3. Surviving 'till It Arrived

I thought caffeine withdrawal was a bitch. Well, my old Toshiba may have had a dodgy battery, but I could at least bring the cables and use it in my sitting room or, during the annual two hours of sunshine here in Ireland, reel it out as far as the garden. I enjoyed my independence from the various boxes in the office, even the smallest of which was massively unwieldy compared to the Toshiba. But after it died, for a good two weeks I was tied down to my desktop, not even a review laptop or notebook in sight. Ohh no, I got a server sized gaming machine in during the two weeks, but not a whiff of a portable.

My days were spent sitting in the same spot, fidgeting every now and again and trying to imagine myself somewhere else. When I began to obsessively draw on the whiteboard hanging on the wall, I knew I was really in danger of becoming a Grade A Basket Case.

One does not appreciate just how unwieldy "personal computers" are until they've given a laptop or notebook a twirl.

The Box Arrives

...or rather three boxes arrive. It never ceases to amaze me quite how many large boxes it takes to transport one notebook computer. As a reviewer, it's a job to move around the office (...bedroom, landing and adjoining spaces...) when there's a lot of stuff in, and just one box can cause headaches.

It arrives at the door courtesy of a rather dull and matter-of-fact courier chap, who's hauled one too many of these damn things into some ungrateful chap's place. Ohh yeah, dump 'em in the middle of the hall, fine, fine; I'll sign here with the wrong side of the pen... OK git.

Now begins a process that harkens back to my younger, more impressionable days, when we'd take in a new computer, crack open the box and put it all together, scrutinizing each part and the start-up time with wonder in our eyes. One thing I don't recall about those heady days, however, was nearly chopping my finger off whilst trying to extract a freakin' piece of hardware from its cocoon.

I'm ever so careful with knives, and it wasn't a sharpened piece of steel that got me this time. A rather difficult spot to open on the cardboard box had me rather carelessly stick my finger into the break and slide it along to separate the tape. Big mistake... I still have a scar on my finger from the fine incision it made.

I was getting off on the wrong foot with this thing.