Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Was this a huge mistake?

I'm typing this on my shiny new toy, an Asus Eee 4G. I've been laptopless up to this point in my life. I got a spiffy desktop when I started college, and it did a good job of meeting my needs most of the time. Sure, there were inconveniences, like having to wait for an available seat in a computer lab on campus rather than just heading to a wi-fi hotspot. It also wasn't that great to have to use my parents' computer for schoolwork when I came home since that meant depriving them of its use.

I decided that, although my computer served me well, it might make sense to have something a bit more portable before beginning either TFA or student teaching. Since this computer would serve to compliment, rather than replace, my trusty desktop, I planned to get a low-end laptop. My brother is the computer geek of the family, and I figured I should run my plans by him and get guidance on what to look for or avoid when computer shopping.

He suggested I should consider buying this computer that a friend of his bought from NewEgg and then decided she didn't want after using it for less than a week. She was offering it for $350, $50 less than it had cost new. I'd expcted to spend a few months hunting for a great laptop deal,but after playing with the Eee, I was hooked. This isn't exactly what I had in mind; it's better.

So why, pray tell, do I feel so guilty about having bought this? Buying a laptop was part of the plan for the grant money I'm getting. If I end up hating the Eee, my brother has already offered to trade his laptop. He assures me that if Xandros ends up being a problem, we can load XP, but I'm actually kinda excited about using Linux. (I'll be interested to hear what Mary Sue decides to run since I'm a noob in need of guidance.) Really, the only problem is my hang up about parting with this much money.

2 comments:

Brandon said...

I get bad buyer's remorse for buying just about anything big - sometimes before I even complete the transaction... What I tell myself, and what you should tell yourself in this situation, is that it is a tool to improve your current situation.

And, on top of that, you already have an out if you need it! You're in a great position to be able to play with your new toy/tool and get the most out of it. If it doesn't work for you, just install XP or trade out - it's win-win!

Congrats on the great deal!

Anonymous said...

Oooh, I'm excited! I'm not the only clueless new EEE user! I'll probably keep the Xandros interface myself, because I'm moving from a Mac OS and from the screen shots it seems pretty similar. I also bought an eMachine about 8-9 years ago and it had OpenOffice, so I'm familiar with that software too.

I've had several PDAs and a laptop, and I got the EEE because I miss being able to walk to any of the 10 nearest coffee shops and work on my novels. See, my iBook kind of fell off my bed and the hinge cracked, so to get the screen to work, it needs to be duct taped to a wall. No, I'm not kidding.

But hey, if you don't like it, your brother will swap you for his laptop? What a deal!