Back in April 2007 (in my third post on this blog, in fact) I wrote that my laptop had died and that I was stuck using my mother's ancient, somewhat-battered laptop. My plan was (and still is) to get a job and then buy myself a nice, high-end tablet PC.
However, over the last couple of months, my mother's laptop started acting up so I had no choice but to find a replacement for it. I didn't want to buy a tablet PC because I don't yet have a job so I'd rather not dip into our savings too much (and I'm not willing to buy anything but a high-end tablet PC). Instead, I bought a cheap desktop PC that I could work on in the interim and upgrade in the future. I was always going to buy a desktop for home use, I just hadn't planned on doing that right now. But as plans tend to do, this one changed so now I am the proud owner of an HP Pavilion desktop PC:
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It's reasonably low-end as desktop PCs go: with a 2.4GHz Dual Core Intel Pentium Processor instead of a Core 2 Duo and, importantly, integrated graphics instead of a separate graphics card. Fortunately, this isn't much of a problem because I don't plan on getting into computer games, high-end graphics editing, or power intensive computing just yet. I do plan on recording and editing videos and doing some basic graphics editing but all that will work fine on this system. In fact, this setup runs the Windows Vista Aero interface without a hitch so it's not like I'm suffering here!
In other areas, it's a pretty kick-ass system: with 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 360GB 7,200RPM hard drive, a CD/DVD reader and writer, and the usual set of ports, card readers, and networking options. The best part: it came with a 22" wide screen LCD with a 1680x1050 native resolution :) After using a 15" screen for a couple of years and then a 12.1" screen over the last year this big screen is fricking awesome!
In fact, the whole system is pretty awesome and I'm having a great time using it. Woo hoo! :)