New Computer

This past week my wife informed me that the monitor for our current PC gave out. It was a Samsung 15" LCD screen which was pretty cutting edge when we bought it in CT about 4-5 years ago. A practical person would probably have only gotten an LCD screen but being me, I discussed it with my wife and we saw this as a great opportunity to finally upgrade out computer. I was using a hand me down computer from my sister in law since I was able to bring it back to life but this time around I decided to purchase one, I think this is the first computer I have purchased since 2001 which means I was due anyway.

I went over to Circuit City and Best Buy and compared prices and at the end of the day, Best Buy had the best package. I was able to get an HP Pavilion Elite with an Intel Quad Core PC, 3 Gigs of RAM, and 640 GB hard drive. Thats some serious muscle compared my old Pentium 4 with 512 of RAM and only 220 GB hard drive. I have gone through the basic setup sequence for the new computer but I haven't had the time to install all the programs that I normally put on a computer to make it run well.

The package from Best Buy came with an all in one printer/copier/scanner but I'm saving that as a backup for when my current printer finally dies which will be a long time. We also decided to change the monitor that came with the package. I originally wanted a Samsung 22" monitor but they didn't have any at Best Buy so I went ahead and got an LG monitor instead which looks just as good as the Samsung and was actually cheaper as well. The picture on it looks fantastic so far so I am very pleased with the purchase.

The only part that I'm disappointed in is that I can't expand the PC any more than I have. I was going to try and cannabilize some of the parts from my old desktop but there's no more room inside the chassis. I guess thats the price you pay for getting an off the shelf PC instead of building it but I didn't want to go through the hassle anymore. The only thing I foresee having to purchase is a USB hub for the computer because there aren't enough ports currently.

I'll write an update on my progress on how things are going with the new comp although I expect things to go fairly well. I'll also give my impressions of Windows Vista since it came with the computer.