Reward!

[trinityvixen]

I've been eyeing a netbook for the past couple of weeks. Last weekend, when I wasn't able to fix the cable problem my parents were having, I did manage to get out to Best Buy to play with netbooks and confirm I wanted the one I thought I did. (In fact, I discovered that I wanted the same model but in a different color. Go me.) Regardless of the particular machine, I'll still probably install XP over it. I hear good things about Windows 7. When I get a full PC at a later date, I'll switch over then. But Windows 7 Starter is a non-starter for me.

Anyway, thanks to having some Reward Zone points to use up, I've gone ahead and ordered said netbook. I will pick it up this weekend. (Always crossing my fingers that they don't try to do the "optimization" bait-and-switch--read more about that brand of fail here.) Originally, I intended to get this machine in white and name it Ahab. Now, it's coming to me in a beautiful brownish-red, I'll need a new name.

Thanks to moonlightalice and darkling1 for their aide, recommendations, and the like. I look forward to joining the actually-portable-isn't-that-novel laptop crowd.

(For any who may be concerned, no, I'm not spending money I haven't earned after learning I got a new job. I've been wanting to do this for a while now. Ambrose, my 15" laptop, turns 4 this year. After his recent hard drive failure, it was just made clear to me that I needed to have a backup. Ambrose lives, thanks to my having a nice long warranty on him from back when. But he could use a little help.)

Comments

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

You can't buy XP anymore, so I wouldn't count on wiping that out unless you have install discs & product keys from your old laptop, or are willing to hunt for something even less legal.

Windows 7 is good, but I wouldn't install it on a netbook. Waste of resources.

Congrats, though! Much fun!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I don't have to buy XP. My job provides. I can also upgrade to Windows 7 Enterprise, if I so choose. I won't. In downloading both OS's last night, XP was fully 1/4 the size of either version of Windows 7. I downloaded all three...just in case, you know. But I'll install XP.

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

I had no idea that Best Buy does that! Gah! It makes me really happy that I had nerds build my computer.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Best Buy is becoming increasingly obsolete as people use the internet to build or buy computers. So they have to make themselves necessary somehow. If they can get you in their store to buy a computer in the first place, they can probably get away with "optimizing" nine times out of ten (and having the person pay for it--I know my Dad wouldn't look twice). I'm hoping to beat the system, myself. We'll see.

[via newredshoes' flist]

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Woo yay another probable Eee user! (I have a 901 in black.)

Hmm... how about "Pequod"?

Re: [via newredshoes' flist]

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I like it :) I'm stuck on A's, at present, only because of alliteration, but I'll move off in a bit. I'll keep "Pequod" in mind.

(And I like the icon!)

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

I'd go win 7. No way I'd run Vista on a netbook for anything, but I actually think 7 runs better than xp in a lot of ways. I heart it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It just eats up a lot more space. Is there something specific that you like that 7 does better than XP to justify it?

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

So 7 Starter is specialized for netbooks and developing nations, it's actually very well reviewed on them, especially on the eees.

If you MUST overwrite it with something, don't use XP -- it's a bear on netbooks, not adapted at all and very hard to make work with what a netbook offers. I suggest either leaving W7 or going over to Eeebuntu, which is, as of the about-to-launch 4, built from the ground up for netbooks.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I haven't made any decision about the OS, and I won't until I get the thing in my hands and see how it runs.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Eee netbooks are so cute! I want one but can't justify it since I won't need to carry it around to uni or work. Maybe when my current laptop dies I will get one for funsies :) butthey have no DVD drive for watching movie :/

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Given how many shows I have downloaded to watch, and Netflix movies to stream, the lack of the DVD drive won't hardly affect my watching habits, methinks.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

I've been deriding netbooks for years, but now I'm looking at getting a Lenovo S10-3t. I have to say that having a tiny computer is more appealing than it used to be.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

What really broke me into the idea is having a portable DVD player. Once I realized that I could, happily, watch stuff on a smaller screen, my objection to laptops that are small-screened all but disappeared. I don't game, really, on my PC, so there's no call for having an overly powerful laptop for that end. (I can get a desktop for that.) My needs of a PC are pretty slight, and a netbook will take care of most of them. So, yeah, I'm happy to be joining the netbook crowd.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

I have an iPhone. I watch movies on that sometimes, so that wasn't the problem. The issue I had was that the first ones I saw were the original eeePC's, which were really just toys. If I'm going to use something that's not really a computer, I might as well just use the iPhone. But now that they're really just small form factor laptops (not trying to be something else), they're a lot more appealing. And since I sometimes need a Windows machine, it seems like a good way to solve a problem and have a new tech toy at the same time.