Well, my 6 year old, top of the line (way back then) computer has finally died. Of course we know that hard drives only have a 3-5 year life span, but I never thought my computer would finally stop! Yes, I tried everything. The final straw was my video card failed and NONE of the new ones would fit in my 6 year old mother board (wrong slot size). Oh well.
But, now I was faced with several decisions: laptop or desktop model, and XP or Vista?
Let’s talk about Laptop vs. Desktop.
Since I already had a computer, this meant I still had a good monitor (two, actually), a several good hard drives, a keyboard, and a mouse! So, since I already had these items, I was leaning towards getting a new desktop. But then I thought let’s look at laptops first.
The main benefit of a laptop is the portability. This can be a huge benefit, letting you take your computer to and from work, on planes, on shopping trips, and practically anywhere else. Along with this benefit comes a large drawback. It is just as easy for someone else to walk off with it as it is for you. Laptops are stolen at an alarming rate, because they are just so easy to steal. And when that computer is stolen, not only do you lose the value of the computer, but also all of your valuable data.
Another major drawback of a laptop is that their parts are “proprietary” which means that if your laptop breaks, only the company that made it will be able to fix it and after the warranty expires they will be very happy to charge you an exorbitant price for that service. There a few places in Bali that will do some repairs for you, but they may not be able to help your computer. While with a desktop computer, you are able to take advantage of your local computer store which will often fix it or upgrade it at a much more reasonable rate.
A third drawback to the laptop craze is that in general, laptops are more expensive than desktop systems. For the price of an average laptop, you could purchase a much more powerful desktop. Of course, what you are paying for is the portability of a smaller design, but is that worth it? While it can be very fun to take your computer with you on a site seeing trip, how often do you actually need to type something up while site seeing?
Now, the laptop is a very important part of the computer market, and I am not trying to talk anyone out of buying them if they have need for them, but I have just seen far too many people dissatisfied with their laptops and wishing that they had purchased a desktop.
(If the laptop is your first computer, remember it comes with a screen, keyboard, mouse, and many types of inputs. PLUS, it has a built in UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply – the battery). A UPS for your desktop can run 2-3M rp).
But for me – Desktop!
Now XP or Vista?
You may remember my warnings a few issues back to stay away from Vista unless you were buying a new computer? Well that still stands as there are still a few hardware problems with Vista and older (much older) computers. Now, with Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) out most problems have been solved, however.
I played it very conservative and had the place that put my computer together do it as a dual-boot. This meant I actually had two computers – one running Vista and one running XP. I could just choose when I booted the computer, which operating system I wanted to use. I did this because I thought I’d have trouble with some software running under Vista and wanted the option.
Bottom line! I never had any problems. Vista has this neat option: right click on the program; pick Properties; click on Compatibility and choose “Windows XP” mode. I’ve done this with a few of my computer games and it works great.
So, Vista worked so well, I had the tech guy come out to the house and remove XP to free up disk space. So, I’m a Vista-boy now and not looking back.
