Ultimate test of my laptop

In March of this year I was on a business trip to the USA without a computer, and it was annoying. After some deliberation, in April I went mobile and bought a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, a mid-prize model.

I'm using the laptop nearly every day, but not exactly as one would think. It rests fixed next to my keyboard at home, and while I play World of Warcraft on my desktop, I'm looking up quests at Thottbot, prices at Allakhazam, or maps at Worldofwar.net. I could have done that with a machine of half the price.

I did take the laptop to several shorter business trips in France. No complaints on the "business productivity" side, taking notes during a meeting on a laptop makes writing the minutes of meeting later a lot easier. But why the heck am I doing that on a laptop my company didn't pay for? And using the laptop for playing WoW in the hotel wasn't a big success either. In one hotel room I didn't have internet access at all, they only had that in the lobby. And then when I got on the internet via WiFi in France, it wasn't for free. Charges ranging from 5 to 20 Euros per hour, compared to 45 Euros per month via 3 MBit ADSL at home.

But now the ultimate test awaits my laptop, I'm going to the USA again. Starting next Tuesday, I will be gone for nearly 2 weeks, visiting two different cities in the USA. Both hotels promise "free high-speed internet", although that might not be wireless. I hope it works with the Ethernet connection my laptop has. Spending evenings and weekends at business hotels is not my favorite pasttime, usually its horribly boring. So if the laptop passes this test, and I will be able to play World of Warcraft on it, the resulting improvement of my quality of life will be worth the cost of the laptop. Here's hoping.
- posted by Tobold @ 1:17 PM Permanent Link