Final Decision and Purchase

We have been seriously discussing a laptop since last spring. There are a number of reasons why we decided to purchase one.

One reason has to do with space. We simply do not have room for both computer desks anymore. Therefore one computer has to go. My mother wants it and gave us $250 towards a laptop in exchange. A laptop takes up much less room.

A second reason is that as an instructor I can use one of the school's two laptops, however having my own will make things much easier. I don't have to worry about transferring files or trying to get my windows stuff to work on a mac.

As a writer having a laptop will allow me to work on projects far more often. Prior to yesterday the only way I could write was if the kiddo was napping (in which case she doesn't nap well because she's in the same room as the computer) or if I took time away from my husband on the few evenings we have together. The laptop now allows me to write while I supervise her playtime. (No worries - I'll still spend hours playing with her on the floor. At this age, however, she mostly plays by herself. There's interaction but her play isn't exactly interactive.) This also allows me to take on some freelance website stuff if I have the opportunity.

So the decision was made after hours of discussion.

I've been looking at ads from the three major office stores and two major big box stores every weekend for the past three months. I feel I can spot a pretty good deal when I see one.

We picked out the laptop we wanted. It's normally $899 but was on sale for $749. We received an additional $150 off because we signed up for Verizon's Air Card. It's a brand new promotion and anyone who signs up gets the discount and 30 days to try it out. I returned it and canceled the contract within 24 hours so we won't even have an activation fee and the $150 off is still ours.

The laptop cost $600 plus tax so slightly under $642. My mother gave us $250 towards it which brought our cost down to under $400. I put about $75 of my birthday money towards that. That left us $318 to cover. Not bad for a thousand dollar laptop, eh?

Some specs:
AMD Turion64x2 TL-60 2Ghz
Nvidia graphics card GeForce Go 7150M
4 gb ram
250 gb hard