Computer shopping..

Might give the Dell site a try Woody. I've gone thru them twice now, and have been happy with both purchases.

www.dell.com/

Walmart has an Acer mini lap top on sale for 198.00. I looked at them Sunday. They dont have a cd drive and are set up for wireless. i thought about getting one but the screen is small (10.1 inches) for old eyes. h.h.

Wife and I both switched to laptops a few years back. You know how it is with years when we get to a certain age, so I'm sure you'll forgive me if I can'r remember how many years. My best guess is about six years for her and four for me.

We're both on them daily, for way longer than we probably should be. Hers has been replaced once during that time, I'm still working on my first one, with no problems other than an occasional temporary bug.

My Compaq Presario has about four hours constant use unplugged, but has only been used that way a few times. Hers was a slightly earlier model and has about half that battery life.

I think our support crew, the Kid, said mine was set to run at a lower power level on batteries, which aided battery life. He asked me if I wanted to soup up the unplugged performance, but I told him I was pretty happy with it as is and would probably be more frustrated by shorter battery life than the lack of performance which I hadn't missed so far.

We've both been very happy with the switch to laptops.

Several times, when the kids are down for a visit or we're up there, we have caught ourselves in a situation that would have been unimaginable to us a few years back, with all four of us on our individual laptops at the same time, in the same room. The family that computes together.....

The kids both have their desktops as well, but I think hers is getting little use now. His usages sometimes require bunches of power and capacity, and he actually has stacked desktops merged to work together through some sort of magic, and I've seen him using the laptop in his office while both desktops are doing some massive downloads. But even with the speed and power of his desktops, I see him more often using the laptop for normal everyday usage.

Looks to me like the laptops are the future for most of us, like the cell phone is gradually replacing the hardwired house phone.

The Kid's cell phone will probably do more tricks than my laptop. I like the simple one I have now mostly BECAUSE it won't do anything except make and take calls.

Our desktop did the deed this last summer and quit on us. Fortunately I had got the wife a Toshiba laptop a few years ago so we could work the computer/internet at home with that. Our initial thoughts were that we would use the laptop until we could find a good deal on another desktop but my wife was able to borrow a "notebook" laptop from her office (since she does a lot of work from home) and with me still using her old laptop we have kind of gotten used to having that ability. The only difference is that we don't have the printer/scanner always hooked up like we did before but that doesn't take much to do if needed.

My wife is fairly certain that our next purchase will be another "notebook" laptop like what she is currently using. Like Russ said-the ability of the laptop/notebooks is quickly becoming the equal of what most people need for computing.

As for what kind/type to get? Well...I'm would have to ask my wife ;D and she would probably run any new purchase by her computer nerds at work before jumping....so if you find something that you think might be interesting Woody post it up and I'll take it to the missus ;D

.......................i'm happy with a "all in one" desk computer.......i had a lap top, my grandson borrow it a year ago, haven't seen it since!!!!!....... ..............turkey scout

Laptop for the win.

Save some $$ and go to the dell outlet. It's a link on their website. You can't custom order exactly what you want but I doubt that matters to you.

I have a studio 15 from there that is 18 months old and has been great. Beats the heck out of paying retail. More bang for your buck.

I saw some mentions about laptops wearing out faster. Maybe. But it all comes down to how you use them and treat them. You don't have to have kid gloves. But just don't do stupid stuff with it.

Get the biggest battery you can. 9cell probably. And run that puppy down EVERY day. Use the laptop not plugged in. These new laptop batteries LIKE to be cycled, charged and discharged that is. It kills them to let them sit around charged, plugged in all the time. Mine is 18 months old and I still get 90% of the time I got out of it when brand new.

Check out tigerdirect.com I bought a top of the line computer for around 500 a year ago.

I was in the process of replacing my Toshiba lap top when it died. I went to out IT guy at work ( he also does all of the chruch IT ) and he was pretty convincing about buying a Dell .. We ended up putting a new harddrive in the Toshiba and it is running fine now...

Back up now while its still running , if we didnt I would be in alot of trouble right now

I would go with a laptop but would buy a wireless mouse and keyboard. My PC at work is a laptop with a docking station so I have the full function keyboard and track ball there. Our company was having too many ergo injuries with all of the folks working with their laptops away from the docking station. They made it mandatory that we use the wireless devices at home or anytime we're "undocked". It all depends on how much time you spend on it. When you spend hours per day as part of your job, that's when you have issues.

The brand used at work, desktop and laptop, is HP. My personal desktop at home is a Dell. We're getting ready buy a laptop to replace our home PC and it will likely be Dell or HP.