Paul Monaco .com

It’s been about 8-years or so since I’ve actually purchased a computer for myself.  Sure I’ve had numerous “company” computers in my posesion to use and have piece-mealed a few frankentowers together but nothing that was really mine that I could expect to last for any length of time. 

So I went out shopping for a laptop (I’ve really grown to like them!) .. I took a day off of work just for this task, so I’d have pleanty of time to fine one and set it up with all my “stuff”.  

I struck out at my first stop Staples, an office supply superstore type place.  They had a great selection but when I asked a sales rep which ones were in stock he said “I didn’t work this weekend, I have no clue” and he didn’t seem eager to make any efforts to help me any further other than to point out their add-on warranty.  So.. off to the bank (I wanted to pay cash and the debit card has a maximum daily spending limit of $400 which I was sure to top).

Store number two, BestBuys.  Ahh.. anything that was not in stock was labled right on the tag, no need for a salesperson though one was at the ready.  I looked at the Sony Viao.. the model they had was a low-end variety and the keyboard looked like that of an old TRS-80 color computer. Next up was a 15.4″ Gateway.  Hmm… A little bigger then I had in mind but nice Intel specs…  still not really up on Gateway.  Then a slick glossy black number with bright blue lights and a remote control jumped out at me… an HP Pavilion dv2615nr with built in web-cam.  I was in love but uh oh.. AMD?  You see years ago there was some crazy CPU chip shortage and prices zoomed thru the roof.  To save money at work I went with an AMD product and let’s just say it turned out to be a really bad move.  But in all fairness that was another time and I was ready to set aside my fears.

Now that it’s home, and running for a few weeks.. I’m more that satisfied.  It even outperforms the work-machine it replaced.  It’s not gaming machine, but I can still run MS Flight Simulator X without all the graphics options turned up and The Sims Online just performs stellarly!!

Oh and 8 years ago.. that machine I got.. it was an eMachine T4200 running 2-GHz on a Pentium IV chip which with only a memory and video card upgrade is still holding it’s own.