New Laptops

The conversation went something like this:

Brooke:  My laptop is SO SLOW!!!

Rob: I've been wanting a Windows 8 laptop. I'll get one and you have this one (my Dell Windows 7 laptop with 4 gig of RAM...still quit snappy).

Brooke: Yes, get it.

Rob: {pause as he has to make sure he heard correctly}

Rob: few days later orders Dell Inspiron 14r. 4Gb RAM, 500 Gb hard drive, Windows 8, touch screen

Brooke: What is all over your laptop (old, Windows 7 Dell). It looks like paint has been spilled all over it. {Translation: That computer is ugly and I do NOT want it}

Rob: {thinking: Where does this leave me? She wanted a new laptop. She was going to use mine. Now she is not going to use mine. MY new laptop is already ordered. Guess we all know what this means}. Had looked at Chromebooks before but did not have much interest. Considering what Brooke wanted a laptop for (almost 100% web browsing), I looked into it again. After showing Brooke, she wanted one.

Side note: Rob's Dell was ordered February 12th in hopes of having it in time to take it on Spring Break to learn Windows 8 and install software. Dell set delivery date at March 19! After Spring Break!!!  Brooke's Chromebook was ordered March 14 with a delivery date of March 19.

Due to the delay in getting my system, I asked Dell to throw in an extra power supply. Instead, they offered me a $50 voucher once my system arrived and was paid for and I could buy a power supply or whatever else I wanted from their shopping site. I asked for an email to confirm what they promised, and I had the email within 10 minutes. I must say, despite the long order time, Dell really impressed me with their customer service. EVERY time I called with a question or issue, Dell not only took care of me, but they also followed up with another phone call.  100% of the time I talked to someone overseas, but they were not hard to understand and they ALWAYS took very good care of me. A+ to Dell customer support. Computer was delivered on March 19.

Same day, Brooke's Chromebook was delivered. We considered the Samsung and the Acer C7. The selling point (for us) with the Samsung was the solid state drive which would make for lightening fast boot up. The Acer offered a 320 Gigabyte hard drive. Although Chromebooks do not Office documents, etc, storage for pictures and music seemed nice. In the end, considering what Brooke was going to do with the computer, we went with the Samsung. It does boot fast and Brooke absolutely loves it.

A couple weeks later, a friend gave me a couple laptop hard drives. I guess it was about a year ago, I did some computer work for a family and their daughter's Toshiba laptop died. The problem ended up being a dead hard drive. Since there has been major flooding in Taiwan, parts for hard drives were hard to come by and hard drive prices almost doubled. Between the cost of a new hard drive and getting it installed, the family decided it was not worth fixing. As payment for my time, they let me keep the laptop. Once I got the hard drives, another friend (brother of the hard drive gift-giving friend) gave me a (legal) copy of Windows 7. I put the new hard drive in, installed Windows 7 and copied Amanda's old files onto the new computer and Amanda was ready to go.

Everybody is upgraded and everybody is happy.