FrankenPC.. WOOT! the display is broken? no problem, im sure i can fix it with this very very old cellphone and my swiss army. Thats the way to face things, and not just complaining.. You deserve it.

And now for Roberto's acceptance speech:

I appreciate this more than I can verbally express. . .I just really wanna thank you guys at gizmodo and sharp for giving me the oppurtunity to tell my story and participate in this great contest. You guys rule!

P.S. I guess those 3 hours a day I spend at work reading you articles finally paid off.

As for the runner-up, the ever so controversially popular Misstreated Missouri, well this is not the last you will see of her pretty pouty face on Gizmodo. Stay tuned.

He's dead last in the polls, which only makes Powerbook Pee-Pee guy angrier. He says the busted Book is now an objet d'art at a friend's house and he promises to file an updated photo sometime today. Meantime, he wants everyone to know just how much he deserves that WideNote M4000:

I was living in a 375 sq. ft. loft (not the fancy New York-y kind) and I had worked as a waiter full time just to afford half of that computer (the other half went on credit). I am a student, and I am currently writing this from the computer lab.

At first I though someone had sent in a gag photo of Peter Rojas just to yank us. But it turns out that this is the drummer dude who played the solo from Moby Dick on Garage Band's laptop, which you can see there on the floor in this re-enactment. Here's his razor-tongued plea:

It s a difficult competition and the odds are probably
against me! A beautiful blonde, a college student on a
scholarship and some poor guy who just wanted to watch
a movie.

First of all my dumbass son who took the laptop to
band practice, was also going to take it to college
next year and doesn t have a scholarship , Hopefully
with a college education he can meet a beautiful
pouty gal and watch as many videos as he likes
with her on his big screen TV.

Oh Misstreated, you are too good to be true. She adamantly claims that her geeky boyfriend is not using her as "babe-bate" to win the prize (she even sent a photo of him with his working laptop in hand). And you gotta love this new pic, complete with the LOTR and Star Wars Trilogy box sets on the shelf. Here is Misstreated's pitch for moving from second place to first

I'm Real ya jerks! This is really me, sitting infront of my P.O.S. Laptop plugged to both the wall and internet because my bat. wont hold a charge and I dont have wireless.

Everyone knows the old saying, dont judge a notebook by its cover. It may look alright on the outside but the inside is about as useful as a lego Shuffle case.

Mr. Franken-PC is going to try snapping some better photos of his mad scientific concoction today from his glamorous place of employment, Best Buy. Meantime, the pic above will have to suffice. Along with this update:

Hey guys its me, the owner of the franken pc. I appreciate all the support I have gotten from you guys. I wasnt really going for the sympothy that I got from my story but I will take it. I just figured that my story was kinda funny so I entered it. I have been asked for so more pics(higher res) but all I have is a camera phone. I can however take it to my job at best buy take a pic there.

All gizmodo has to do is say there word and I am in there like swimwear. . . snapping away, with the most thousand dollar camera they have(Most thousand dollar isnt a real phrase but hey i am studying engineering not english).

There you have it. The polls are still open (even though they will not necessarily determine the winner). If you want to comment, just send a tips mail.

The winner will be announced on Monday.

Read on...

I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that he loaned the laptop to his son for band practice, or tried to fix it himself....

Made a huge mistake!

I lent my son, who is 16 years old, my Sony Viao
Laptop to use at his Garage Band practice to do some
recording and mixing. I received a phone call and he
sounded very upset, I thought he got into a car
accident. But, no he set up the laptop near the
drummer and while practicing the drummer got a bit
carried away, as you might expect of teenagers, and
knocked the laptop off onto the garage floor.

Amazingly, it still worked but the housing was cracked
and the lid was broken of the hinges. OK, accidents
happen and since it was just the hinges and case I
figure I could repair it myself. Whoops!

I got the replacement parts, roughly $150.00 and began
trying to repair it. I was doing just a fine job until
the last when I tried connecting a small ribbon for
the keyboard to the motherboard and there lies the
problem now. I broke the itty bitty plastic lock on
the connecter on the motherboard.

So here it sits. Unusable. I keep it thinking maybe I
should send it for repair? But is it really worth the
money to repair?

So that s my story, and I really need a new laptop
that will never be lent to my son for band practice!

Michael XXXXXXX

Of all the Franken-PCs that were submitted, this Xbox portable monitor hack was the tops.

Here are some pics of my Toshiba 3480ct laptop. I have had this laptop since summer 2001; it was given to me as part of a college scholarship. The next winter is when everything went wrong. After a long night of studying with friends at a dorm across campus, I decide to head home. As soon as I make it to my room I put my laptop bag on the floor and jump in bed. Maybe five minutes later I decide to go use bathroom and when I come back I grab up my laptop to surf the net. I open it I see all these weird looking blobs on the screen that look like a pen exploded. I turn on my laptop only to see a huge crack down the middle. I immediately put the laptop back on the floor (great place for it, huh?) and went to sleep hoping that it was just a nightmare. When I woke up the next morning my worst fears were realized. The first thing I did was call up a few repair shops to get some estimates over the phone. I finally found one place that said they had used LCDs and could get me a good price on the repair. At the time the LCD new would have cost me 1100. I finally got an estimate of like $800 so I decided not to get it fixed and just look for a screen and do it myself. After a few months with no luck I eventually gave up decided to create a 3lb ultra portable desktop, and name thee The Ladtop (better than the commodore I had when I was 4 ).

As you can see from my extensive collection of peripherals this baby is a workhorse. We have the 100gb external hard drive (where else can I store my movies, music, CD images of every windows), the original battery (which gives this baby a hearty 15-30 minutes of battery life), battery pack (adds up 16x the battery life!), external PCMCIA powered CD drive, and the USB Wifi adapter. Other Optional accessories are this recently purchased 5-inch Xbox LCD, which can be connected, with a VGA to s-video/RCA adapter to provide fully portable experience.

Specs:
600 mhz p3
192 mb sdram(expandable to 192 mb)
12 gb hard drive
1 usb port
Windows XP Pro

When nature calls... disaster is on call waiting.

Howdy,

This was my 1ghz powerbook g4. I was living in a studio loft, I decided to watch a movie in bed. As my legs were succumbing to 3rd degree burns, nature called. I set my baby up on the ledge so I could hop up. As I stood up, my shoulder hit the corner, knocked it off, and it fell 15 ft. into the kitchen, hit the counter (that's when the LCD screen ripped off) bounced off, then hit the floor, the HD was ejected, and the glass (?) shattered. It was totaled in slow motion. Originally this cost me 3200$ (sob)

-Dan

And then there is Misstreated Missouri, who may not even be real but is far too hawt to ignore!

Dear Gizmodo,

So, me and the Compaq have been together for, like, six years now and to be honest, he's never satisfied me. First off, I don't want to sound superficial, but he's always been on the heavy side, and if I try to take him anywhere he just weighs me down and totally cramps my style. I have even caught my friends cracking jokes about his weight. He can't do anything right. If I ask him to burn me a CD or even just watch a movie with me he complains that he "wasn't built for that kinda thing." I really don't think he ever expects to leave the couch again. Honestly, he hasn't even kept up what he once had. He at least used to like, surf and play games with me, but now if I ask him to do more than one simple task at a time he just locks up, turns blue in the face, and sometimes, no lie, he'll even pass out. I swear, he just has like no energy these days. He lasts about two minutes before he shuts down and I have to move to an "alternate source." I shouldn't talk about his drive, but lets just say, when it comes down to it fellas, Size does matter. I'm just sooo sick of his lack luster performance. I mean, His memory sucks, He can't do anything without freaking out, He takes for ever to get ready, and I thought girls were bad! I've been shoppin' around for a good looking model or at least someone who could leave the house with me. I just don't know what's wrong with me. I'm a cute intelligent girl studying to be an architect, and I just don't think he is there to support me. Do I deserve better?

Please help!
Misstreated Missouri

Now go vote on the winner!

For details on how to win the 13.3-inch, 80 GB, Sharp WideNote M4000 with CD-RW/DVD combo drive and six hour battery life, read all about it here and here.

What Gizmodo has learned so far: Do not mix laptops with dogs, fire, drummers, quick trips to the crapper, or broken hearts and booze. See for yourself after the jump...

When the good people of Sharp gave Gizmodo a spankin' new M4000 WideNote laptop to do with whatever we pleased, my first inclination was to grab it and run away fast while yelling w00t! The notebook is only 3.8 pounds, so I could have run fast too, ga. But then reason intruded and I realized there are people who need the Intel M740 processor, the 13.3-inch WXGA screen, CD-RW/DVD combo drive and six hour battery life even more than I do. People like you.

So if you want to own this M4000 WideNote, here's what you have to do: Send a photo of your tired, your poor, your beaten-down laptop. Write a horror story (no more than 400 words long and in English) describing exactly how your precious equipment got wrecked. Please do not take a hammer or .44 Magnum to your old-but-working notebook. Do not dunk it in a vat of acid, or drop it from a fourth-story window. The resulting story will be good, but not good enough.

Some important details that you must abide by or else face public ridicule: This contest is only open to US and Canadian readers. Send entries, with photos attached as JPEG format only, to tips at gizmodo dot com with the subject SHARP ME. REPEAT - tips at gizmodo dot com with the subject line "SHARP ME." All entries with other subject lines will be tossed and the senders will be called dorks. The top photos and stories will be posted next Wednesday, October 26, and Gizmodo readers will vote on the best entry. The winner will receive the prize directly from Sharp.

Good luck!

"Sponsored by the Sharp M4000 WideNote. With a battery life in excess of six hours, the 3.8 pound notebook is the answer to your notebook problems."

The new Sharp M4000 WideNote keeps up with your busy schedule. Because it weighs just 3.8 pounds it can go wherever you go. And with a battery life in excess of six hours, chances are, you'll burn out before it does.

The M4000 WideNote has both brains and beauty. Its sleek style and brushed aluminum case are bound to turn heads.
Intel Pentium M 740 processor
13.3" WXGA Sharp LCD screen
CD-RW & DVD combo drive
512MB DDR SDRAM
Approximately 80GB hard drive
Full-size keyboard

Read the official rules

So if you want to own this M4000 WideNote, here's what you have to do: Send a photo of your tired, your poor, your beaten-down laptop. Write a horror story (no more than 400 words long and in English) describing exactly how your precious equipment got wrecked. Please do not take a hammer or .44 Magnum to your old-but-working notebook. Do not dunk it in a vat of acid, or drop it from a fourth-story window. The resulting story will be good, but not good enough.

Some important details that you must abide by or else face public ridicule: This contest is only open to US and Canadian readers. Send entries, with photos attached as JPEG format only, to tips at gizmodo dot com with the subject SHARP ME. REPEAT - tips at gizmodo dot com with the subject line "SHARP ME." All entries with other subject lines will be tossed and the senders will be called dorks. The top photos and stories will be posted next Wednesday, October 26, and Gizmodo readers will vote on the best entry. The winner will receive the prize directly from Sharp.

Good luck, and be sure to read the rest of the administrativa after the jump.

"Sponsored by the Sharp M4000 WideNote. With a battery life in excess of six hours, the 3.8 pound notebook is the answer to your notebook problems."

The new Sharp M4000 WideNote keeps up with your busy schedule. Because it weighs just 3.8 pounds it can go wherever you go. And with a battery life in excess of six hours, chances are, you'll burn out before it does.

The M4000 WideNote has both brains and beauty. Its sleek style and brushed aluminum case are bound to turn heads.
Intel Pentium M 740 processor
13.3" WXGA Sharp LCD screen
CD-RW & DVD combo drive
512MB DDR SDRAM
Approximately 80GB hard drive
Full-size keyboard

Read the official rules