You have no idea how frustrating it can be. Well, actually, you probably do. We've all been there: sat in front of an unresponsive screen, in the middle of a multi-tasking effort that's frozen everything and left you futiley jabbing at Ctrl, Alt, Delete with gritted teeth. I'm sure I could squeeze extra life from it by reformatting, but I really can't go through that rigmarole. You always lose stuff, spend days reloading software, and months getting it running like before.
I have a budget of about £400, so I'm confident I can get something fairly decent in today's world. Luckily, I'm not a gamer who obsesses about graphic cards, frame-rates and onboard RAM, so anything that will run Office and surf the 'net at a decent lick is fine. My primary wants and needs are:
- CPU: As fast as I can get for my money; ideally dual-core.
- RAM: As much as possible; not too much of a concern these days.
- HDD: It would be nice to have a 100+GB hard-drive for the first time!
- Drives: Blu-ray's too expensive, so the usual DVD-RW/CD combo.
- USB: I only have 2 at the moment and have a 4-port hub attached that can be a pain. They're USB2, but for some reason haven't given me that transfer speed in ages. So, ideally, I'd like 4 USB2's!
- Firewire: If it's there, yes! But no biggie if not.
- HDMI: This would be very cool, as I could connect it to my HDTV, but it's not a deal-breaker.
- Wireless: Oh, yes! My current laptop had it, but lost it during a reformat years ago. I got used to cables again, but would be nice to be able to roam again. I'd need to buy a wireless modem, so there's an added expense already, but never mind.
- Screen: I connect a monitor to my laptop, so this doesn't really matter. But, 15" or above would be good. If I can save some cash by going 14" and improving the spec elsewhere, then so be it.
