CommerceCubes

New Laptop Time and New Business

I finally went out and got a new laptop. I am getting into running my own day-to-day business operations and naturally I have a desktop that I’ve been using. I picked it up on eBay for around $400 in the spring of this year. It works great and really the only problem I found was that I had to be in my bedroom to use it. I like my bedroom for sleeping, doing business, not so much. This upset me to no end because I don’t like being “chained to the desk” in a specific place. It’s funny because I am pretty “techie” but I don’t like the trappings of a tech lifestyle.

Getting back to the laptop debate, I ended up buying a dell laptop but I couldn’t decide for the longest time which one to buy. I figure that most other small business owners have the same issues when making a purchase such as this. Some questions that sprung to my mind were…

• What am I going to use it for? Naturally myself I am always programming these days, looking at code and doing plenty of things online so it made sense for me to get one.
• How much do I want to spend? Personally I had a target of spending no more then $1000 on my laptop
• What size screen should it have? I like the 12.1 inch screens but the only problem is that I think that they are personally too small for me. Your fingers get all cramped into typing in such a small keyboard area. Not comfortable at all. If you do a lot of CAD or graphic work then the bigger the screen, the better. If you are looking for something at is ultra-portable then the smaller the screen you need so long as you aren’t typing for long periods of time.
• Do I want to buy new or used? Because I am a bit cautious and frugal when buying something the question of “New” or “Used” comes into mind. For laptops and computers in general I always have a hard time buying used simply because you can inherit all the problems and more of the last person that owned it just to save a few bucks. I am NOT that cheap

I had a look at the new Intel-based macbooks and to be honest because I do a fair bit on PC platform already I figured for now to stick with what I know best, that being PCs. Sure they are slower and less “fun” but when you are bootstrapping resources and growing a business cost factors into the equation every time.

I am tire-kicker by nature; I don’t just go out and buy the first thing that I see especially when it costs a fair amount of money. I like to research before I buy something. I don’t always buy the cheapest especially if it’s a tech product that I am going to use in my business. But that’s me. What criteria do you look for when buying for your business?

So what did Luc Settle on?

Well I am a sucker for a Dell Laptop. They are relatively inexpensive; they work and if they don’t they are easy to return to be fixed, and they are built well. I’ve heard nothing but good word of mouth about them since they first came out. I’ve had my eye on the 640m for quite some time now.

The Specs on Luc’s new Laptop

CPU: Intel^® Core^TM 2 Duo Processor T5600 (1.83GHz/667MHz FSB/2MB L2 Cache)

RAM: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm

HardDrive: 120GB Hard Drive

Optical Drive: 8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability

I’ll post up some Candid shots of the laptop when it arrives. Stay tuned for more!

Lucas

Running my business from a Laptop… soon!