TheWerewolf (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} thewerewolf) wrote,@ 2007-07-19 12:27:00 |
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Ich haben eine UMPC!
Yesterday was a long day that starts ominously but ended well.
The Q1U-XP UMPC that I've had on order was supposed to arrive at Ingram Micro last Friday. Add a couple of days to get the reshipper and then maybe a week to get here, I had expected to have it by the middle of next week. But it doesn't arrive. Monday - still not in. Tuesday and suddenly the expected arrival dates are pushed back to 6 Aug, which is a significant problem since when we add the week and half minimum shipping time, takes us to 15 Aug at the earliest.
Since I'm going to Europe on 4 Sep, that's basically three weeks to resolve any problems - all of which would require sending it back to the US by courier and praying a new unit gets here before I leave, not to mention getting used to the device and setting it up.
Soooo.. I cancelled the order and called Frys in Redmond/Seattle and asked when they'd have stock of the Q1U-V, which turned out to be... yesterday when they'd get 10 units in. I ask if I can have one put aside but I'm told they can't do that until they actually have stock, so I'd have to call back. It took two days to get the order cancelled because they really, really didn't want me to.
Yesterday, I got up at 7am to get into the office by 8am, which is unusual for me. :) On the way in, the news is warning of a "massive storm" coming up the coast from Portland. Oh boy. Sure enough by the time I get to work, it's raining pretty steadily. I have to argue a bit more with mail order company to cancel my order but they finally agree to it.
The day goes smoothly enough and I actually get a lot of work done. Then I call Frys to see if the UMPCs had come in (they had) and to have one put aside. "We can't do that." Uh... why not? "We only sell first come first serve..." No... I explain that the people I talked to on Monday said I could put one on hold once they come in... He refuses to budge so I ask for his manager, explain that if I'm going to drive from Vancouver for one thing, I'd really like to make sure it's there when I get there. He apologises for the confusion and assures me it'll be waiting for me at the till when I get there.
Around 4pm, I leave and get in the car and drive.. right into a traffic jam. I finally work my way though it and get to the US border around around 4:30 and to my surprise - there's almost no one there - I shoot through in five minutes.
I spend the next hour and a half burning my way down I5 to Seattle, then another 20 mins stopping in Kirkland getting gas (I've never seen the 'you're out of gas' light light up on car before!) and I took some picture of the Totem Lake CompUSA that's now shut down. Back on the road heading south on the 405 I thought I'd swing over to the Apple Store on 8th and check out the iPhone - and then immediately ran into a huge traffic jam that cost me almost half an hour to go six miles. So I skip the Apple Store and get down to Frys.
I go to the back and check out the display model and it's even cooler looking than I thought it would be. I sweep through the store and there's really nothing I want to get. I was looking for an ATSC-only USB TV tuner, but the only one they had was as expensive as the hybrid ones.
I do grab a 2GB SODIMM for the UMPC as everyone agrees it significantly improves performance. These use 1.8" HDs that run at 4200RPM and Windows tends to thrash the drive a lot, so since a faster HD isn't in the equation (most, if not all 1.8" drives are 4200RPM) adding more memory will reduce HD thrash. They don't give you the memory - they give you a document for it. You pick it up at the till.
When I get to the front there's a lot of confusion about the order. The clerk can't find my UMPC... she gets the memory and it's the wrong kind... I'm getting pretty frustrated by now. She finally finds the UMPC, so I go back to the memory clerk and get the right one, bring back the form and as I walk up to the next free till, some guy walks up and pushes past me. Fortunately one of the managers steps in and takes my order.
Now SHE can't find the UMPC because the first clerk had stuck it away somewhere. Eventually she finds it and gets the memory - which looks right - and rings up my purchase... Can you guess what happened next?
My Visa card declines.
I pay it with Mastercard and then ask if she'd mind if I open the box and make sure it's all working correctly before leaving the store - explaining that it would take a lot of effort to drive back to get it replaced within the 14 days I have. She doesn't mind and watches as I open the box, plug the battery in and fire it up - looking for bad pixels in the screen.
She's actually enjoying it and digging the new device.
I pack it all back up and head out. I continue down to the Southcentre CompUSA for some more pix and then off for home. I stop at the Sharis in Bellingham and while having dinner at 11pm, I do an unboxing photoshoot on the table and the waitresses and customers are all coming around to look at it. :)
Finally at the border around 12.15 and I pay the GST/PST on it and I'm off for home. I get home around 1am and of course I have to play a little. Fortunately,unciaa, rabitguy and remiswolf were on line to share the fun and that made it all the more enjoyable. Thanks guys! :)
I call Visa to find out what's up with the card - turns out that their anti-fraud system always kicks in when an expensive electronic device is purchased. Gah. On the positive side, they now have a note in their system as to when I'll be in Europe so hopefully I won't get declined for being in another country... :)
Around 2.30am I give up and pass out leaving the UMPC to finish updating Windows.
Initial impressions: damn sexy. The design does work, although it really IS a little slow... but upping to 2GB should fix most of that. I'm digging touchscreen computing - although there's a weird alignment issue where the touchscreen doesn't seem to QUITE go all the way to edge of the screen. I'm told this is actually normal in many touchscreen systems... but it's quite annoying. I'll have to see if there's a software fix.
The Aetheros wifi is very fussy. Hopefully the new drivers that Windows Update installed will help that a bit. The front and back cameras are good - but the back camera - like all of these - just doesn't have the focus to get a good picture of a bar code - but i'll keep tinkering with it.
So.. a long, tiring, VERY expensive day.
And even better, today, I got notified that the six cell extended battery is available from Neutron Canada - so I quickly put in an order for that and hopefully it'll be here in two weeks. The normal four cell battery is good for about 5 hours - the six is good for 8 - which will come in VERY handy on the trip.
And finally - the last piece in the puzzle - my DVB-T TV Tuner stick should arrive either today or tomorrow. And that'll be the end of all of the purchases of toys and tools for the European trip.
If you want to see the unboxing pix - http://www.werewolves.ca/files/umpc
Yesterday was a long day that starts ominously but ended well.
The Q1U-XP UMPC that I've had on order was supposed to arrive at Ingram Micro last Friday. Add a couple of days to get the reshipper and then maybe a week to get here, I had expected to have it by the middle of next week. But it doesn't arrive. Monday - still not in. Tuesday and suddenly the expected arrival dates are pushed back to 6 Aug, which is a significant problem since when we add the week and half minimum shipping time, takes us to 15 Aug at the earliest.
Since I'm going to Europe on 4 Sep, that's basically three weeks to resolve any problems - all of which would require sending it back to the US by courier and praying a new unit gets here before I leave, not to mention getting used to the device and setting it up.
Soooo.. I cancelled the order and called Frys in Redmond/Seattle and asked when they'd have stock of the Q1U-V, which turned out to be... yesterday when they'd get 10 units in. I ask if I can have one put aside but I'm told they can't do that until they actually have stock, so I'd have to call back. It took two days to get the order cancelled because they really, really didn't want me to.
Yesterday, I got up at 7am to get into the office by 8am, which is unusual for me. :) On the way in, the news is warning of a "massive storm" coming up the coast from Portland. Oh boy. Sure enough by the time I get to work, it's raining pretty steadily. I have to argue a bit more with mail order company to cancel my order but they finally agree to it.
The day goes smoothly enough and I actually get a lot of work done. Then I call Frys to see if the UMPCs had come in (they had) and to have one put aside. "We can't do that." Uh... why not? "We only sell first come first serve..." No... I explain that the people I talked to on Monday said I could put one on hold once they come in... He refuses to budge so I ask for his manager, explain that if I'm going to drive from Vancouver for one thing, I'd really like to make sure it's there when I get there. He apologises for the confusion and assures me it'll be waiting for me at the till when I get there.
Around 4pm, I leave and get in the car and drive.. right into a traffic jam. I finally work my way though it and get to the US border around around 4:30 and to my surprise - there's almost no one there - I shoot through in five minutes.
I spend the next hour and a half burning my way down I5 to Seattle, then another 20 mins stopping in Kirkland getting gas (I've never seen the 'you're out of gas' light light up on car before!) and I took some picture of the Totem Lake CompUSA that's now shut down. Back on the road heading south on the 405 I thought I'd swing over to the Apple Store on 8th and check out the iPhone - and then immediately ran into a huge traffic jam that cost me almost half an hour to go six miles. So I skip the Apple Store and get down to Frys.
I go to the back and check out the display model and it's even cooler looking than I thought it would be. I sweep through the store and there's really nothing I want to get. I was looking for an ATSC-only USB TV tuner, but the only one they had was as expensive as the hybrid ones.
I do grab a 2GB SODIMM for the UMPC as everyone agrees it significantly improves performance. These use 1.8" HDs that run at 4200RPM and Windows tends to thrash the drive a lot, so since a faster HD isn't in the equation (most, if not all 1.8" drives are 4200RPM) adding more memory will reduce HD thrash. They don't give you the memory - they give you a document for it. You pick it up at the till.
When I get to the front there's a lot of confusion about the order. The clerk can't find my UMPC... she gets the memory and it's the wrong kind... I'm getting pretty frustrated by now. She finally finds the UMPC, so I go back to the memory clerk and get the right one, bring back the form and as I walk up to the next free till, some guy walks up and pushes past me. Fortunately one of the managers steps in and takes my order.
Now SHE can't find the UMPC because the first clerk had stuck it away somewhere. Eventually she finds it and gets the memory - which looks right - and rings up my purchase... Can you guess what happened next?
My Visa card declines.
I pay it with Mastercard and then ask if she'd mind if I open the box and make sure it's all working correctly before leaving the store - explaining that it would take a lot of effort to drive back to get it replaced within the 14 days I have. She doesn't mind and watches as I open the box, plug the battery in and fire it up - looking for bad pixels in the screen.
She's actually enjoying it and digging the new device.
I pack it all back up and head out. I continue down to the Southcentre CompUSA for some more pix and then off for home. I stop at the Sharis in Bellingham and while having dinner at 11pm, I do an unboxing photoshoot on the table and the waitresses and customers are all coming around to look at it. :)
Finally at the border around 12.15 and I pay the GST/PST on it and I'm off for home. I get home around 1am and of course I have to play a little. Fortunately,
unciaa, rabitguy and remiswolf were on line to share the fun and that made it all the more enjoyable. Thanks guys! :)I call Visa to find out what's up with the card - turns out that their anti-fraud system always kicks in when an expensive electronic device is purchased. Gah. On the positive side, they now have a note in their system as to when I'll be in Europe so hopefully I won't get declined for being in another country... :)
Around 2.30am I give up and pass out leaving the UMPC to finish updating Windows.
Initial impressions: damn sexy. The design does work, although it really IS a little slow... but upping to 2GB should fix most of that. I'm digging touchscreen computing - although there's a weird alignment issue where the touchscreen doesn't seem to QUITE go all the way to edge of the screen. I'm told this is actually normal in many touchscreen systems... but it's quite annoying. I'll have to see if there's a software fix.
The Aetheros wifi is very fussy. Hopefully the new drivers that Windows Update installed will help that a bit. The front and back cameras are good - but the back camera - like all of these - just doesn't have the focus to get a good picture of a bar code - but i'll keep tinkering with it.
So.. a long, tiring, VERY expensive day.
And even better, today, I got notified that the six cell extended battery is available from Neutron Canada - so I quickly put in an order for that and hopefully it'll be here in two weeks. The normal four cell battery is good for about 5 hours - the six is good for 8 - which will come in VERY handy on the trip.
And finally - the last piece in the puzzle - my DVB-T TV Tuner stick should arrive either today or tomorrow. And that'll be the end of all of the purchases of toys and tools for the European trip.
If you want to see the unboxing pix - http://www.werewolves.ca/files/umpc
