Posted 12/23/2008 at 07:50:37pm

Appreciate the effort from HP.  But this kind of specs would surely fit more on a Best Buy shelf. 

And how can you have a new PC config in 2009 with anything else but Core i7 ??  Mmmmhhhh...  definitely not a system I would recommend.

Posted 10/22/2008 at 12:32:28pm

It is a good thing for the adoption of blu-Ray to have such prices.  But, it is NOT a good thing if some movies don't play, or if java-heavy menus are jerky.  And (assuming it is not a 2.0 player), the frustration people will have when they see movies have a BD-Live feature that they cannot access.  I'm not even talking about the many players out there still taking 45+ seconds to load the disc.

The technology out there is not yet ready for Blu-Ray.  not surprising that the PS3 remains a good choice (with its on-board memory and CPU power), or better yet, my HTPC.  I don't remember DVD players ever having those technical problems.

Will it hurt the market to have early adopters buy cheap players, if those cannot deliver ?  This remains to be seen.

Posted 09/28/2008 at 06:45:30pm

I basically use more or less the same tactics to get budget approval for a new machine :-)

My 2-year old system is still kicking %$$, with its QX6700 and 8800GTX.  Now, finally, we have worthy replacements for the graphics (either the GTX 280 or the 4870 X2), but I have to wait and see real ife performance of the i7 before I take the plunge.  If we get a minimum of 30% improvements in CPU perfomance accross all benchmarks, then I'll go for it.

I always maintain this spreadsheet for my dream system.  For about 18 months, it was basically never moving, and then, this spring, wow... finally lots of activity in the graphics department. 

The "current" dream system:

Core i7, 4870 X2, 4 Gb RAM @ 1600 Mhz (might be 8 though), 64-bit Vista, 300 Gb Velociraptor and 1 Tb Samsung drives.  I should be able to get all that for $2500 (recycling current peripherals of course).  SSD might not make the cut this time around...