Laptop Review: HP ZBook 17.3" - Core i7 4700MQ - 24GB Ram - 1TB Solid State

Let's just say my work laptop is a beast. Okay. It's more than a beast. It's brutal. This computer is by far the best setup I've ever used and I'm wondering if it can get any better than this. The i7-4700MQ is simply great. 24GB of ram? DUH. 1TB SSD? Completely necessary. Unfortunately I don't game on this computer but it's wonderful for say... word docs? internet? youtube? Being a computer I keep at work I mostly do work on it so it's being highly unutilized but the stability of this computer is unmatched. In my line of work I don't have time for hangs and lagging so this may be a bit overpowered yet I'm not complaining. You can pick up a ZBook fairly similar to this for under $2,500 but upgrading the ram and to a ssd with cost you. Those upgrades are not really necessary though. Unless you're insane then they're completely necessary. So do it. Now.

Hp Touchsmart Tx2, personal experience with the Touchsmart series

These last two weeks I've been using a Hp Touchsmart Tx2 as my primary laptop with Windows Developer Preview and I have to say I am very impressed. This particular tablet PC has a 30gb SSD(this isn't the original drive, you'll have to wait awhile before they make SSD's the standard but I would definitely recommend upgrading to one) and a boot time of 10 seconds. I've been using Microsoft Office Onenote 2010 for all my classes and taking notes is a dream, after using this for two weeks I honestly don't think I'll be able to go back to the standard "non-touch" laptop. As soon as the developers preview was released I wanted to get a tablet to truly test this new, touch friendly OS and it just so happened that my friends was looking to sell his Tx2. Getting into the tablet PC world can be a bit pricey but lucky I was able to find one for cheap. I plan on using this much more intensely soon and just wanted to give a little update of the Preview.

My experience with Windows Developer Preview (Windows 8)

The day the Developers Preview was released I couldn't decide whether to put it on my main laptop or my netbook... or both.. I decided to go with my Hp Compaq 6820s which at the time was dual booted with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.04. I deleted all partitions besides my main Windows 7 partition and did a clean install of Windows 8. My computer literally boots in 15 seconds.... If I had a ssd in it I wouldn't be surprised at all if it boot in under 10 seconds, that's how fast it is. So besides the fast boot time, I've used this developers preview for a solid 15 hours and have yet to have a single hiccup, I love it. The integration between the normal desktop and what they call the Metro UI is very friendly, especially if you have a tablet PC. If you have been debating on whether to try this out or wait for the official beta, here's my opinion. DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL NOW! I installed the x86 version but I'm honestly considering buying a tablet PC just because of this OS. I'll keep you updated with my experience but as of now I won't be using anything else.