Updated on December 10, 2021
As the subject line says, I’ve finally gotten a newer laptop to replace the trusty-but-aging (and wearing out) HP Pavilion dv6-1230us I bought at an OfficeDepot three years ago this month.
The replacement? An HP Pavilion m6-1045dx (yes, HP loves its model numbering), which Engadget mentions here. While it’s being sold as a back-to-school type item, I’m sure it’ll serve me quite well. The specs include 8GB RAM, a 750GB (5400 RPM) hard drive, 15.6″ screen, an i5 processor (“i5-3210M,” running at 2.5Ghz), and a backlit keyboard. It also weighs 5.3 pounds (2.4 kg), a full pound (0.5 kg) lighter than the old model. This will make carrying this laptop on trips much easier.
The m6 is meant to be a new model in the HP series, aimed in this case at being something halfway between an ultrabook (such as the HP Envy series) and a conventional laptop (like the dv6 series). Thus, the m6 is fairly thin and light, yet still has an optical drive. It also looks a bit like a MacBook Pro from a distance, with a brushed aluminum lid and chiclet keyboard.
As for why I didn’t go with the Lenovo ultrabook, besides that the HP has better specs and was on sale at Best Buy for $100 less, I didn’t like the lengthy wait Lenovo’s website listed for receiving one of their IdeaPads (“over 4 weeks”). That said, I ended up ordering the HP off Best Buy’s website, as none of the stores in town had any left in stock.
The move from Xubuntu to Linux Mint
About the second part of the subject line, I had some problems with Xubuntu 12.04 on this laptop: namely, hard freezes when I did certain things, such as copying files from an external hard drive or importing photos into programs. Thus, I thought I’d give Linux Mint 13 Xfce (which is Ubuntu-based) a go, especially since it’d save me the trouble of having to reinstall all my favorite programs anyway. ALong with an issue with Mint’s installer apparently getting confused by some Xubuntu menu elements being left over (despite doing a clean install), Mint also had hard freezes, until I found an apparent solution to the freezing: deleting the “.thumbnails” hidden directory from the /home directory. (I also turned off a Bluetooth applet from loading, just in case that was also causing problems/since I don’t use Bluetooth.) Since then, everything seems to be working well enough. I’ll stick with Mint for now, and will report on any further Mint developments.
Unboxing videos
For the first time, a homeshot video (on my smartphone) of the unboxing. Keep in mind I’m not an experienced camcorder (or smartphone video recorder) user, nor at unboxing videos, but thought others might like to see such anyway. And yes, I turned comments on YouTube off. While I greatly appreciate your thoughts, blog readers, there’s no need for the YouTube idiot brigade to post off-topic/offensive remarks.
(Updated 10/5/16)
