After months of research and waiting, I finally bought a new computer: an HP Pavilion Elite m9250f. Circuit City had it for a good price and Intel isn’t releasing any major new processors for a while, so it seemed like the right time.
I’m still setting up the new computer, but hope to have episode 102 online soon. I copied all of my files from my Dell Dimension 4500 to my external USB hard drive and am now copying them from the USB drive to the HP.
My old Dell from 2002 is still a good computer, but I do a lot of audio editing, image editing, and video editing and this new HP will save me a ton of time. I just performed a test to see exactly how much time I’ll save and the results are even better than I anticipated. On my old Dell, applying noise reduction to a 30-minute audio file takes roughly 14 minutes. I thought that was pretty good. On my new HP, it takes roughly three minutes. Wow.
For those of you who are into computers, I posted unboxing photos and photos comparing my Dell tower to my new HP tower:
Flickr – Unboxing my new HP, NYC 5/17/08
For those of you who are really into computers, here are the specs for my old Dell and new HP:
Dell Dimension 4500 and HP Pavilion Elite m9250f specs – text file
As amazingly fast as this new computer is, there are a few things I like better about my old Dell. The Dell tower was designed so it could be lifted and carried easily. The HP tower wasn’t. The Dell came with a standard keyboard, which I like. The HP came with a multimedia keyboard, which has a slightly different layout. I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts while working, so I notice the fact that certain keys are different sizes and in different places.
This is my first time using Windows Vista. One thing I don’t like about it is that Microsoft changed the audio mixer. The one in Windows 98 and XP was convenient and simple. It was almost perfect. The one in Vista is useless. I’ll probably end up searching for a third-party audio mixer online, but I wouldn’t have to if Microsoft hadn’t ruined it in the first place.
