Thursday, September 22, 2011

Shopping for Laptops

I'm in the market for a new laptop, considering my current one has a broken hinge and turns itself on at random. My HP Pavilion dv9000 I bought for school has served me well, but it's finally time to retire it. ::sigh:: It lasted me for my AAS in EET and my BSTM. I need something durable, about 15", with 10keypad, a largish HDD and enough RAM to last through my masters program.
I went to the Microsoft Store in Scottsdale. Wow. They sure know how to supply the eye candy! There were two laptops that caught my eye and had the features I need. The white one was $699 and you get a free XBOX360 with it! Woot! Sadly, it is made by Sony. Due to their questionable ethics and propensity to sue their customers, I will not give any money to them.
That leaves the $949 Toshiba Satellite with more RAM (6GB) and larger HDD (750GB) (it has other features as well, but I'm not interested in Blu-ray and WiDi ATM.) It also includes the XBOX360. The laptop itself stretches my budget, and I'd be getting the Kinect with it so the kids can get exercise playing games so there's another $150 to add on. I'm not sure I want to spend the money, but I need a new portable computer.
Hmm. Decisions, decisions. The free XBOX offer ends Saturday, so I have some time to decide.