I just ordered a New laptop. It’s not a Mac, its a Dell.
Why? Wasn’t I using a MacBook?
Yep, and a MacBook is nice, but they do have their quirks.
Right now, I just need a laptop to get me through the rest of the year. It turns out that I’m going to be taking some trips and I’m finding myself around a lot of places with WiFi. So, I need something that is basically a terminal to the internet. That means Firefox/IE for the web and PuTTY for the command line. It also means a big screen (that eliminates Thinkpads, they don’t do 17″). I also didn’t want to spend a lot of money. (that eliminates Apple) The result is Dell, and I’ve already had good experiences with Dell.
The winner was a new Dell Inspiron E1705.
At under $1000 (including taxes), I just got all of that with a 17″ widescreen display and a dual-core processor AND 1 Gig of RAM. These Dell’s are so damn cheap. They always have some kind of 30% off deal. I have no doubt that I can be productive with such a box. Given all the factors: it’s inexpensive, all current tech will be very obsolete in 6 months, I don’t need something special now… it doesn’t make sense to spend a premium.
Also, I have a rule about laptops. No matter what, they never last more than 2 years. So why spend a lot of money?
So, all that being said, when it gets here… I’ll give you the straight scoop.