I open this with a trivial yet recurring gripe about Amazon– I click “group into as few shipments as possible” and… “HELLO WE ARE GIVING YOU THIS NOW WITH THAT FOLLOWING WHEN IT BECOMES AVAILABLE” which is Amazon-speak for “both of these items are not in stock at the same warehouse so we’re splitting your order up anyway, lol.” Argh. Why even give me that option in the first place if they never listen? Seriously, it’s only actually consolidated properly ONCE that I can recall. I shouldn’t bitch because it’s still free shipping, but… packaging waste is boo.
That said, the Logitech Speaker Lapdesk N700 arrived first, with the wireless N card (a D-Link) to follow shortly. (FYI, the lapdesk came from the Amazon Arizona warehouse… the next closest station is in Nevada?) I held off unboxing it until it was time for bed, and here we are.
It’s, uh… quite big. Definitely not something I can shove in my messenger bag or easily haul around with me. Its size, however, is inconsequential to how freaking AWESOME it is– the underside has this padded fabric that’s similar to what you’d find on nice textured furniture and does not heat up at all. You can’t really hear the fan but it IS on (mine shipped with the fan switched to on). It’ll be a few hours to see if it’s able to drop Dinah’s peak temperature, but it HAS slowed the uptake quite a bit– it previously took Dinah about 40 minutes to cap out at around 136F (based on Speedfan). About an hour in and she’s at around 120F. If it doesn’t really put a dent in her final temp, that’s fine… as far as heat control goes, as long as this enables me to put her on my bed without clogging her vents (and thus trigger an overheat), it’s a success. :P Old laptop is old after all…
The ultimate awesomesauce, for me, is the speakers. They override the existing speakers with nary a fuss– just a few minutes pulling some drivers over Windows Update or what-have-you and you’re good to go. And woooow, I never knew how crappy Dinah’s speakers were until now. OMG. This lapdesk won’t give you freaking 7 channel surround but it’s stupidly better than what passes for laptop audio (short of putting on headphones). They are also much more sensibly placed than Dinah’s onboard speakers, which are often blocked off by pillows. You can toggle the volume either through the side buttons or Windows’ volume slider; there’s no OSD if you use the buttons and you’ll have to keep tapping to get where you want.
If you have a laptop, get one of these, even if you don’t have heating issues. The underpadding is comfy and the speakers rock! Not cheap at $80 (softened by about 20 for me due to spawning Amazon eCerts through my bank’s reward program) but sooo worth it. I’ve used laptop coolers and they were flimsy and not very lap-friendly…. Logitech just hit laptop coolers out of the park with this one. :D
Only one little snag and it’s not really related to the lapdesk– I can’t use my mouse with it. No room on the card table that Dinah normally sits on, since the lapdesk is so big. I’ll need to go dig up a firm mousepad or something. I can live with Dinah’s touchpad for now, though.
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Meowch: All four cats are getting their vaccinations next week. Who gets to pay for them (but doesn’t get to go because HURR DURR EVIL STEPFATHER and his wanting to go just so he can look at the other pets even though every time I go to Dr. Berg’s office it’s usually pretty empty)? Me. :P
Poor Kestine, though… dude HATES to be in a carrier. Pile that on top of someone taking his temp by sticking a thermometer up his butt, and having to listen to Daisy hiss and swear at the newbies in Cat Demon… and probably someone wanting to give him eardrops since he always has some kind of ear wax. Not fun. :|
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Post-It Notes’ LAN version is Not Hamachi: yet mother is pushing for its usage as a Hamachi replacement as she can’t be arsed to reinstall it and log back into the house VPN. *FACEPALM* I don’t care how cute the deletion sound is, the Post-it notes app is clunky as hell and I have to go through all these menus to send a note over the LAN. If this was about not wanting to reinstall Hamachi, fine…. but we could have used GBridge instead since that runs off Google. o_O;
Tags: dinah, loot, yoshi the computer monster