We all have one or the other, possibly both; laptop and desktop computers. When they don’t work, they usually get beat-up. Most of the time, people hit their screens not ever realizing the screen isn’t the one giving you problems. Sure, it displays the problem, but you shouldn’t kill the messenger. The other time computers get beat up is when someone around you isn’t being smart or is telling you something completely stupid. In my girlfriends case, it was a conversation with her mother. She beat up the laptop and now it doesn’t charge.
I’m not certain what is actually wrong with the computer other than the charging mechanism that transfers power from the adapter through the motherboard and to the battery is not working. An internal component, none the less. Both my father and step-father have the necessary electrical equipment needed to diagnose the situation, so it’s really not an issue. I’m almost certain it can be fixed.
I’m not mad at my girlfriend for “doing-in” my laptop. In a sort of mafia type of way, it needed to sleep with the fishes. In all honesty, it did great for many years. I received the laptop as a birthday present my senior year of high school and it’s about 3-4 years old anyway. The processor inside the laptop is an old pentium-4, not a mobile version. The graphics card is an old GeForce 2 MX and it has 512MB of DDR400. The memory is actually still worth something. The processor too, but I’m sure no body would pay over $50.00 for it.
I don’t intend on parting it out, mostly because the money maker in it is the motherboard. If there is an electrical problem, the most I can make off of it is $150.00, but working, I could get close to $300. It’s not in mint condition, but it’s a good laptop for watching DVD’s and surfing the interweb. I know one individual who loves to buy laptops just for this purpose.
In it’s recent passing and hopefully upcoming resurrection, I will have already moved passed the unfortunate circumstances in which it died and present myself with one future option: an Apple MacBook Pro, 15″ laptop. I’ve had my eyes on this product since it was released and held off on upgrading until they moved from the Core chipset to the Core2 chipset. It’s not that Core was bad, but it wasn’t where the Core2 product was going to be in 6 months. Take my word for it, waiting was well worth it.
This will end up being my first Apple computer purchase. I’m not bent on switching, because I play a lot of video games. If my girlfriend finds out that Half-Life 2 isn’t natively available on OS X, she’d probably replace my current desktop with a Mac today! I know that I can boot camp the damn thing, but the video card I want isn’t supported under OS X (yet) and I don’t feel like running two versions of video just to indulge my sick obsessions. Besides, I’m not made out of money!
I figure I can work the deals and score the laptop with AppleCare for about $1500 – $1700 dollars; well under the MSRP. Of course, being who I am, there are various ways of scoring equipment so cheap, but I’m not at liberty to discuss it. Also, I don’t feel like sharing it; I’m the one who spent my high school education expanding my career and proving that a 4.0 grade average doesn’t mean your going to make millions.
With the recent opening of our very own Apple Store here in Albuquerque, it has quickly become a hang out spot of ours. On average, we visit once or twice a week. There is no schedule for visiting, it just sorta happens. My girlfriend has never used a Mac and she’s the perfect person to own one. Her habits on a computer are music, pictures, MySpace and some Office. Not much more than that…
I introduced her to OS X and threw some software at her. She’s been learning tricks and has been growing fond of the platform. She doesn’t complain about Windows and is all about ease of use and thus, OS X is a better product. Once we get the laptop, I in-vision having to fight over it.
It’s likely once our lives begin to carry on and we are further and further out of debt, we’ll own more toys like this. We have other priorities in life and shockingly enough, they have nothing to do with computers. It’s likely after Christmas, I’ll purchase one of these things. I am waiting to see if they offer a rebate on the laptop for a free upgrade to the new version of OS X due out next year.
Oh, before I let you go, here’s some Apple goodness.