Lenovo z570 Core i7

Back in 2008, I needed some more processing power to put together my squadron's deployment video and purchased a Toshiba gaming laptop which worked great for what I needed but lately, I've noticed that it struggled with processing HD movies and handling what my new camera put out. The thought of a new laptop was lurking in the back of my mind.

Well a couple of weeks ago, one of my dogs (I believe!), knocked over a beer onto the keyboard and my trusty Toshiba wouldn't turn on. So I field stripped it, taking everything apart and cleaning it with alcohol and put it back together and it worked well, except for the keyboard and had to plug in a USB keyboard. So I back up everything on an external and started thinking about my next portable brain.

Last weekend, we came up to San Jose for the Fourth and went to Fry's Electronics (if you don't have one in your area, it's a geeks Disneyland) and I went to the tech gal and asked, "What's your best deal on an i7 processor laptop this weekend", and she said, "we just got a truckload of these Lenovo laptops that haven't even hit the floor yet" and I said, "Sweet!"

So a grand later (the laptop was 799, got a two year doggie warranty and a CD for the bride), I was the happy owner of the laptop in the title of this post. Here's my Amazon review of the same system.

Great deal for the price, July 7, 2011

PROS-
At the time of printing, this might be the lowest price Core I7 laptop on the market, solid metal body which does not feel cheap at all. A huge 750 gig hard drive, keys were felt smooth to use and not too much bloatware. The sound is great and I was a little upset by the loss of a fingerprint reader until I realized that it had built in facial recognition software called Lenovo VeriFace which turns on the camera and it puts a Borg circle thing around your right eye and automatically logs you on (this StarTrek gear impressed me and my coworkers)

No USB 3.0 (at least I haven't found it yet) which should be automatically included with any I7 processor, the mousepad takes some getting used to with the pebbled surface, while I like the keyboard, the number keys and the keyboard are squished together. The metal surface is nice but a fingerprint magnet. No Blueray player and only 4 gigs of RAM. Also, finding stats on the Lenovo website such as max RAM, what exactly is under the hood, those guys need to do some work on their web development, a polished product like this should be backed by good customer support online and PR, instead, you have to fight in circles to dig out gold nuggets of information. Also the included documentation in the box is skimpy.

Overall-
A great buy for the price, beautiful and quick laptop with a top of the line processor for half of the price I paid for my last laptop. So far it seems to do my HD video processing well which is why I upgraded. For a big purchase like this, so far I've had little buyer's remorse and would likely make the same purchase again.

Nighttime mayhem

Yesterday, while cleaning our room after KBR spread dust all over the place replacing our heater (thanks!). We fried our power cord, I guess the shop vacuum pulls to much wattage for the Iraqi brand cord that I had purchased from the local hajji mart and all of the smoke came out of the wires and it wouldn't work anymore.

So I wasn't able to plug my super loud alarm clock into the wall and we were forced to use a dinky travel alarm clock that my roommate brought with him. We went to bed and I woke suddenly and glanced out the window and saw light shining through the sandbags. Eek! I grabbed my watch (which I took off to take a shower) and put it on my wrist, it said 8:45, ack, I jumped out of bed, said to my roommate in a panicky voice "It's 8:45!" While trying to buckle my watch, the dumb thing wouldn't buckle right.

He glanced over at his watch and said....

"It's 2:15"

I had put on my watch upside down and the light shinning though the window was from light in the lobby.

No, I’m not a morning person and yes, I am a dork.

Grand Canyon Pictures

I was using the new camera on simple mode and it automatically defaulted to putting the date stamp on each of the pictures. Which wouldn't have been a big deal if it was the right date, but it was stamping 2007/01/02 and I didn't find out till I uploaded the pictures that night. There's nothing like sharing a bunch of pictures with the world that you knew you screwed up. You can see the pictures here. Not too bad for a 6 mp 99 dollar camera.


Small side note, my son was feeling under the weather that morning and didn't make it.

Sprung like a steel trap

As a shop we do physical training at Oh-dark-thirty in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I’m the first one to admit that I’m not a morning person, if you want me to do something important in the morning it’s best to hand me a note so I’ll remember to do it later. It’s not unusual not to expect me to talk more then greetings before say 9 or so in the morning and a couple of cups of coffee warming my belly. Well this post isn’t about my morning habits.

Sunday nights I usually go though a routine of getting my uniforms ready, making sure everything is where I can find it before the morning. As usual, I went to bed at around 10 and something woke me up and I looked over at the clock. Oh no, I’m going to be late, the dumb alarm didn’t wake me up. It was 20 after.

I shot out of bed moving faster then I thought it was possible for my chucky old ass to move, grabbed my wallet and keys and threw my clothes on while running to the bathroom to run my toothbrush across my teeth a total of 3 times then I rushed through the garage and hopped into my truck and pulled out.

I was running my tongue over the toothpaste chunks that were between my teeth and offhandedly reached over and switched the rock station that was playing to NPR so I could listen to the news on the way to work and out came classical music.

Huh?

I looked at the time again, 12:23, I had driven a quarter mile so I turned around and was snoozing by the time the clock said 12:30.

Sheesh, I’m a dork.

It’s been two days and I’m still discombobulated over waking up like that, like something has been missing, I wonder what woke me up anyways? Feels like earthquake weather (if there is a big earthquake in the next few days, I told you so). At least my wife is back in all of her green loveliness. It’s great having her home.