearly as good.
We were able to use a couple more passes last night to see “Now You See Me” (which was great by the way!). I still have a few more passes left over, but now they are expired.
Here’s hoping General Mills runs the promotion again next year. 😉
ComputerAbuser
Well, as reported by Polygon on April 24th, the PAX organizers reviewed their list of ticket purchases and cancelled those purchases for tickets in excess of the allowed limit. At the time, it was reported that those tickets would go back on sale at some point in the future.
Cut to last night at 7:03 PM PST, where I received the following Tweet-2-SMS message from PAX…
@Official_PAX: Reclaimed tix to Prime 2013 here http://t.co/X5pUDsD3Co Max of 2 sets per order, multiple orders per person or household will be cancelled.
Knowing that these wouldn’t last long, I immediately jumped online and was able to pick up 2 sets of single day passes (there didn’t appear to be any 4 day passes available). A few minutes later I received the following….
@Official_PAX: Well that was fast. All the reclaimed tickets are now sold out. (7:15 PM PST)
I don’t imagine there were many tickets available, so I thank my lucky stars that I was able to get tickets for my son and I. Hopefully, a few other folks who were originally upset that they wouldn’t be able to go were also able to secure a few tickets as well.
A big thank you to the PAX organizers for cracking down on excess ticket orders and giving a few other people a chance to attend. I also have to thank Twitter for getting the tweet out to me in time to take advantage of the offer.
ComputerAbuser
I was able to catch an early screening of Star Trek Into Darkness last night. I really enjoyed J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot from 2009, so I was looking forward to the follow up.
I purposefully ignored reading rumours and watching trailers so that I would be surprised. About the only thing I knew ahead of time was that Benedict Cumberbatch played the villain.
Well, all I can say is that the Star Trek Movie Curse seems to be back on track. In that although 2009’s Star Trek reboot was excellent, Star Trek Into Darkness was not.
I don’t want to give anything away, but I can say that before the villain had revealed his name, I had already figured out who he was and I was so disappointed.
I’m going to leave it at that. Fans of the original Star Trek movies will probably also be disappointed. Those who have not seen any of the original movies will probably like it a lot more than I did.
ComputerAbuser
A couple of weeks ago I ordered a new Dell Inspiron 17r Special Edition (7720) laptop. My old Dell Precision M4400 is just getting too old for current games, so I figured it was time for something new. This would be my 3rd new Dell in 10 years after my Inspiron 8200, then Precision M4400.
I received it last week.
I was originally concerned that a 17″ laptop would be too big, but it’s not bad at all. I appreciate having the extra hard drive bay plus optional mSATA.
For around $1000, the 7720 seems like a bargain. Unfortunately, the designers did not design a cooling system that can appropriately handle the heat put out by the included NVidia Geforce GT 650m GPU.
Don’t get me wrong, running at the stock 745 MHz, the cooling system is sufficient. Unfortunately, once Geforce Boost kicks in the GPU temp quickly climbs to the MAX allowable 91 degrees C and throttles back down to 745 MHz.
Maybe I’m expecting too much if I was expecting the cooling system to handle the Boost speed of 835 MHz for long periods of time. I’m amazed that the extra 90 Mhz makes that much of a difference in the temperature.
I was actually hoping to overclock the GPU up to 660m levels, but that doesn’t really seem like an option now.
I have 3 more weeks to decide if I’m going to keep it or not. I guess we’ll see.
ComputerAbuser
Update: I sent it back.
So I go out of town for a few days for work and what happens?
PAX Prime sells out in 6 hours and I don’t even find out until today. WTF is that about!!!!
ComputerAbuser
Want to watch Veronica Mars in Canada for free, just like our US neighbours?
Well tough luck!!!
That is unless you pay for US VPN access or use DNS re-direction/unblocking.
I’m not going to discuss using a VPN. They are generally expensive and slow.
I am going to discuss using DNS re-direction though, because that’s what I have been using to watch Veronica Mars for the past week.
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