New laptop love!

This is a bit of a departure from my normal posts, but I wanted to write about the new laptop of my life, which arrived yesterday. I guess it relates to the blog because... I'll use it to blog? That's weak, I know. Sorry!

I decided on a PC because, well, as much as I want to be the kind of person that uses a mac and enjoys the really exotic raw sushi rolls and always knows how to pronounce french words... I just didn't like using a mac (nor am I into really exotic sushi, nor can I pronounce french words very accurately).

I had my macbook for about 3 years and, the whole time, basic things like rotating a photo, or installing new software, would totally confound me. And I'm pretty smart I think. I just didn't enjoy using it. So, I'll try to still keep my creativity street cred even while using a PC :).

I chose the HP dm4x because I really like a 14" form factor - anything smaller feels like a netbook and is too small to really use, anything bigger is just a monstrosity with tons of wasted space and is too huge to carry around. I also liked that it came with a reputable graphics card and a big hard drive and an option for lots of memory.



My Macbook that I had used for the past 3 years died a horrible, gasping, expensive death wherein we replaced it bit by bit and still had it crap out. I traded it in for scrap and at least got a little bit of store credit out of it!

The unboxing*:


Start here? Well, okay, since you are between me and my new laptop.


Pretty simple, though I think a non-column layout would have been more clear, because I read it as "take your stuff out of the box... then connect via wireless!" because I'm a left-to-right reader, column breaks be damned.


Look at you, snazzy thing in your snazzy plastic baggie.


Further snazzy things in baggies that weren't a pain to open, which was nice. No blister packaging for me to injure myself with in my haste.


Oooh, even the tape has the "hp" logo on it! Fancy tape. I want tape with my initials.


Power cord plugs into the side - I prefer the back (ha, that's what she said?) so I can sit cross-legged without it poking me (that's what she also said? sorry.)


Pristine keyboard that is appropriately clicky and tactile. Comfortable to type on.


I like the layout, it isn't too wide and there's not vast tundras of unused space on each side of the keyboard like with larger laptops.

First boot:

whaa? Was bummed this was the first thing I saw upon booting up. Was it tampered with? Did it crash as they were building it? Will everything load ok?


Everything seemed to load okay, and the default background was really beautiful! I wonder if HP profiles its customers so that if you order and have a female-sounding name, they put a pretty background. And if you're a dude, they put, like, a truck or something. I don't know. A grill?


"Sir, take me to THE INTERNET". I laughed out loud (lol, as the kids would say) at this oversimplified way of putting it.


The first thing I did - download Chrome. IE is terrible, HP should include other browser options! I had to use IE to download Chrome and it made me feel dirty and confused.


Also removed the Bing bar - guess HP and microsoft are so entwined that no other options make it onto the computer.


Was super excited that Evernote was included - I've been wanting to try it! I mean, it's free to download, so it's not like it saved me any money that it was on the computer already, but it was nice to see preloaded software that wasn't bloatware!



Anyways, enough of this, which is basically just me gloating that I got a new laptop! I'm super excited to use it! Expect... bloggier blog posts? I dunno. Something? Yes.

*wherein I try to take enticing photos of me basically opening a box and taking things out of it. Try to contain your enthusiasm. I know it was difficult for me to do so.