My laptop is so crappy now. I mean. It has survived me for about two years!! It fell a few times. It is cranky like me. It has a crack on the side. Lemme check. Yes. That it takes from me too. It was soaked in coffee. It was lost with my baggage in Heathrow. It was traumatised, abandoned, abused and taken for granted. It had to be reformatted one too many times. It is on 24 hours. It gets fevers sometimes. It starts coughing and making noise. I haven't taken it to the doctor for its jabs, although it was infected with viruses. I don't know if it has contracted Aids yet.. but it has had some unsafe and unprotected practises with other machinery in its lifetime.

In short. It is time for a new buddy. I can't stand nagging - something I do the whole time - and I can't stand this laptop sharing the limelight with me.

So .. your days are numbered dear friend. Two years is a long long time for us to waste together in this sadistic consumerism-driven existence.

Adieu.

Hey fuck face before you crash on me again.. I just remembered: what should I get as a replacement for this Dell of a machine? I am thinking of an Apple. What do you think?

9 comments:

Cerebralwaste said...

Well MY Lady, what do you use at the prestigious Pulitzer Prize winning GDN? Mac or PC for writing?

I was facing a similar dilemma right before Christmas and I went with the PC. Though not a DELL. I won't do business with them again. EVER. Dell just flat out sucks when it comes to getting a problem with them fixed.

My purchase was a TOSHIBA SATELLITE A-105-s4334. It is LOADED with everything I wanted and plenty I will never use for under 1g. I am very happy with it and would recommend it to anyone.

While I have nothing against Mac's per se, the world as a whole doesn't use them and if you need a repair you are stuck going to Apple and paying their prices. PC wise you have a plethora of choices. That was my choice and of course your mileage may vary. Now get down to Beantown... Dinner is getting COLD!

Mahmood Al-Yousif said...

Don't listen to Mark. Listen to your heart!

Have a gander at this hunk, and then do yourself a favour and get a Mac.

Ron Larson said...

I recently went through the same thing. I'm a long time Dell Latitude user. In December I bought a MacBook Pro.

Unlike Cerabralwaste, my Dell Latitudes were awesome, and the service I got from Dell was great. I never had any complaints. However, I have noticed that the Dell's service for their consumer brand is vastly different than the service for their corporate brands.

I've found that that people tend to assume that computer vendors treat all their products and customers the same. That is not true. That would be no different that assuming that all Ford cars are the same.

If you buy a vendor's cheapest product where they make almost no profit, then you are going to get the support that you didn't pay for. Unfortunately for Dell, Apple, and others, the customers who pay the least often need to most help, usually because they don't know what they are doing, such as not spending money on sufficient memory.

When I went to upgrade in December, I compared the MBP 15" to a Dell Lat D800 with the same specs. They came in almost equal on price.

What clinched the Mac decision was the fact that I can run WindowsXP on my Mac. You can use Apple's free Bootcamp and boot Windows. I use Parallels which runs Windows as a task under OSX.

Note: You still have to have a copy of Windows. I used the WinXP and OfficeXP from my old Dell laptop. You just have to call MS to get permission to transfer the license to a new machine.

I've been pretty happy so far. There are some things that Dell does better than Apple, that I miss. For example, Apple does not offer a port-replicator or docking station. So grabbing the Mac to go means having to unplug everything. Also, everything on the Mac plugs into the sides instead of the back. So the desktop gets a bit cluttered.

If you don't need a laptop, I would take a good look at the 24" iMac. For less money, you get one damn sweet machine. And you can run Windows on it.

With the MBP, there are not a lot of options you need. It comes with pretty much everything. I went with 2GB of memory, which I think you need if you are gonna run Windows too.

It doesn't have a built in modem or diskette drive. But when is the last time you used either of those?

I really like the built in bluetooth. I use a blue tooth mouse. You can also use a bluetooth keyboard. Not having to plug these in when at my home office is nice.

The battery life is not as good as my Dell's. So I had to buy a second battery and take it with me for times when I plan to do a lot of work away from home.

What else?... the backlight keyboard is nice. I can work in low light/no light conditions just fine. Having a built in webcam is cool for Skype.

I bought the Apple extended warranty to cover myself for future problems. As previously mentioned, your choices are limited when you have problems.

Be sure to use the student price when buying your Mac. If you don't know how to do this, email me.

Cerebralwaste said...

Ron

While I fully agree with you concerning tech support in the getting what you pay for category. I assure that wasn't the issue in my case. My Dell was a top of the line Desktop. Loaded. I even purchased the extended warranty and service agreement. When a problem arose it set of a chain of events that was like something out of a bad B movie. Long story short Dell had to replace the system after 5 service calls to my office and almost a month of down time. When Dell replaced the system the product they sent was not even close to what I had. Again more calls and headaches to get the issue resolved. Finally it did get resolved. Needless to say it left a very sour taste in my mouth for Dell.

I really don't have anything against Apple. I am just a PC guy and probably a little stuck in my ways. I admit it. I have deep respect guys like Ron and Mahmood. They have had both systems and know more about computers then I could EVER hope to learn in 3 lifetimes! But when I priced Mac's and PC's (pardon the expression) "apples to apples" I could get MORE for LESS on the PC side. Perhaps I am missing something on what I would be getting that is better on the MAC side when I would be paying more for what seems to be less of a system.(make sense?)

I am sure SBG will research the issue and make a choice based on what is right for her.

SillyBahrainiGirl said...

emmmm... you guys obviously know better... so you just battle it out here... and give me the last word.

A guy will pay for it anyway ... LOL!

Ron Larson said...

Yes, you can get a cheaper Windows machine than an Apple. I like to use car analogies. That is the same thing as saying that you can get a Kia instead of a BMW sedan. Both are cars. Both have a motor and wheel. Both will get you from point A to point B. And the Kia is much cheaper. But if you had the money, which would you feel better owning?

If you have the budget, then get the MacBook Pro. Install WindowsXP under Parallels for your old Windows apps that you still need and want.

Add up how many hours a week you will be using this laptop. Think about how much it will cost you in time, money, and incontinence if your laptop is not working. Then see if spending an extra $400 for a machine you will keep for 3 years will be worth it. I think it will.

Cerebralwaste said...

Ron

To be honest I don't plan on keeping any computer more than 3 years, as the technology is obsolete after 1 year. My plan is to stay upgraded to the best of my ability.

Arabian said...

I guess ur lost and confused Silly Gurl cuz of ur damaged brain cells and u can't take an action ,, that shows how much that ur silly ,, use ur brain girl to compare between all those tech. stuff and if u couldn't use ur brain u might use something else ;) ...

SillyBahrainiGirl said...

I hope you happy now that you have proved to the world how mature you are. Thanks!

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