BEDA #29

Sorry for the cliffhanger last night. I should probably share some details now :) My laptop has been really crappy lately... I mean, it's always been crappy but it's been a lot worse the last couple weeks. The fan goes into overdrive within 30 seconds of turning it on, it freezes up all the time, and then there's the everlasting issue where it has a battery life of about 20 minutes on a good day. It's just a piece of junk.

Yesterday Nathan and I looked at the laptops they were selling at the bookstore here, but none were really what I was looking for. I wanted a 14 inch screen (I'm over big heavy laptops), and that eliminated the issue of whether or not to get a 10 key pad. In the last couple of years, when the 10 key pad first started becoming popular on laptops, I totally wanted one, but now I couldn't care less. I don't need to use the calculator often enough to necessitate a few extra inches.

I also wanted a webcam so I can Skype with my friends without taking over Nathan's computer. I wanted an optical drive, which is surprisingly NOT a standard feature anymore. I wanted a decent hard drive, but the minimum nowadays is 320GB so that definitely exceeds "decent" for me. Didn't care much about the processor or the RAM, as long as it was better than my current computer. Oh wait, everything is better than my current computer.

I spent a couple hours Googling yesterday and between reading reviews on CNET and checking Amazon for a good deal, I started messing around on Dell.com and HP.com, customizing a laptop. Dell wasn't really working for me, but on HP I came up with one that either met or exceeded all of my requirements, and at a really good price, too. Nathan and I went over the details and managed to knock another $100-ish off (because really, who needs an optical drive with LightScribe? it's this huge gimmick; I can label my CDs with a sharpie like everyone else), THEN we got the price down even more by finding a coupon code for $30 online! We had decided a budget of $700 would probably get me everything I needed in a computer from a manufacturer that I trust, but I didn't even get close to that :D So we both agreed that it was a really good system for a great price, so we placed the order!

I'm expecting this laptop to last me a while. I'm pretty kind to my electronics and I'm not one to keep around useless things, whether they be in the physical world or digital so I can't see myself ever needing to upgrade my 500GB hard drive. Also I don't feel the need to upgrade everything just because something new comes out. In my ideal world, the next computer Nathan and I buy will be a really nice desktop computer, which will be the family computer. I think we'll probably build it ourselves.

Buying a computer off of a shelf, it's just not a very good deal. You either pay too much for features you won't use, or you pay too much for a whole system when you only want ONE specific feature.

Anyway, that's about it! Can't wait to blog about my new computer when I get it :)

Other than that, today was pretty good! I worked for a while, then we came home and killed some time. Then I went to the grocery store with my friend Joanna and bought some tomatoes and cilantro so I could teach her to make my famous salsa! After we made it, we took it to our friends' (Breia and Mike) apartment for their housewarming party! We had a lot of fun :)

That was pretty much my day! Tomorrow is the last day of BEDA, and while my life is nowhere near exciting enough to necessitate blogging every day, this has been a good exercise and I hope to continue blogging more frequently from now on.