I got a laptop last week. I’ve not owned a laptop since I had a second-hand old 386 many years ago. I still have it in the loft somewhere.

Having used one at the baby Shoot I did a while ago so I could show Mums their shots there & then (I borrowed my wife’s) I thought it would be a good addition to the armoury. It will also mean I don’t have to spend so much time shut away on the main machine in what I euphamistically call ‘the office’. I might still spend far too long on a computer but at least I can do it in the front room with my family.

I bought a Asus Notebook A7U-7P274C AMDTL58 1.9GHz 2048MB 250GB 17" widescreen DVD-SM WLAN webcam card reader Vista Home Premium 2 year manufacturer’s warranty, phew! If you’re interested in the spec you can see it here. I purchased it from ebuyer & got it for £399 including VAT which was a pretty damned good price considering it’s currently on offer for £472 on MicroDirect’s website, which usually is fairly competitive. It’s currently out of stock, I’m not surprised as it seemed like a great deal for the specification, eBuyer gets most of my custom for PC-related stuff & has done for several years, their prices are usually among the best.

I’ve stuck Lightroom & Photoshop CS3 on there and although slower than my desktop, it seems to perform OK. Mind you, my desktop has 6GB RAM compared to the Laptop’s 2. It’s got a 17" screen which is great for graphics work. I’m currently processing some of my F1 Testing shots on there.

I got a USB mini-mouse as I can’t get used to those bloody touchpad thingies. I could always plug the Bamboo into it for graphics work.