For the last few months I've been using my work-provided laptop as my home laptop. Generally, this is frowned upon as it is property of the company, but I really don't do anything on it besides browse, chat, and work anyway, so it's not a huge deal. However, I may soon be doing side-jobs that pay real cash monies, and doing that kind of work on the Nintendo machine would be more than frowned upon. So, I ordered a new laptop.
As I wait for the machine to be delivered (For those curious, it's an Acer Aspire V3), I'm spending the last few days using the Dell Latitude and trying to think of what will change.
First, and in my mind most importantly, the Latitude has a Pointing Stick, which I use almost exclusively over the normal touch-pad. If you've never used one, or used one and hated it, let me explain why they are oh-so-very-useful: you never need to move your hands off of the keyboard. Need to click on something? Move your right hand 1 inch over, use your pointer finger and a the precision pointing device, and then click with your thumb. Very fast, very efficient. And very nonexistent on most consumer laptops, including the Acer. So, in most circumstances, I'll be re-familiarizing myself with a touch-pad.
Resolution will also be a change. The Latitude runs at a paltry 1366x768, whereas the Acer runs 1600x900. Now, most of the techy readers just raised an eyebrow. "What, not 1920x1080? NOT TRUE HIGH DEF?!" No, not true High Def, and on a 17" screen I'm not sure how I'm going to like it, but the Acer was $850, and the closest machine I could find with true HD and comparable other specs was an Asus for $1,400. Granted, that machine also had 2x the RAM and a 7200RPM HDD, so it was worth what it cost, but I couldn't bring myself to drop an extra $550. We shall see if I can deal with the mid-resolution.
Windows 8. This will be my first experience with the new OS, and I have a copy of Windows 7 ready in case it's as bad as some of my tech friends make it out to be. Really, though, when you get right down to it, the only thing I need my OS to do is be compatible with the applications I want to run and get out of my way.
Not being connected to work. This is something I'm of 2 minds on. I really like being available to help, which I am 100% of the time when I'm working on the Latitude. On the flip side, I can feel myself starting to get really, really burned out. So, it'll be good to be able to shut down work and fire up a different machine for fun and side projects; I'll also likely still be bringing the Latitude home, so it can be on and sitting in a corner :)
Lastly: this will be MY computer, so I can install games and other crap on the machine as I please... I'm not sure what this will do to my productivity ;)
I'll report in on the new machine once it arrives and I have a chance to play, but that's all for now.
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