TX1001au - Questions

Ok a few questions on this model.

Firstly its the Australia model, so it has a 1GB ram (2x512), Turion 64 x2 TL-60 and 120gb sata hdd. everything else is the same (i think)

1. The chip is a 64 bit chip right? but it comes with bista home that is 32bit. is there any hard ware benefit to go 64bit, ie fast over all processing, battaery life improve, as it runs native, no 32 bit emulation (or is that not how it works?) or will it totally depend on if the software is 64bit?

2. Quickplay can it play dvd's without booting vista?

3. Blue bottoms around screen, can you turn the lights off? (really annoying when working)

4. The recovery partition, it is 6GB but only 4.5GB is used. so ive filled the rest with drivers , and other important files that i will need should i do a recovery. to test i did do a recovery and it recoverd the main drive with no problems. is there any unforseen issues i might have or is that test alone good enough?

5. Can you improve the mic pick up? i have to shout at it for vista to even recognise my speech

6. whats the best free firewall to use? (apart fromthe vista one) zonealarm does not seem to have a vista complient one.

cheers

[realised there was a tablet PC section! moved to there, mods please delete thread. thx]

 

First congratulations on your new notebook; from what I've heard it's a great piece of hardware to have.
1- no real benefit as the 64-bit Vista is reported to be somewhat slower than the 32-bit one. Lot's of potential benefits but first, someone needs to make the right software for it...cough *Microsoft* cough...
2 - yes it can (edit: not true for QP 3, my mistake)
3- as far as I know, not yet. HP may release a BIOS update for that. Look at the pre-release review here.
4- burn the recovery disks because otherwise you won't be protected against a potential hard drive failure. The recovery partition is good but if you have recovery dvds, you can safely delete it.
5- not sure but most probably not. I believe this is a software-related issue
6- that's why I use XP

 

1) yes there are benefits. People will notice more when there is more 64-bit software about. As in, Office 2007 does load up faster.

2) No it can't. Not along with vista if using QP 3. You can mess around to try to reinstall the older version in it's own partition.

3) Tell vista, and they might make and update at some point. But don't count on it.

4) Burn the recovery DVDs. (I've deleted the recovery partition because I don't need it now.)

5) The drivers are quiet rubbish at the moment. Everyone is still waiting for updates for decent drivers.

6) http://www.pctools.com/firewall/ try that one if your under vista 32-bit. There doesn't seem to be a freeware one just yet for 64-bit. But zonealarm will pull around soon.