so many things to spend money on
I am considering buying a new laptop.
Ideally, I'd like to spend less than $800, on the principle that I don't do anything of great value with my computer, so I shouldn't have to pay great value for it, right? Right now, the ways in which my machine seems slow are mostly in starting up and opening software (for some reason, if I click on firefox and IE in quick sequence, IE is significantly faster to get me a useable window, but both are rather delayed) rather than that it takes a long time to do "difficult" things like image processing. You see, I don't really do image processing. I don't write a dissertation any more either. Nor am I doing manipulation of large matrices of data, though I do still have a student copy of Matlab installedjust in case a large matrix appears and needs analysis. I'm just not using much in the way of software these days. Office, Firefox... the stuff I hate about using my computer wouldn't be fixed by a new machine, like the awkwardness of iTunes for Windows. On the other hand, there are things I definitely do hate that definitely would be fixed - my 20G hard-drive, for example. The cracks in the plastic of the hinge. The fan/cooling system error that beeps me to a black screen halfway through every start-up but acts fine if I just say "ignore".
So, if I just got another computer, say a Fujitsu A3210 or Dell 1520 or so, or pretty much whatever, it would be $800 or so for probably a Intel Duo something, 2GB, 200GBish system, and it would almost inevitably come with Vista. There are particular models that are still XP, but if I want that I'd better get moving on that pretty quick before that disappears entirely. It would be kind of cool to have a shiny new computer in a non-cracked case with a non-message-causing fan system, but the only thing I actively *need* to upgrade about my current computer (Pentium-4, 512M RAM) is the 20-GB hard-drive space, and to have USB 2.0 ports would help with things like using my iPod. The USB thing isn't a huge issue since I only connect to my iPod and my external hard drive, and if I had a bigger internal drive, it would really just be iPod communications. Is it worth the $800 or so, as compared to the $150 or so of buying a new hard drive? Would it be worth the extra $200 to have a better (faster, bigger) new $1000 laptop, or should I look for a bottom-of-line $600 range?
Writing all this down actually convinces me that there's more wrong with my computer than would justify putting another hard drive's worth of money into it... on the other hand, writing all this down also reminds me that I seriously don't do crap with the computing power at my fingertips, so having a crap computer is kind of fine. Argh! Because of the new job and the tax stimulus, it's not even a practical question of having the cash, that's there if I need it - it's an emotional question of will I feel good if I buy a computer or would I feel better if I just bought a hard-drive?
Ideally, I'd like to spend less than $800, on the principle that I don't do anything of great value with my computer, so I shouldn't have to pay great value for it, right? Right now, the ways in which my machine seems slow are mostly in starting up and opening software (for some reason, if I click on firefox and IE in quick sequence, IE is significantly faster to get me a useable window, but both are rather delayed) rather than that it takes a long time to do "difficult" things like image processing. You see, I don't really do image processing. I don't write a dissertation any more either. Nor am I doing manipulation of large matrices of data, though I do still have a student copy of Matlab installedjust in case a large matrix appears and needs analysis. I'm just not using much in the way of software these days. Office, Firefox... the stuff I hate about using my computer wouldn't be fixed by a new machine, like the awkwardness of iTunes for Windows. On the other hand, there are things I definitely do hate that definitely would be fixed - my 20G hard-drive, for example. The cracks in the plastic of the hinge. The fan/cooling system error that beeps me to a black screen halfway through every start-up but acts fine if I just say "ignore".
So, if I just got another computer, say a Fujitsu A3210 or Dell 1520 or so, or pretty much whatever, it would be $800 or so for probably a Intel Duo something, 2GB, 200GBish system, and it would almost inevitably come with Vista. There are particular models that are still XP, but if I want that I'd better get moving on that pretty quick before that disappears entirely. It would be kind of cool to have a shiny new computer in a non-cracked case with a non-message-causing fan system, but the only thing I actively *need* to upgrade about my current computer (Pentium-4, 512M RAM) is the 20-GB hard-drive space, and to have USB 2.0 ports would help with things like using my iPod. The USB thing isn't a huge issue since I only connect to my iPod and my external hard drive, and if I had a bigger internal drive, it would really just be iPod communications. Is it worth the $800 or so, as compared to the $150 or so of buying a new hard drive? Would it be worth the extra $200 to have a better (faster, bigger) new $1000 laptop, or should I look for a bottom-of-line $600 range?
Writing all this down actually convinces me that there's more wrong with my computer than would justify putting another hard drive's worth of money into it... on the other hand, writing all this down also reminds me that I seriously don't do crap with the computing power at my fingertips, so having a crap computer is kind of fine. Argh! Because of the new job and the tax stimulus, it's not even a practical question of having the cash, that's there if I need it - it's an emotional question of will I feel good if I buy a computer or would I feel better if I just bought a hard-drive?