Just picked up my Edge :)

Just picked up my Edge from PCMW. I got pics but need a free host or something to post them up.

Specs are:

P9500
4GB ram
OCZ Core 128GB
Vista ultimate x64

everything else is standard.

This thing looks awesome, love it As for performance, I'm still tweaking the OS. They haven't done much to it other than install it.

The space bar doesn't seem to be loud at all, seems normal to me. I think I got a stuck pixel thou, it's not black but sorta rainbowish? Oh and the right side of the touchpad does get warm, and the buttons on the touchpad are stiff.

As for PCMW, the sales rep waited for me at their office, their office looks like the pictures they have posted online. All in all have had a good exp with them.

Will write something more detailed later this weekend, long week at work. going to the bar and getting wasted

****EDIT

Here are some pics, some are blurry but I'm too lazy to keep retaking photo's, blame apple for the crappy iphone cam =p

















these are with the drivers from Clevo site.


177.92 drivers


these are temps after gaming for an hour, maybe two. I didn't really check the time. Playing Requiem: Bloodymare, not the most demanding game but should give you an idea. Also running that cheap notebook cooler, not sure if that helps any. I may just turn it off just to see.


OCZ Core 128GB w/ AHCI disabled, will try to run one with it enabled if I have time for another reinstall next weekend.

 

Darn you! First one to get it. Oh well, I wasn't expecting to hold that title.

Wow, they are working over their daily hours, must be a lot of shipments going out tonight I'm guessing.

 

You could upload your pictures here:

www.imageshack.us

Congrats on getting it!

 

Congratulations!

I can't wait to see some pictures especially the SSD reading/writing speed benchmarks

 

TY let me try n post up some pics before i head out to the bar hehe. I'll run tests on the SSD on sunday if i can but man this laptop is fast.

 

yes indeed, congrats! I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that some folks were worried about PCMW coming through for their customers.

 

i will post pics tomorrow or sunday, the ones i took earlier on my iphone are all blurry =/

 

Thats because you used an Apple product to take pictures of a computer with Micrsoft on it...duh. They hate each other

Just do yourself and the world a favor and burn any "i" stuff you have. You will never have to worry about blurry pictures then

 

I thought they discontinued offering the flash hard drives with the NP8660? ...because of bugs or something.

 

What are you talking about? Please explain.

 

that was only sager, other resellers still offered it. will run tests later this weekend but so far, the **** thing is fast or maybe i'm just drunk

 

Here is the thread that explains about the OCZ SSD trouble.

 

yep, read all bout the stuttering and corrupt files. all good here though, no problems at all, based on what i've read, OCZ may be right, it may just driver issues.

 

i doubt theres any problems

 

some pics posted on main post.

 

You took it to your business office?

 

Wow, is that the heavy armoured case that's an option with the notebook?
Looks sweet.

 

Yes, I had to do some Exchange maintenance so took it to work with me

And yes, it's the black armour case thingy. It's pretty nifty, has a shoulder strap but with everything inside it's pretty darn heavy.

I'm reinstalling vista right now, looks like they left AHCI on, which according to OCZ affects performance of the SSD and may cause issues, it was working fine but I have to test heh. So disabled it and reinstalling Vista right now.

On a side note, the notebook cooler that came with my order is utter crap, it's Antec, completely useless so does anyone know of a good one that can be used on soft surfaces like a bed or on the lap?

I also don't see any bluetooth, going to have a chat with PCMW come Monday if it's missing. I need my screen replaced anyways, got 1 dead pixel.

 

That's strange, all research and reviews I checked up on the Antec cooler states that it's pretty **** good.

I guess I'll have to judge it myself.

 

Very nice dude.

 

suspicious. Your veil is falling!

 

I just read on a site that Antec suggest you rotate the cooler 180 degrees to see if there is any noticeable difference.

Apparantly for this reviewer, there was a HUGE difference

http://www.pcabusers.com/reviews/antec/notebookcooler/p3.htm

 

I didnt get that cooler DRTH, it's this really cheap one that elevates the end of the laptop with 2 fans.

Helio, what is susupicous about my reply? are you people so bias that you simply refuse to believe I got my laptop. I have nothing to prove, could care less about this reseller or that reseller. And I am a Systems Administrator at Synaptics, yes the company that makes the designed the touchpad for the M860TU so me doing Exchange maintenance on a weekend is normal.

***
Found the bluetooth, have to press FN+F12. Also just finished reinstalling Vista, updates and drivers. Going to test to see if disabling AHCI makes any difference.

 

no, i believe you. I just think your extremely picky to return a WSXGA screen with only ONE dead pixel.

 

Why not? If the man can pick up the laptop like its no problem, whats stops him from getting a perfect screen for the time he owns the laptop?

Just looked at the one you are talking about....JEEEZ....that thing looks SO weird. I hope to god thats not the one I'm getting.

 

oh yeah! i forgot he is close enough to pic up. I guess its not that big of a deal then.

 

100% i would try to swap it for one dead pixel...

 

AHCI, read the manual.

If you install Vista with it disabled or enabled and then later on you change it, I think you will have stability issues.

 

with what disabled?

 

AHCI, check the manual, I can't remember now the details.

 

AHCI needs to be enabled for Vista, and disabled for XP.

 

I have it disabled right now since that is what OCZ is recommending for better perfomance. So far so good, the system over seems more responsive than with AHCI on. I'm really loving SSD's now hehe. Can't wait to show it off at work on Monday and watch them drool

Yes, PCMW is local, about 15 minutes away with no traffic. So I'll just drop it off during lunch time.

Heh, yes this cooler is a joke, will try asking if they have another one I can hopefully swap for.

 

Yes, ask them for the one that is in the image they show for notebook cooler. I'm hoping they only gave you that one because the otheres ran out from pre orders like mine.

 

Shyster1, you really got some big issues. I've stated the pictures were taken on my iphone, if you move ever so slighty when you hit the capture button, it smears like that. Don't PM me and accuse me of photoshopping the pictures. I honestly could not care less whether or not you or anyone else believe I have the laptop. If you have questions about the laptop itself then I'll be more than happy to provide what info I can but you don't know a thing about me so don't act all high and mighty with your numerous post counts and accuse me of lying. What kind of nazi forum is this anyway?


Yeah Death, I forgot about that picture, will haggle them about that.

 

Wow, what the hell is going on here? Yo resellers, put your DOG on a LEASH. yeeesh. Sorry you had to go through that teebo. They still don't trust PCMW.

Shyster1, my laptop has been shipped. It has left the headquarters of PCMW and is on route to me. Alright. I'm getting the purchase. They didn't steal my money.

 

LOL. Man this is ridiculous. Being accused of not even getting the laptop? I mean that just's...can't even describe that one!

Shyster1 is a good and respectful person. Maybe you misconstrued what she said or something but to set the record straight regarding your laptop - yes everyone - teebo did get the laptop as Deathwinger and I both will as well.

 

Asking why all my photo's were all photoshopped, not sure how you can take that any other way. I don't react too well to being called a liar for no apparent reason. Whatever grudge you have against PCMW leave me out of it.


After disabling AHCI my Vista install blue screened after a few hours and started getting corrupt files. Have done another reinstall since with the latest chipset drivers from Intel. So far so good, multiple reboots and shutdowns with no problems, installed a few games to test. Performance on the SSD's is really nice. If this installation fails again I will enable AHCI again, according to OCZ they have the Core installed with AHCI enabled on of their laptops and it is working fine.

Death/DRTH-
When I picked up my laptop Friday afternoon I asked the sales rep if I was the first one to get it and he said no, a couple had already left their office prior to me getting there. Whether or not those were picked up locally or shipped I don't know so he could be talking about both of yours.

 

@teebo,

As you've chosen to bring this public instead of simply responding to my PM, which, in its entirety, asked only:

I shall respond in kind.

That wasn't an accusation, it was a statement of fact, and furthermore, said nothing about "photoshopping," which is the slang term for the digital editing/altering of images, as per this Wikipedia article. All I asked was why you - or someone else - had done anything with those pictures using Photoshop, including something as innocuous as resizing them to fit into an NBR post.

However, I appreciate the fact that you've the cojones to deny that you did anything with Photoshop, and that you merely took them with your iPhone and then uploaded them to imageshack. Why? Because I don't believe a word of it; in short, unless you did something innocuous with Photoshop that you just forgot about, you're a liar.

How do I know? Because I know the sorts of things that get put into JPEG files by digital cameras, including iPhones, and I also know that imageshack doesn't take that data out, because I've run some of my own DSLR images through there and the EXIF data that my DSLR produces is all still there.

However, your pictures on imageshack don't contain any of the JFIF/EXIF data that should be there if, in fact, you had really taken those pictures with your iPhone and then just uploaded them directly without doing anything to them, like running them through Photoshop. Strike one.

In addition, when an application like Photoshop is used to make a new JPEG image, that application writes its own data into the headers of the JPG file, including an identifier. Guess what pops out at me when I run your pictures through a hex viewer? That's right, the Photoshop identifier "Photoshop 3.0.8BIM" in place of whatever EXIF/JFIF data might have originally existed in that image.

Anyone who wishes to see for themselves can just right-click on teebo's pictures from the imageshack webpage and click on the "save picture..." item that comes up on the context menu - that will save a copy of the JPEG file that preserves any JFIF/EXIF data that might be present. Then open the files up in a hex viewer/editor and set it to display the byte values in hexadecimal and also in ASCII. If you don't have a hex viewer/editor, a nice little freebie called Tiny Hexer can be downloaded from softpedia, or anywhere else you might find through google.

However, for those who don't want to take the time and trouble, I've also attached two screenshots, one showing the hex dump of teebo's image photo2gh3.jpg using Free Hex Editor Neo, and the other showing the hex dump of a legitimate, unedited iPhone image that was copied off of Flickr.




Now that you've pulled all this nonsense onto a public thread, and I've demonstrated the basis for my original question, and for my current statement of facts, please explain how it is that the identifier for Photoshop came to be in the photos you claim you took with your iPhone and uploaded to imageshack, and please explain where all of the JFIF/EXIF data that normally fills out the headers in an iPhone jpeg file went to.

Don't forget, there are still innocuous ways in which this end result could have been reached without you having done any editing or "photoshopping" to these images; however, I'll not lay them out, you'll have to answer truthfully.



@Deathwinger,

I've put up with enough of your guff. I don't dog for anyone; I check my facts, I base my conclusions on those facts, and I don't believe ad-hominem attacks are a suitable response - or any sort of response at all - to an argument based on facts. You might start trying to do that yourself; and, BTW, I do expect an apology from you this time.



@DRTH_STi,

As I hope the foregoing makes evident, I never accused teebo of not actually getting the laptop as he claims; in fact, the most I did was ask, in private, why the images had been processed - in some fashion, perhaps entirely innocuously - through Photoshop.

Had teebo been the poor little innocent he claims to be, a private response would have been more appropriate, along with a statement either (i) that he never ran them through Photoshop - in which case I would have followed up to see if there was anything that might have happened along the way to get the Photoshop identifier into the JPEG headings, or (ii) that he used Photoshop to crop the pictures and prepare them for uploading to NBR, or to imageshack, but without doing anything further to them.

Instead, teebo attempts to distract attention from the man behind the curtain by doing a " broken wing act" on a public thread. All that, without a single response to my private message.

I don't think teebo misread the implications of my private message, I think he understood them all too well, and just thought either (i) his tinkering with the pictures wouldn't leave tell-tales in the file, or (ii) I wasn't smart enough to pick up on those tell-tales.

And, for others such as DFTrance, whom I am quite sure will take another shot at me, please notice that I intentionally went with the attempt at private communication first, and was not the one who publicly broached the subject of teebo's having run his images through Photoshop. Had teebo replied in kind, this little conversation would no doubt still be private, not public.

 

That seems a fair question to ask when all of the image files have had their iPhone-relevant JFIF/EXIF data stripped, and the identifying string "Photoshop 3.0.8BIM" shows up in place of that data in each of the image files.

How'd that happen? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

what's that word the kids are using nowadays....oh yes

pwned

 

Perhaps resize/resampling of the picture and usage of the feature 'Save for Web'?

Also, I DO sincerely apologize. Teebo wrote a lot more to give me the impression there was more than one line of accusation with that PM. I do know you love to express your facts in full evidential form and I figured a private message would give you more than enough leeway to, as you say, spew your 'guff' as well. But, again, I do apologize for the accusation.

However, in the event that the technique described above is the reason for the loss in image origin. Expect that with mine as well, I find it an easy and reliable way to compress the picture whilst keep the quality and I'm hoping the timestamp on the image could more than enough for evidence. But then again that could be photoshopped as well so.....

...I don't care anymore, I'll be enjoying the laptop whilst its being decided whether or not the pics are real by individuals who care enough about that at the time (not talking about you Shyster1, as I'm sure you could care less )

 

That is precisely one of the ways in which the original ****-data could have been lost, and I believe that resizing for the web can be done trivially in Photoshop, which to my mind would explain both the lack of original JFIF/EXIF data (because in compressing the image file for the web, it would be logical for an application like Photoshop to remove all of the ****-data other than the basic JPEG data because, based on my examination of my own DSLR JPEGs, EXIF data can take up to 45KBs of space), and would also explain the presence of the Photoshop identifier (since the JPEG/JFIF format specification requires that an identifier of some sort be present in every file).

That is the sort of explanation I was looking for when I sent my pm to teebo, and I would have left it at that if I'd gotten such an explanation, maybe with a reminder that he should point out the lack of ****-data in his original post precisely to prevent this sort of a brouhaha; unfortunately, that is not the way things went.

Unfortunately, this is an object lesson in why you don't try to prove a point with compromised information, even if the information is correct - that's exactly why the civil rights movement in the 60s waited until Rosa Parks came along to challenge the discriminatory bus-seating laws that she was charged with violating - not because she was the first person to be charged for violating them, but because she was otherwise completely blameless and her being charged could not be explained away by anything other than invidious discrimination.

At any rate, I look forward to reading your review (including lots of pictures) of your system when you get it, and I won't have any trouble accepting your pictures for what you say they are because you have enough of a track record here on NBR that speaks for itself and that stands as a proxy for the authenticity of any pictures you might care to post.

 

Shyster1, had you PM'd me all that instead of that one liner, it is hard to take it any other way than an accusation. Not sure why I even have to prove the legitimacy of my photos but then again this isn't your typical forum.

They were taken on my iphone, then emailed to myself then uploaded to www.imageshack.us and linked from there. Check it out yourself since you have lots of free time. Or I can even email you the ones I emailed to myself from my iphone.

 

thats not what he i acusing you of.

PS: hey shyster, who was that guy that we accused of being a person from pcmw a while ago acting undercover? ever find out if it was true?
PPS: im not accusing you of anything, just thought i would put this here since he has interest in this thread.

 

edited first post with 3dmark 06.

will post some temps later after gaming for a bit.


note-
extracting a large amount of files with the SSD's quite possibly takes longer than a conventional drive. will post HDtune benchmarks later as well, current read speed doesn't seem consistant throughout the benchmark. going to check with OCZ to see if this is normal behavior.

 

Sorry guys this is becoming ridiculous. I don't know who teebo is even with such a few posts it seams that whoever talks any good of PCMW or at least give them the benefit of the doupt belongs to a mob that needs to be controlled.

By the way regarding iPhone and EXIF, here are some posts regarding iPhone and EXIF missing data:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/ifone/discuss/72157601067527279/

So it seams that is possible to loose EXIF information without photoshopping. I haven't checked if my pictures of the d901c have any EXIF data, most possibly not as they were resized with Paint. Anyway, it was bought in Portugal so probably escapes the controversy.

@Teebo,

Shyster want's to prove that you are lieing about your photos, to conclude that you are a lier, and as such anything you write on this thread must be made up too. In other words, he suspects that you are a PCMW undercover agent. He thinks that it is at least suspicious that someone with 26 posts, with no notebookreview history, no prior questions about this notebook posted, orders at first thought from PCMW, writes something about how other people are getting it cheaper then yourself, and is the first one to get it! I would think so too. By the way here in Portugal a small shop is already shipping those notebooks, so I think it is strange that a company such as PCMW does not have them ready to ship in great numbers.

I honestly hope you are not becouse if you are ... I'll tell you then.

Can we get back to the topic?

Trance.
PS: @Shyster, I'm sorry if you feel that anyone that might think different then you implyies that are shooting you. Indeed you did well in contacting privately. But I'm afraid you have not collected all the information necessary to form a sound accusation in this case. I wish I had an iPhone to replicate the process stated by Teebo.

 

An accusation of what, exactly? You don't quite seem to get the point - the files on imageshack were clearly run through Photoshop in some fashion - whether innocuously or with bad intent is unclear, partly because the resulting ****-data trail is ambiguous - that is all that I asked about in the original PM; typically, I'm accused of being too long-winded rather than too curt.

A simple question generally has a simple answer, one which you have yet to provide, so I'll ask again: how did those images come to pass through Photoshop?

Your proffered chain of events, iPhone via email to yourself, then uploaded imageshack, by itself would not result in the identifier "Photoshop 3.0.8BIM" showing up in the JPEG metadata. Now, interestingly enough, it also happens that I have a copy of a JPEG that was originally emailed directly to Flickr, and then downloaded and saved locally from there - the point of the original experiment was to demonstrate that, when images are emailed directly from an iPhone rather than being downloaded off the iPhone, that the EXIF data does not get included in the JPEG metadata - that, at least, would explain why your files do not contain any iPhone EXIF data. However, that still does not explain the Photoshop identifier showing up in the metadata because, if you examine the emailed iPhone image that I have (a screenshot of the hex dump is attached), you'll notice that no Photoshop identifier is included.


The whole point of this exercise was, and is, that you may very well be being entirely truthful, and events may have transpired exactly as you say; but, because you stated that the images went direct from iPhone to imageshack, and because you took the nuclear route and started flinging accusations in public in response to a private message that merely asked what should have been an innocuous question, the use of images that were demonstrably (even if innocently) not what you said they were does unnecessary damage to your credibility.

Had you taken up the offer implicit in the fact that I used a private message to broach the subject with you, and responded in kind, that is undoubtedly where the subject would have been left; instead, you chose to go nuclear, and to publicly state that I had accused you privately of photoshopping your images, which I never did. Unfortunately, that left me no choice but to lay out the facts as they appeared, facts which quite clearly raise the inference that, notwithstanding your protestations, the images were run through Photoshop. I've already tested imageshack, and from what I can gather, imageshack does not leave the Photoshop identifier in the JPEG metadata, so the only remaining inference, however, improbable, is that you did something that resulted in that identifier showing up in the JPEG metadata.

The really silly thing about this is, none of this damage to your credibility had to take place because, as I've explained several times, there are plenty of innocuous reasons for why you might have used Photoshop in a way that would have left the Photoshop identifier in the JPEG metadata.

So, since you put the issue out on the public table, by taking the position that you never ran the images through Photoshop, a position that the metadata belies, would you care to grace us with what you did to the images with Photoshop that resulted in the Photoshop identifier showing up in the JPEG metadata? If, so, what was that action?

No, you don't have to answer, and we can then just leave your credibility where it is now. As to emailing me the originals, I've got a bit of spare time this evening and I'd be happy to look at the metadata in them, so if you're so inclined, send me a PM to that effect and I'll reply back with an email address you can use if you so choose.

 

Sorry Shyster1, I never really read through your entire posts. Just too long, no offense. Take it any way you want, does not matter to me. Don't care to build a rep on this forum either way.

Edited first post with temps, my SSD temps are not showing however, will look into that later. Let me enjoy my laptop for a bit before I bring it back to have the screen replaced.

DF-
I was in the market for a highend gaming laptop about 2 months or so back. Orignially thought of the MX15 but with it being so costly, thought I would find some reviews and that's how I ended up here. I mostly lurk, don't have much time during or outside of work to contribute much. I had already pe-ordered when Shyster1 made his post about Hybridgear, have to admit I was worried but I did order with my CC so worse comes to worse I can dispute. I gave PCMW the benefit of the doubt since they are local and I can pick it up myself and go to them directly if any issues with the laptop arise, it's just much more convenient. Also their pricing is very competitve with their price matching. Warranty is not much of a concern for me, as long as it is not a hardware defect I can deal with it myself. I am however interested in their trade-in program and am looking to do just that once they have the new OCZ Core 2's. I will post my experiences with that as well. You are right, this is completely off topic now.

 

DFTrance, for all that your posts are almost as long-winded as mine, you do everyone a disservice when you fail to read my posts thoroughly and then respond to what you think you read instead of what was actually said.

I have no intention, nor the forensic skills, to, in general, tell a real Photoshop forgery from an authentic image, and I'm not pretending to do so here.

Had you read from the top, you'd realize that the genesis of this was a pm to teebo asking why the images had all been run through Photoshop - which is qualitatively different from asking why they'd been photoshopped, which is active manipulation of the substance of the image itself, not merely any action, innocent or malign, intentional or accidental, that ends up leaving the Photoshop identifier in the JPEG metadata. That question was asked in response to a statement that the images in question had been taken with an iPhone and then uploaded to imageshack - a statement that is clearly at variance with the metadata contained in the image files themselves.

I am getting a little tired of repeating myself on this, but I'll do so again - there are any number of innocent explanations for why this might have happened, none of which involves "photoshopping" and so the question, standing by itself, cannot be read as an accusation of "photoshopping" or any other nefarious activity. That is why I used a private message and not a public posting.

That is where matters would have stayed had teebo either (i) ignored my pm, both privately and publicly, or (ii) responded with a pm in turn. Instead, teebo chose, unilaterally, and with no need to defend himself, to make the whole sorry issue public, and to go nuclear by accusing me without basis of having, in turn, accused him of "photoshopping" - that is, manipulating - his images.

How, pray tell, would you suggest I have responded to the going-nuclear option?

I did the only thing I could, I layed out for the rest of the readers of that thread the facts and evidence that had prompted the question, and the inferences, both benign and malign, those facts raised.

Not only that, I also provided, several times, a number of innocuous explanations that, had they been proffered, would have cut the discussion off before it got any further - none have since been offered, either truthfully or simply to shut me up.

Finally, very good of you to have dug up the information regarding the fact that emailing an image directly from an iPhone results in the absence of EXIF data from the JPEG metadata; however, as I explain in my post prior to this one, that point is irrelevant to the crux of the matter, because it still does not explain how the Photoshop identifier showed up in the JPEG metadata, and it is the existence of that identifier that is the source of all the controversy.

The fact of the matter is, if teebo had simply replied to my original PM by saying something like "oh yeah, I used Photoshop to resize the images for webviewing before I uploaded them to imageshack" then I would have responded with something like "Ahh, I see, thanks, that explains why the word 'Photoshop' is showing up in the metadata for your images; just in case someone else asks about that, you might want to point out that you resized the images with Photoshop before you uploaded them."

Had teebo availed himself of that avenue, none of this would be up in the thread, and, at most, there might have been a throwaway comment by teebo, somewhere, if it ever became relevant, that the images had been resized using Photoshop, but certainly not manipulated in any fashion. But then, that is The Road Not Taken.

 

Something I forgot to mention about the notebook. I remember reading once, someone said that PCMW adds a custom logo to their laptops? I don't see any logos on the Edge, it looks just like the pictures post by Clevo.


Also does anyone know of a good notebook cooler that can be used on the lap and soft surfaces like a bed/sofa?