I’ve been using my Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop for 5 years now, and while the title of ultimate games machine has been long usurped by my Sony PlayStation 3,  the laptop is still my primary workstation thanks to a number of upgrades.

The basic specs are pretty impressive for its time, a 1.6 GHz Pentium M processor, 128 MB ATI 9600 Pro Turbo graphics card, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB Hard Disk and a 15.4 inch WUXGA display at 1680 *1050 resolution.

So, I’ve upgraded the RAM (up to 1.5 GB) and the hard disk drive (120 GB), and now, the obsolete 802.11b mini-PCI card is rendered even more obsolete (I don’t think that’s possible, but hey, I’m just saying), with my new Belkin Wireless G+ MIMO Notebook Card.

belkinmimo

I got one of these slim types from Harvey Norman. The Bukit Tinggi outlet was selling it for just RM 69 each, and I knew I had to get one. It performs better than the integrated WiFi, which only supported 802.11b.

All in all, it’s a good cheap upgrade for this notebook of mine. Here’s to another year of productivity!