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The Arctic Cooling MX-4 compound he is mentioning does not contain silver.

On newegg there is a review who mentions that he messed up and got some of this stuff into an LGA 775, and it still worked.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186038

Not the thermal paste I use, but it does appear to be non-conductive.

There are plenty of non-conductive thermal pastes out there.

Here is the one I prefer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835141001

Oh, and no Apple product cost twice what it should, they are comparable in price to any business-class Dell or HP. There is no 500GB HD for $200, so you are just a filthy fucking liar trying to spread propaganda which you can't back up.

They recently listed a 640 GB for $199

They list a 4GB ECC 1333 DIMM module for $150

Newegg has a 8GB ECC 1333 DIMM module for $68

So from where I sit it looks like Apple products cost twice what they should. .... just saying.

That's like comparing "EMC" hard drives to Seagate.
Show us Dell, IBM, and HP pricing for the se modules if you want to be fair, but thats not what you wanted /eyeroll

Huh, this is satire right? BTW, got a shitload of "EMC" drives that fail on a more than regular basis. Same damn drives different firmware.

Oh, and no Apple product cost twice what it should, they are comparable in price to any business-class Dell or HP. There is no 500GB HD for $200, so you are just a filthy fucking liar trying to spread propaganda which you can't back up.

They recently listed a 640 GB for $199

They list a 4GB ECC 1333 DIMM module for $150

Newegg has a 8GB ECC 1333 DIMM module for $68

So from where I sit it looks like Apple products cost twice what they should. .... just saying.

That's like comparing "EMC" hard drives to Seagate.
Show us Dell, IBM, and HP pricing for the se modules if you want to be fair, but thats not what you wanted /eyeroll

Oh, and no Apple product cost twice what it should, they are comparable in price to any business-class Dell or HP. There is no 500GB HD for $200, so you are just a filthy fucking liar trying to spread propaganda which you can't back up.

They recently listed a 640 GB for $199

They list a 4GB ECC 1333 DIMM module for $150
Newegg has a 8GB ECC 1333 DIMM module for $68

So from where I sit it looks like Apple products cost twice what they should. .... just saying.

A nice deal for $160 on one of these I just saw: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0YX08C4599

I've always done the same, using slightly older PC hardware with Debian as a router.
My last system started having hard drive problems after 5 years of service, so on my hunt for new hardware I've kept the power draw issue in mind.

I just purchased some of these little 1u Atom servers:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101365

They have on-board dual gigabit, plus a PCI Express slot with a quad port gigabit card in it.
It can boot from USB as well, and even has an internal USB jack on the motherboard, as well as headers you can use your own connector with, and keep the USB flash drive internal.

Other than a small fan in the PSU, there is basically no moving parts to fail, and the PSU is only 200 watt max. It draws just under 60 watt when idle.

Add in a 2gb soDIMM and the price is still under $400, a great buy if you only need 2 network interfaces. I already had the quad gigabit card, which might bump the price up a bit more, but it's well worth it for the lack of over heating issues most tiny embedded systems have like the Guruplug.

I thought the whole point of Gentoo was that everything should be compiled by the user, so they can tailor it to their hardware by compiling with the right sets of flags.

At any rate, beyond the kernel, there is no "software tailored for the scecific Hardware platform", either. Apple's kernels support Core2Duo, Atom, i3, i5, i7, and I beleive Opteron, and a decent list of chipsets, all natively. You can even coax them to run on AMD, with no modification, just the right boot flags. Of course, you're welcome to compile your own Darwin kernel, just as you can compile your own Linux kernel, with support only for the hardware you actually have; then, you have software tailored for the specific Hardware platform. Beyond that, you have drivers; for dedicated graphics, those are vendor-supplied, for everything else, the open source drivers are used as a starting point, with modifications returned to the community as required, so all that tailoring they're doing there, anyone who wants to use Linux gets it, as well. If anything that ran on top of the kernel were tailored for a specific platform (say, sandy bridge i7), none of it would run on anything else. Since you can take an image of a C2D iMac's hard drive and put it on an i7 PowerBook's hard drive (assuming updates have been installed) and boot it, I'm gonna say no, no tailoring is going on here. Just like Linux and BSD (which Darwin is), OSX loads kernel modules; but they don't call them that, so you might not realize it. OSX is no more tailored than Ubuntu. This is what I was trying to point out in my previous post.

and "ARC" objective-C

Care to explain the difference? If you mean Automatic Reference Counting, the java-like garbage-collection-with-a-different-name, that's part of the Objective-C spec, it's in the compiler, and available on Linux as well. If you mean something else, please explain.

Plus, you'll have to pay at least 900 to your average PC manufacturer to get an i7, High Def display, SSD, & High quality graphics card as well as on board.

Well, since store.apple.com hasn't banned me yet, let me take a look... I heard the MacBook Air has a full HD screen now, nice! Let's check those out, they start at only $99 more than a PC with all the amenities, that sounds alright. Whoops, the top of the line model, for $1499, has an i5 and only integrated graphics. On to the MacBook Pro line, starting at $1199. OH! A 13 inch with an i7, for $1499! Wait... Only integrated graphics, damn. Ahh, here we go, next model up, for $1799, that's got everythign you listed! Wait, no, no SSD there. Let's try again. Ahh, if I go for a retina display, I can have everything! GREAT! It's only $2199! Awesome! Wait... No optical drive of any sort? Fuck.

Well, for $30 less I can have a 2.6Ghz i7 (vs the quoted MBP's 2.3Ghz), 256GB SSD (just like the MBP) *and* a 750GB HD, 16GB of RAM (vs the MBP's 8), and a BluRay burner. True, I'm giving up the retina display, but let's just say I need the faster CPU, more storage, and might want to watch a blu-ray movie, bought with that $30 I saved, on the plane during my next trip.

Let's see if Apple can match those other specs, I might be willing to pay a little bit for that. Oh! Cool! The next model up starts with a 2.6Ghz i7, for only $2799! I can affort the extra $630, so let's look at that! Upgraqde to 16GB of RAM, $200; can only upgrade the storage to a total of 768GB, which falls short of the PC, for $500 more, but let's move along anyway. Oh! I can add a DVD drive, that might work, and it's only $79! Wait, it's external. Damn, one more thing to carry on the plane. Oh well, it comes with a nice laptop bag, right? Wait, no, that was the PC, which also included a decent mouse AND a worthwhile trackpad. Well, that PC has 1 year of accidental damage protection and 2 years P&L warranty, better add AppleCare to

Ummm, yeah, why not? It's a wireless keyboard. The same one I use with my Mac mini, and my ps3. So, pairing it with my iPad no longer makes my iPad an iPad? If I also have power and the hdmi output hooked up to my projector, it's no longer an iPad? How's that?

You are being purposefully obtuse. Of course it's still a tablet, but when it needs to be hooked up to external displays and keyboards just to be able to compete against the efficiency of a notebook, it can hardly be said that the tablet functionality is contributing anything meaningful towards its usability in the same environment.

Yes. And, the cost of the iPad and the keyboard are still about as much as a netbook.

iPad + bluetooth keyboard = $580 - $780
ASUS Eee PC = $250

Ummm, yeah, why not? It's a wireless keyboard. The same one I use with my Mac mini, and my ps3. So, pairing it with my iPad no longer makes my iPad an iPad? If I also have power and the hdmi output hooked up to my projector, it's no longer an iPad? How's that?

You are being purposefully obtuse. Of course it's still a tablet, but when it needs to be hooked up to external displays and keyboards just to be able to compete against the efficiency of a notebook, it can hardly be said that the tablet functionality is contributing anything meaningful towards its usability in the same environment.

Yes. And, the cost of the iPad and the keyboard are still about as much as a netbook.

iPad + bluetooth keyboard = $580 - $780
ASUS Eee PC = $250

Why not both? Or if one wants to go with a Roku-like? box.

Get a 32Gb usb stick (not expensive) and put Portable Virtualbox on it.

Then make a VM and put whatever you like on it. Problem solved.

Check out your favorite computer parts place newegg has like 4-5 different models to choose from. This one even says it is machine washable http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823336012 and it comes rolled up in a can. There are others as well. I have used similar keyboards in the past. These are great for younger kids who often forget to wash their hands. When you have BPnJ on your keyboard you can wash it off.

I have some friends who are grade school (1st -6th grade) teachers. Letting them know about this keyboard saved their school a lot of cash in the long run. I lent them mine to use for proof of concept. They were replacing a few keyboards a month in a small school. Now the only time they replace a keyboard is when some kid takes scissors to the keyboard.

> Back in the days of CRT monitors I played with refresh rate a lot to figure out what I could notice and what bothered me. 60Hz was tolerable, but above 80 was best.

Hear! Hear!

Back in the day I used to have a Zenith monitor that could do 100 Hz that I absolutely _loved_; the image was _rock_ solid. I hated 60 Hz as unfortunately the lower the refresh rate the brighter the colors. :-/

To tell if a CRT image was stable or not I used to do this trick:
  a) set monitor refresh rate,
  b) look at the edge of the monitor. Your peripheral will pick up the flickering of the CRT if the refresh rate is too low.

It would be very interesting to nail down what is the absolute minimum frame rate needed for a rock solid image on CRT, LCD, Plasma, etc.! Is it?
- 72 Hz ?
- 80 Hz ?
- 96 Hz ?
- 100 Hz ?

Nice to see someone else understands the relationship of FOV (Field of View) and stuttery 24 fps!

On a related note: I hate gaming at 30 FPS on an LCD. The motion looks too choppy compared to 60 Hz. If only 120 Hz LCD monitors would drop in price ... i.e. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009222

So do you have the capability to buy 8tb of SSD space on a whim? If so, why're you wasting your time on /.?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227665 (960 "GB")
$1100
x10

Yeah I could do that.

If you REALLY care about bang for the buck in the low power space your best best would probably be an AMD E350 kit which is just $120 USD with a nice little case. I've built a few HTPCs and office boxes out of these and they are not bad little units, if you are really concerned about price you can use Open ELEC which makes a Fusion version of their distro with the XBMC UI for a nice dirt cheap HTPC and for offices there are several distros that support fusion OOTB although my customers prefer Win 7 which runs quite well on these.

So if you are REALLY worried about price and want the best bang for the buck that would be the way to go IMHO, to get the same performance with Atom you'd need an ION setup and those are often a good $60 higher on average from my last price checks.

So if you wanted something similar to TFA you are looking at around $720 to get 6 E350 dual core kits, cheaper of course if you simply buy the boards. Of course you'd have to figure in memory and some sort of storage but since everyone has their own opinions on those I figured it wouldn't be worth attempting to figure.

o rly?

ASUS G75
Apple MacBook Pro 17"

o rly?

ASUS G75
Apple MacBook Pro 17"

I just wish someone would make 3.5" drives besides OCZ. Hell - I wish someone would make 5.25" drives.

Why? You see an almost perfect scaling. The cost of 1x1024GB ~= 2x512GB ~= 4x256GB ~= 8x128GB. And since you can already put $2500 worth of flash in a 2.5" drive, what do you need 3.5" drives for? $10,000 drives? Or 5.25", $100,000 drives? The way things are going it's more likely my next SSD would be a mSATA drive...

Refer to SLC and MLC and lifespan.

http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/beginners-guide/slc-vs-mlc-ssds-2/

Larger form factors would allow larger SLC SSD drives.

Also,
1TB of SSD ~ $720 = http://slickdeals.net/f/4744708-for-6-15-120gb-corsair-force-series-3-ssd-79-99-after-20-00-mirebate-ships-free

-AI

I just wish someone would make 3.5" drives besides OCZ. Hell - I wish someone would make 5.25" drives.

Why? You see an almost perfect scaling. The cost of 1x1024GB ~= 2x512GB ~= 4x256GB ~= 8x128GB. And since you can already put $2500 worth of flash in a 2.5" drive, what do you need 3.5" drives for? $10,000 drives? Or 5.25", $100,000 drives? The way things are going it's more likely my next SSD would be a mSATA drive...

I have an Acer laptop with an 11.6" screen and I am very fond of it. The size and weight are great.

The model I have is no longer made, but the Acer Aspire One series is still made.

Most of those seem to have an Atom chip. I also have an Acer with an Atom and I pretty much hate the Atom... very slow. It's possible that newer Atom chips suck less.

I haven't tested the AMD "E" chips yet, but here is an Acer Aspire One with a dual-core "E" chip.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215340

The only thing is that for kids, it might be better to have an SSD rather than a spinning-metal hard disk, but that model has a 320 GB spinning-metal hard disk.

Oh, on at least my Acer laptop, modern Linux distros like Ubuntu or Mint just work. All hardware detected correctly, WiFi works out of the box, etc. As I said, I haven't tried the newest one so I can't promise anything for sure.

steveha

I won't be buying one of them either. A $200 price premium for 8GB ram is ridiculous. 16GB will feel cramped 2 or 3 years down the road. Last I checked, 16GB RAM costs $120 meaning that you're paying $200 for an memory upgrade that should cost $60.

Bring back memory sockets.

Btw, would this video card work for you?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-102-980&SortField=3&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=(keywords)#scrollFullInfo

Just don't install Linux on it, you won't be able to return it if it's defective.

Per the article it is going to take nearly five years for them to complete the factory and get it up and running.

Would you prefer for them to start now or later?

Btw, would this video card work for you?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-102-980&SortField=3&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=(keywords)#scrollFullInfo

Yes. And that is a violation of their own terms of service. Hence, the problem related in this article.

Here are those terms: http://m.newegg.com/Info/ReturnPolicyDetail.aspx?policyID=37

Looks like the due-diligence for this special circumstance (a customer service trained to handle basic situations making the wrong judgement call) consisted of:

I spoke with a support agent, as well as a manager who couldn't comprehend the difference between an obvious hardware failure that could be found running the BIOS provided diagnostics, and the Linux installation.

The logical next step? Well Norm here manages to get it on some moronic newsblog article, that is comprised of: one screenshot of a generic rejection letter, a sentence of what comprised the followup, as well as a snippet of their expansive return policy, ending in a retarded red-herring speculation.

For a customer that supposedly

used Newegg for years and spent tens of thousands on tech gear with them, so I'm really bummed out by this situation

I'm more bummed by his inability to understand how customer support is supposed to work.

Anyone who's ever dealt with the wrong-colored blinking lights on a modem knows that just one level above the first guy get on the phones isn't enough. Escalate the issue one tier higher up the chain of command, point to the purchase history, and ask them to get a real tech working there (not someone handling tech-support flowcharts) to verify, and I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem.

But instead the whiny brat gives Newegg (which offers one of the better customer support experiences out there IMO) probably much more losses in bad press for what looks like a shit effort to communicate on his own end.

Incidentally, when you say "normally $1600", it is very common for them to inflate the "normal price". That laptop would never sell for $1600, because at that point its competing against things like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152337
Which incidentally absolutely dominates any sub $2000 Macbook.

Link me a comparable MBP for less than double plz.

Also, all of the MBPs come with 500GB drives (5400 rpm) by default.

Finally,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152337
GTFO. 1TB drive, 1920x1080, 12GB RAM, GTX670.
Comparable Macbook? ~$800 more, and cant match the RAM or video card.

But Im sure there will be reasons youll find to argue with even that.

Why dont you link the Mac you are referencing? Because the stock Macs listed on the apple website @ 1799 and 2199 do NOT come with 8GB RAM standard (its a several hundred dollar upgrade, or at least was 2 days ago), nor do they come with SSDs, and they have an inferior video card.

You say youve proven what i said to be BS, but you havent even linked this Mac that youre talking about. Here, ill save you the effort and link direct to the bog-standard mac configs:
http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD103LL/A?
$1799, with ONLY 4GB of ram, NO ssd, (only a 500GB 5400RP drive), and a core i7 (which until 2 days ago was a distinctly inferior Sandy Bridge)

If you want that 8GB (which you claim to be standard), you need to go up to their $2100 model:
http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD104LL/A?
Except that they STILL dont include an SSD: That costs an extra $900, despite the availability of MUCH cheaper 512GB SSDs out there...
like the much esteemed Crucial M4 at only $414, which is once again 1/2 the price of the Mac hardware (despite it very likely being the same underlying hardware).

For the things you claim to be standard (SSD, 8GB RAM, Ivy Bridge), you would need to shell out $3199, while I could get a comparable laptop at $1400 or less EASILY. By slapping an SSD into the lenovo, I would have that laptop for $1100.

Compare to this other offering from MSI:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152349
Which not only comes with 8GB RAM, a 50% bigger drive stock, and an identical processor, but also has a substantially beefier video card (GTX 660 / 2GB vs the MBP's 650GT / 1GB).

Listen, you can argue that you get other benefits with the MBP like higher maximum ram (but even thats not true, I can easily find laptops with 16GB maximum) or a better resolution, but the more you try to tack onto the MBP the higher that markup will be. I will lay down a wager that ANY configuration of MBP you can come up with, I can match for 1/2 the price (except for screen resolution). Please dont bother disputing this unless you have a link to the Mac store to back your statements up.

Why dont you link the Mac you are referencing? Because the stock Macs listed on the apple website @ 1799 and 2199 do NOT come with 8GB RAM standard (its a several hundred dollar upgrade, or at least was 2 days ago), nor do they come with SSDs, and they have an inferior video card.

You say youve proven what i said to be BS, but you havent even linked this Mac that youre talking about. Here, ill save you the effort and link direct to the bog-standard mac configs:
http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD103LL/A?
$1799, with ONLY 4GB of ram, NO ssd, (only a 500GB 5400RP drive), and a core i7 (which until 2 days ago was a distinctly inferior Sandy Bridge)

If you want that 8GB (which you claim to be standard), you need to go up to their $2100 model:
http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD104LL/A?
Except that they STILL dont include an SSD: That costs an extra $900, despite the availability of MUCH cheaper 512GB SSDs out there...
like the much esteemed Crucial M4 at only $414, which is once again 1/2 the price of the Mac hardware (despite it very likely being the same underlying hardware).

For the things you claim to be standard (SSD, 8GB RAM, Ivy Bridge), you would need to shell out $3199, while I could get a comparable laptop at $1400 or less EASILY. By slapping an SSD into the lenovo, I would have that laptop for $1100.

Compare to this other offering from MSI:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152349
Which not only comes with 8GB RAM, a 50% bigger drive stock, and an identical processor, but also has a substantially beefier video card (GTX 660 / 2GB vs the MBP's 650GT / 1GB).

Listen, you can argue that you get other benefits with the MBP like higher maximum ram (but even thats not true, I can easily find laptops with 16GB maximum) or a better resolution, but the more you try to tack onto the MBP the higher that markup will be. I will lay down a wager that ANY configuration of MBP you can come up with, I can match for 1/2 the price (except for screen resolution). Please dont bother disputing this unless you have a link to the Mac store to back your statements up.

$200 for 8GB more seems somewhat reasonable...

Not to me.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233217

1600 MHz can be had for about 30 bucks more, but it's actually not worth it for the higher CAS.

Oh man, those were wonderful cases weren't they? I still remember the first time I saw one opened at the computer lab - I never much cared for Apple, and didn't really care much for the visual design, but WOW. That fold-out motherboard tray was brilliant! Working in one of those babies was to a standard tower case what a tower was to a desktop. I can only assume that Apple wrapped the design tight with patents, or that every other case manufacturer on the planet is stupid. In a perfect world every tower case on the planet would open like that these days.

Huh, go figure. Apparently case manufacturers the world over *are* idiots. A quick search turns up that ATX fold-out cases, while rare, do in fact exist http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156078, but I can't find any high-end ones. I'm rather surprised Antec apparently doesn't make one, more than one actually. You don't need a fancy layout for a mid tower, but considering they make water-coolers as well they could actually pull off a really slick B&W-style mini-tower, sans the fruity outer shell.

It's funny, I could have *sworn* I had looked in to building a PC in one of those cases a few years back only to discover that the motherboard was a (roughly) mirror-image of the ATX layout and couldn't be adapted. Now I look at photos again and everything appears compatible. Well, the CPU heat sink/fan combo might collide with the power supply, but if nothing else a closed-system water-cooler could probably squeeze in, though you'd probably want to rig the radiator to the front side of the fold out door somehow to avoid flexing the hoses.

I think what you mean is: As usual, people have to step in and pay more to get higher quality.

Apple leads the way in these things because they've managed to convince people to spend more for higher quality.

Here, buy this if you want greater resolution. Add in a really nice computer and it's still cheaper than an iMac with the same screen size and density.

Like most monitors, this one is used to watch boobies.

Which then increases the cost and requires drivers
http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=0 As you can see these all cost more than the Pi by it's self.
This is an option http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10585 when the new one is available
People can always use this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812196233 if their are drivers for this.

I own the mentioned UD5H motherboard used for the record memory speed; I bought it to replace a very old P5B Deluxe. I am in no way jealous or unappreciative of HiCookie's feat, and the board definitely looks like something that can handle such a thing, but my experience with the board has been middling.

I haven't had the freezes that people have mentioned on its Newegg page (thank the gods!) and things generally work, but Windows 7 64-bit simply refuses to hybrid sleep or hibernate, and after a non-hybrid standby to RAM, things subtly fuck up (no audio, and other devices I forget at the moment mess up), which means I have to fully reboot (really fun when waiting for big programs like Catalyst) or leave the rig on at FULL POWAH through the night or whatever. Arch Linux was working well at first (RAM standby and even disk hibernate if properly configured and I choose to boot from the Linux drive after the suspend), but updates seem to have made it less compatible with my audio (audio out works except through the standard green line-out...odd) and TV tuner (not detected), for whatever reason. (I left a few more details on a review on the Newegg page, minus the less-compatible part.) The P5B had no such problems: its audio had lots of RF interference through headphones (the UD5H has beautifully clear onboard audio when it works) but it suspended, automatically resumed from the suspended drive, and otherwise worked nicely.

For me, a "middling" board is worse than a "horrible" one, because at least a horrible would be bad enough for me to undo all the cable connections and screw placements and attachments and all that to trade for something better (a very old backup PC I had started getting POST errors as I built the new one so combined with other factors it made referring to the internet kinda impossible...that was fun). With a middling one I simply tolerate the few problems because it mostly works. *shrugs*

Sorry if that came off as a dumb ramble; just my experience with it.

Try this ASUS instead of Dell.

You can find the one I'm seriously looking at here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215081

Comparable to an iPad yet it runs Windows and is cheaper while including a Keyboard Dock. The really nice thing is the inclusion of a pair of USB ports unlike the iPad. On the CPU front, it's one of the new AMD APU models and it runs Win7. The only thing I'd suggest is doing a full wipe/clean install to get rid of the Bloatware that's preloaded by acer (backup the drivers first) and tweak things for best performance. One thing I'd also suggest is this stylus for Capacitive Screens

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834989024

and add a few 16GB Flash and SD Cards for extra storage as they're less then $12 ea = >$1.00 per GB. On the software front, toss in a copy of Office Home and Student and she'll have Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote to make her teachers happy for reports. Sure the 32GB SSD isn't that big but offers enough space that with her docs and such kept on either a Flash or SD Card, she wont loose her class work if it's broken/lost.

You can find the one I'm seriously looking at here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215081

Comparable to an iPad yet it runs Windows and is cheaper while including a Keyboard Dock. The really nice thing is the inclusion of a pair of USB ports unlike the iPad. On the CPU front, it's one of the new AMD APU models and it runs Win7. The only thing I'd suggest is doing a full wipe/clean install to get rid of the Bloatware that's preloaded by acer (backup the drivers first) and tweak things for best performance. One thing I'd also suggest is this stylus for Capacitive Screens

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834989024

and add a few 16GB Flash and SD Cards for extra storage as they're less then $12 ea = >$1.00 per GB. On the software front, toss in a copy of Office Home and Student and she'll have Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote to make her teachers happy for reports. Sure the 32GB SSD isn't that big but offers enough space that with her docs and such kept on either a Flash or SD Card, she wont loose her class work if it's broken/lost.

Newegg with the advanced search with narrow your options pretty well
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=32&name=Laptops-Notebooks

Better throw some more memory in your machine. I hear Firefox has a voracious appetite, even today.

It would be great if Firefox had a bigger leak management team, but I try not to spend too much time on $15 problems.

When I bought my hard drive it was @ $99. it is now $149

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

Prices are not near being back to normal.

Price is already around $1/Gb at least at Newegg. You can get better if you wait for a deal. I think endurance and reliability of the drives needs to improve before they will really be mainstream.

You may want to check your math... at $0.01/GB, a 1TB drive would be $10... and I'm still not seeing them cheaper than $70 on sale.

You're right, meant less than 10 cent/GB.

I really don't see the cost of SSD's dropping to 1/10th of their current price (the price point at which they're comparable to hard disks) in 7 months. 7 years is much more likely when you consider hard drives are also getting larger and cheaper at the same time.

Very few people need 4TB, the current largest hard drive. I'd argue most people are happy with 500gb. With SSDs less than $1/gb now, down from $4/gb just 2 years ago, 500gb SSDs will be somewhere south of $200 by the end of 2012 or early 2013. You can already buy a 240gb SSD for $190.

Oh, there's also the fact that cheaper SSDs still seem to have a relatively poor MTBF and don't deliver the performance gains that most people associate with SSDs... have to pay a bit more for a *good* SSD

That's not really a fact though, that "cheap PC hardware price = poor performance and poor MTBF", that's your opinion.

Haven't they been saying that for a few decades now? Rotational media will be around for a long time to come, barring any real shattering breakthroughs in solid state media. Some markets, such as laptops and workstations which value speed over capacity, will likely transition to SSDs being the norm within the next 5 years or so, but when you need a lot of storage you'll still turn to hard drives for at least another decade or two. Given that hard drive technology is still having breakthroughs, it will be some time before SSDs can catch up in overall capacity, nevermind price per GB/TB.

SSDs have already surpassed hard drives in capacity, with 16TB being offered on a single SSD. SSDs are less than $1 a gigabyte. True, much more than hard drives, but 11 years ago when hard drives were $3 a gigabyte and 7 years ago hard drives were 50 cents/gb. Now hard drives are less than 1 cent a gigabyte, so how long do you think it will take SSDs to get there?

SSDs have the huge advantage that everyone wants them. Every device needs fast access and transfer rates with low power usage in as small a space as possible. More devices means more sales means lower prices as they ramp up production. I have a feeling that by the end of 2012 people won't even be considering a hard drive in a PC anymore, everyone will just buy SSDs.

Hard drives will never win the capacity war, not when they can currently put 64 gigabytes on a space smaller than your fingernail and that includes the memory controller and case.

Haven't they been saying that for a few decades now? Rotational media will be around for a long time to come, barring any real shattering breakthroughs in solid state media. Some markets, such as laptops and workstations which value speed over capacity, will likely transition to SSDs being the norm within the next 5 years or so, but when you need a lot of storage you'll still turn to hard drives for at least another decade or two. Given that hard drive technology is still having breakthroughs, it will be some time before SSDs can catch up in overall capacity, nevermind price per GB/TB.

SSDs have already surpassed hard drives in capacity, with 16TB being offered on a single SSD. SSDs are less than $1 a gigabyte. True, much more than hard drives, but 11 years ago when hard drives were $3 a gigabyte and 7 years ago hard drives were 50 cents/gb. Now hard drives are less than 1 cent a gigabyte, so how long do you think it will take SSDs to get there?

SSDs have the huge advantage that everyone wants them. Every device needs fast access and transfer rates with low power usage in as small a space as possible. More devices means more sales means lower prices as they ramp up production. I have a feeling that by the end of 2012 people won't even be considering a hard drive in a PC anymore, everyone will just buy SSDs.

Hard drives will never win the capacity war, not when they can currently put 64 gigabytes on a space smaller than your fingernail and that includes the memory controller and case.

Most articles I've seen indicate that rotational storage (and existing flash-based SSDs) will be replaced within 2 years by memristor-based storage or similar non-rotational, non-flash storage. It makes no sense for hard drive manufacturers to "race to the bottom" when they've already consolidated into 2 major manufacturers and sales have such a short term outlook.

This. Hard drives are dead. SSDs are less than $1 a gigabyte. Down from $4 a gigabyte just 2 years ago. At the rate SSDs are dropping in price why even consider a hard drive when you can buy now for $1/gb or wait a few months until it's 50 cents/gb or another year until it's 10 cents/gb? Few hundred gigabytes is more than enough for the average user.

Good-bye rotational media, I will not miss your slow access times.

Probably. The first 3tb was released June 2010. [techdigest.tv] 4tb came out Oct 2011. [storagereview.com] Not exactly amazing growth, over a year for 1tb, at this rate we'll be 9tb in 2016. At this rate we will not see 60tb by 2016, and I say "we" meaning end consumer, maybe some lab monkey will see an areal density equivalent to 60tb, but it won't be available for sale. You're making the flawed assumption that current PRM technology can continue at that pace and that HAMR will not be a disruptive technology resulting in a "bump" in the density. HAMR will be a bump in density just like PRM was only a bump in density over the older recording methods.

You're exactly right: perpendicular recording (PRM) was a bump in recording methods. Before perpendicular recording the largest hard drive was 400gb and perpendicular recording did exactly what slashdot predicted, offer 10x the storage, with 4tb hard drives now available only 7 years after PRM came out in 2005.

But it took 10 full years to reach that 10x prediction, and hard drive capacity has been increasing at the same exponential growth for 30 years. What they're calling for is a huge leap, 15x the storage in 4 years, from 4tb to 60tb, and that's just not going to happen.

I would predict 10-20tb, but I'm not sure anyone will care since we'll all be using multiple terabyte SSDs by 2016 anyway, they're increasing at a much faster growth rate than hard drives and who wants to wait milliseconds to transfer date at mBps when you can wait nanoseconds to transfer at gBps? Hard drives will be almost as useful in 2016 as tape drives are in 2012.

For example take microSD cards, they're at 64gb now. 100 of those would be 55mm by 15mm by 20mm = 16,500 mm3, much smaller than a 3.5" hard drive at 101.6 mm × 25.4 mm × 146 mm = 368,650 mm3, yet a hundred 64gb microSD cards would provide 6.4tb of storage, far more than any hard drive and it could fit in a cellphone and weigh only 50grams (0.1 lbs) compared to the 1.5 lbs a hard drive weighs. Of course at $87 each that would be almost $9,000, but flash memory prices are dropping faster than any other technology related item so I have no doubt that $9k will be ~$200 within a few years.

The consumer _DOES_ have a choice here. By buying a chrome book they are choosing... duh... chrome.

Would you say that same thing about Windows and IE? It would be right for Microsoft to disable any other browser than IE because after all, the consumer has a choice, and can get a Mac OS X (Safari), Linux (Firefox) or Chromebook (Chrome) based on their favorite browser. Heh.

The problem that existed in windows was that there was no real alternative to Windows in consumer market at the time of Microsoft anti-trust hearings.

Really? This was the time there was several Linux distros sold off the shelfs in stores! And yes, you could get computers without Windows.

I think it's hard to make the argument that it's the same thing when you can buy an entire Google Chromebook for about the same price as Windows 7.

The consumer _DOES_ have a choice here. By buying a chrome book they are choosing... duh... chrome.

Would you say that same thing about Windows and IE? It would be right for Microsoft to disable any other browser than IE because after all, the consumer has a choice, and can get a Mac OS X (Safari), Linux (Firefox) or Chromebook (Chrome) based on their favorite browser. Heh.

The problem that existed in windows was that there was no real alternative to Windows in consumer market at the time of Microsoft anti-trust hearings.

Really? This was the time there was several Linux distros sold off the shelfs in stores! And yes, you could get computers without Windows.

I think it's hard to make the argument that it's the same thing when you can buy an entire Google Chromebook for about the same price as Windows 7.