Brand New Computer

I finally bought a brand new computer...and I couldn't be happier.

I ended up getting a Compaq Presario from Office Max. Although I wasn't exactly sure about buying another HP/Compaq computer, the price along with the specs (and the lack of anything other than Gateway, eMachines, and Media Center-powered PCs at Best Buy and Circuit City) convinced me to get it.

Including the 3-year service plan and tax, I spent nearly $1000 on the machine. I paid for the computer with my debit card and NO credit of any kind. This makes this particular computer the single largest purchase I have ever made that did not rely on credit for at least part of the cost.

My computer has a 200 GB Hard Drive (although with the OS and the recovery partition, it's more like 179 GB), 1GB of RAM, and a DVD burner. Although my computer isn't the state-of-the-art, I'm amazed at how good it performs. Everything moves faster. Firefox just breezes through pages and GMail is almost instantaneous.

I had a small problem with the installation of my ISP's software (the software CD is pre-XP) and that caused some problems in terms of booting up. However, I got that all straightened out and it runs nicely. I'm still in the process of transferring all my stuff to the new computer, although everything is burned and deleted from my old computer.

Speaking of that old computer, the one that worked incredibly hard for nearly six years with almost no trouble...I have given that to my parents/family to use. I hooked it up in my sister's room and kept a lot of the programs that they'd need or like (like a Jigsaw Puzzle program I downloaded). That computer should last until my parents get a new computer of their own. My sister will also be in the market for a new computer this summer and it's quite likely that in the next few weeks, we will be investing in a broadband connection of some kind (likely AT&T Yahoo! DSL).

All in all, I'm hoping to get at least a couple of years out of my new computer. Depending on how things go, maybe I'll be able to get a laptop for my next one.