My "New" Laptop

It's probably been nearly ten years since anyone has raved about laptop specs like 366mhz Pentium IIs, but I recently received an old Compaq Armada 7400. What the heck would anyone want with a laptop that old? I had originally thought that I would see if there was anything that I could salvage off of it and then I would scrap it. I was surprised to find out that someone had installed Windows XP on it and upgraded the RAM to 128mb. I figured that I would give it a chance seeing that it was in excellent condition. So let me tell you about my new laptop.

The Good

It has been a while since I have spent any time with a computer running less than 1GHz so I was expecting an excruciatingly slow experience (especially after using my Intel Core 2 Quad rig that I built for myself last Christmas.) I was very surprised that it was quite peppy. I will never be able to watch video or play any graphical games on it but for normal office work it is perfect. The keyboard is my favorite part. It has a very nice tactile response and natural feel something lacking in many of the new laptops I have used. Even with it being 12 years old its battery is in better shape than my Intel Core Duo MacBook Pro. After having used wide screen laptops for the last four years has made me forget the advantages of the old 4x3 display. The extra vertical screen real estate lends itself to working with text and web surfing. Because it is so old I didn't have to install any 3rd party drivers. Once XP was installed everything (except my wireless card) worked perfectly. That's something I miss, normally I spend 3 or more hours installing and upgrading drivers on new computers.

The Bad

Touted as a "desktop replacement" back in 1997 the 366 mhz Pentium II struggles with most of today's programs. The original 6gb hard drive could barely hold XP without any other programs being installed with it. I upgraded it to a 30gb hard drive that I had on hand. Since I don't plan on using this for video, pictures, or music I will probably never fill it. Having only a 4mb video card built in, YouTube videos look like slide shows. Nearly everything that I have installed so far has taken an unearthly amount of time. I think most of this is due to the speed of the hard drive (it's only a 4200rpm drive). The laptop originally came with only 64mb of memory and would only hold up to 128mb sticks in each slot, allowing a max of 256mb. This is quickly used up, but the larger hard drive allows for a larger paging file (unfortunately the slow speed of the drive causes massive slow downs). I cannot install any real time scanning antivirus program because of the performance hit on the system.

Why????

I do computer repair for a lot of people who can't afford new computers, so I am always looking for ways to get the most out of older systems. Having a laptop that is this old forces me to look for ways to get the most out of the system as well as gives me a challenge and I like old computers for some strange reason. Also I am trying to teach myself a new programming language and I want a system that is small enough that I can take it with me easily and not worry about losing it or having it broken. (plus who would want to steal it???)

Over all, this will be a good project and a fun gadget until it dies.

**Update: The back light for the LCD is dying quickly... CRAP!**