I originally was going to buy another laptop, the Vaio TX ultraportable, since my Vaio FTV is too bulky and heavy to be mobile (plus it has a short battery life). Even though I was going to save close to $1000 dollars if I bought it in Japan, it still cost 2000.
I decided to go for a cheaper, but equally satisfying alternative. I figured by doing this alternative I only lose out on two things, which I wouldn't use much of anyway and I could save $1500.
I would miss out on the internet connectivity (but I barely use mobile internet and I wouldn't want to pay for a cellular service). I would also miss out on writing (blogs, stories, etc...) on the go. But most of the time I'd rather write when I'm settled, so although the idea is nice, I probably never would have written anything.
FIRST PURCHASE ($275) MAXTOR ONE TOUCH III
The first thing I bought was an external USB harddrive, the Maxtor One Touch III, 300 gig version. I would have liked 400 gigs, but they only had a 200 or 300 gig model. It wasn't that I thought I needed 400 gigs, I just figured 400 gigs would hold me out for years of bottomless hard drive space reserve. How wrong I was. Only after getting the 300 gig version last week, I've almost filled it up. I'm getting so depressed. I might have to buy another 300 gig version.
Here are some things I have on the hard drive:
TV SHOWS
Trailer Park Boys season 1, House season 1 and season 2 (up to episode 19), Southpark season 1 -9 + movie, the Daily show 2004 and 2005, Queer as Folk season 1, Howard Stern (various), Monk season 1 and Veronica Mars season 1.
On the queue: Grey's Anatomy season 2 (various), Trailer Park Boys season 2 - 5, Battle Star Galactica Season 1 and 2, The West Wing season 6, Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1 and Deadwood Season 2.
MOVIES
The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Domino, The Constant Gardener, Sarah Silverman Jesus is Magic, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Match Point.
ANIME
Naruto Episodes 1-50, 100-200 something, Bleach and One Piece.
As I mentioned, I'm very depressed because my hard drive space will be full. I hope I can fit everything on it.
You might be asking, what was the alternative to the ultraportable laptop I was talking about or how will I find the time to watch all these things. The answer to both question is the same: I present to you
SECOND PURCHASE ($510) COWON A2 PMP (Personal Media Player)
At first I was thinking of purchasing a PSP (Playstation Portable) but I would either have to buy several 1 gig memory cards or constantly delete things off the one card and constantly convert files into the PSP format and if you know how lazy I am, I don't like to do things constantly. Then I also heard the games aren't that fun and if you want to play the newest games you must have the newest firmware, which would then prevent me from hacking my PSP to play Gameboy Advance roms. In addition, the battery life is not so good and the media capabilities of the PSP aren't spectacular.
I started to research alternatives such as PMPs and narrowed it down to
The Archos AV500 mobile DVR
Creative Zen Vision M
The Cowon A2.
The store I buy my electronics from didn't have the Archos so that was scratched off (even though it seemed like the best choice) and the Creative Zen had a smaller screen, was older and didn't seem to accept as many file formats and although it had a replaceable battery, the life of it was much shorter.
I was confident in my choice to buy the Cowon A2, but then I also saw the Toshiba Gigabeat S (that JUST came out in Japan) and boy what a beauty it is (especially live).
However despite my lust for its looks, the 2.4 inch screen was too small (2.4 is too small right, ladies?). Even in landscape mode I would have trouble reading subtitles. So I grudgingly decided not to buy the 80 gig beauty since I would have lots of anime with subtitles. Damn, why do I have to like anime?
Play movies - So many different formats like AVI, WMV, ASF with codecs for DivX, MPEG1, MP43, XviD and WMV9.
Play music - MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC, WAV with 5 bands EQ, BBE, Mach3Bass, MP Enhance, and 3D Surround 5 (Cowon is known for the superior sound). Also an FM radio.
Record - Direct recording from TV, VCR, CD player or camcorder. Voice recording by a high fidelity microphone.
Show text and pictures - JPG, PNG, BMP and TXT files.
Direct USB transfers from your camera.
I bought the 30 gig version, which put me back $100 dollars more than the 20 gig version that was on sale for 50 dollars off, but I knew I wanted the extra 10 gigs because I'm lazy. The Cowon plays music for 18 hours and movies for 10 hours, but it's more like 16 and 8, which is the best I've seen. So far I'm enjoying it very much. The sound is great and the screen beautiful. My only complaints are the navigational joystick is hard to press in so you misdirect a lot and the slideshow isn't seamless and you can't customize its options.
If you can endure cheezy music and lame visuals of a shirtless guy dancing on the LCD screen, watch this:
I originally was going to buy another laptop, the Vaio TX ultraportable, since my Vaio FTV is too bulky and heavy to be mobile (plus it has a short battery life). Even though I was going to save close to $1000 dollars if I bought it in Japan, it still cost 2000.
