quest for a laptop

Today I stayed home sick. Nothing major, just a slight cold – I am lucky in that my job is pretty flexible in terms of working remotely, as long as there’s nothing major in the office going on like experiments or important meetings. Even got to join in the lab meeting via webcam, while I was in my PJs (my boss has started this up since he’s working in Europe for 6 months) ~ gotta love technology. However, there is a significant technology that I am really missing right now: a laptop.

My trusty first laptop, a Dell I bought before grad school 5 years ago, finally bit the dust when the hard drive died on me about a month ago. I have a desktop at work and we have a pretty good desktop at home as well, so it hasn’t been a crucial item to replace. But being home and not feeling well has really reminded me what I am missing – there are times when you just want to be able to use the computer while lying horizontally on the couch, or even in bed. Plus, the whole portability aspect is pretty nice – I haven’t missed it much because of all the traveling over the holidays (which led to taking a pretty extensive break from computers!), but now that life is back to normal, I find myself with a bunch of computing projects coming up, where a laptop could come in handy~

• Wedding album design (it’s on my list, gotta do it!)
• Volunteered to do website design for a charity fundraiser
• And of course, this blog! Would love to spruce it up design-wise. And a laptop would surely help increase my writing frequency ;)

Therefore, I am on a quest for a new laptop.
Since I make a living as a research engineer, I of course have felt compelled to do extensive research on a wide variety of laptops. Sources of choice: techy review sites, customer reviews, and surveying a number of the computer geeky guys that I work with. What I am looking for: good specs in terms of processor/RAM etc [no flimsy Netbooks for me~ my nerdy side insists that it be able to run Matlab!], good portability [am not a fan of lugging a heavy laptop bag on long commutes/through airports], and good price [because it’s a less-than-necessary expense… and my grad student days have instilled a basic thriftyness that’s only been reinforced by my husband’s penny pinching tendencies].

So, I’ve looked into Dell since my previous one lasted so long… looked at Sony because they have a good reputation… I’ve heard all the commotion about the wonders of Mac computers… but in terms of maximizing computing power while minimizing weight and cost, the best deal by far seems to be the ASUS UL30 series, which one of my work friends clued me into. I mean, Dual core processor/ 4 GB RAM/ 500 GB HDD/ Windows 7 64 bit, at 3.7 pounds, starting at $650?? Plus the added bonus of 12 hour advertised battery life (translating to 8-9 with typical usage – still quite a lot!) is pretty cool as it offers even more portability. The closest things I’ve found in other brands are all over $1000 – often closer to $1500, with less impressive specs.

Of course there are always drawbacks. The one I’m looking at apparently has a less than dazzling graphics card, which I don’t mind much since I am definitely not into any kind of games. There’s no DVD drive – but we have an external one in case I need it for software installs, and the hard drive is big enough that I could store movies etc on it if I really wanted to (all my computer watching seems to be in streaming format via Netflix or Hulu anyway). And apparently the customer service requires some extra patience, if I were to need it for something. But I guess I am lucky to have a husband and lots of coworkers who are really good with computers, not to mention my own engineering background, which means I tend to fix any issues that I have on my own or with a little help from my friends.

Anyway- this was more than I thought I would write about computer issues. But I think I found a laptop that would be a good option for a good price. Now I just have to get myself to actually buy it…. I have issues with making the final decision for big purchases. There also are a few different models with in the UL30 series that have slightly different features, and I’ve been going back and forth on a couple. This indecision is normal, right?? If anyone has advice (out of my what – 2 or 3 readers ;) let me know. Otherwise I am telling myself that whatever laptop I buy will probably make me happy, just because it’s been 5 years of technology advancements since my last purchase, and therefore it should seem much better to me. Hooray for technology!