Byting the Bullet: New Computer Time
A few weeks ago I was working on editing some photos and I noticed Ye' Old Omnibook was beginning to get slower than a boat anchor. It has served me very well for the past 5 years and as most of you know, I don't buy a new computer on a whim. Normally it's serious money and I take a considerable amount of time to research the current machines on the market. No cheapo, no-name, no performance machines ever survive in this house for very long. We tend to beat... er work our computers to death around here. So a substandard machine isn't going to cut it.
So with the Omnibook beginning to show serious signs of its age, I began my research right were I left off a couple years ago when Doc, Arron, Dr. D, and I were at Showstopper's at the last decent COMDEX 2002 held in Las Vegas. There is where I laid my eyes on HP's first wide-screen notebooks and fell completely in love with their Media Machines. Somewhere in the back of my mind I told myself--"Someday I'm going to own one of those," and promptly knew from it's price tag it was going to be a while before I could justify buying one.
Fast forward to this weekend.I rarely cruise the local F's Electronics ads. I leave that to Dr. D. But for some reason I decided this week to look at the Friday sale ads. Don't ask me why. I knew I needed a machine, but the idea that I might find one at a price *I* would pay was a total lark.
Remember that phrase, "It will find you when you aren't looking"? Well...
There on Page One above the fold, staring at me was an ad for my "dream machine." Enter the HP ZD8000-- for an obscenely reasonable price.
In a nutshell, this 9.5lb hunk of computing power isn't your jetsetter, daily commuter's laptop. This is a serious desktop replacement machine with a Media system attached, just for fun. It was never my intention to buy the option if I ordered one. But this deal included the entire media center attachment for the sale price, for UNDER $1K after all the instant and mail in rebates. It originally priced out over $2100. I stole it. ;-)
My only complaint is that the machine came loaded to the gills with junk and trial software I neither want, need, or would be caught dead using-- or telling my clients and readers to use. So I spent about 6 hours today UNinstalling the junkware and updating Windows, Office and the drivers. Then installing the applications I need to work on the machine. To say it took a while is a gross understatement.
Suggestion to the laptop manufacturers of the world: Please create a wizard that allows me to pick, choose and COMPLETELY DELETE all the extras you add to a machine!
More about this machine as we get acquainted. At the moment I'm compressing the hard drive-post de-junkwaring and Ghosting the set-up system.
