How often do you buy a new laptop?

Well, it is that time again… a little sooner this time than expected.  My HP dv9408 which was purchased in July of 2007 has been giving me problems over the last year.  Lately it has been running hot and taking forever to boot up.  The main issue we have now is that when I leave it on and it is supposed to go to screensaver, it goes to a black screen.  When I come back and move the mouse or space bar, it does not respond forcing me to turn it off completely. It will then power up… but not fully turn on.  The blue lights on the keyboard light up but the screen does nothing.  It then turns on and off repeatedly until I turn it off completely again.  Usually after restarting it three times, it will start to work again.  Not last night!  This time I had to press F11 repeatedly, then F10, then F8… when nothing happened I called HP support.  After an hour of finally being routed to the tech support department, they admitted that the motherboard had failed and that there was a recall.  Since it was beyond the 1 year warranty, I was happy to find out that there was an extended warranty and that they would be sending a box to my house where I could pack it up and ship it back to them to be fixed.  Great news! ….. Only I am not in my “house” I am in Mexico!  Not to worry the tech support guy said… I had up to one year from July 2007 to return it.

So, the laptop will get taken care of on our next trip to the states… most likely in March or April for the next Stompernet Live conference.  Maybe if we find someone taking a trip to the states sooner we can get them to take it back and then ship for us.  But even if we could do immediately, we would need to wait for it to get fixed which I hear is at least a few weeks… then wait for it to be shipped back to Mexico! Since I certainly cannot be without a computer for that long, it is time to buy a new one.

When we first bought laptops we used to buy the top of the line with all the bells and whistles.  We soon realized that within 2 years we were ready for an upgrade or it was running slow, or other issues so now we focus on buying a mid-range laptop that will meet our needs for the immediate future.  For some time now I have wanted to get a Dell laptop for no other reason than it came in the color pink.  Why pink?  I have no idea.  One of those irrational desires that have no logical explanation but we still want.  Since I could not justify the expense of upgrading just because I wanted a different color laptop… I am actually a little excited I get to upgrade now.  Of course it also has to be 17″ and have the number pad at the right.  Also got to have the extra loud speakers and a good video card for watching Stompernet videos! All the other technical stuff I will let my husband pick out.  As long as it runs fast and I can run all of my programs at the same time I will be happy!

Of course we have to price shop so after picking out a few options on dell.com.mx, we will be heading out to the local Costco and Sam’s Club to see what other options there are.  (No Best Buy here in Puebla yet though we just heard it will be coming to Mexico City soon!)  I don’t think that the stores here are going to carry a pink laptop so I am hoping that we can justify the price online over the prices and options in the stores.  If not, there is always 2 years from now when I will be buying the next one!

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