For years now, my family members have come to me for computer recommendations because I am, theoretically, the most tech-savvy member of my family. Most of the guys that I dated are laughing as they read this because they were all varying levels of Mr. Built My Own Computer, and they saw me as the Idiotic Techless Wonder. Yet another reason that marrying Matt was good for my self image.

At any rate, I’m going to go ahead and write a blog post about my recent purchase of a Dell Inspiron 1525, really, for my own laziness – so the next time I get an email asking for a computer suggestion I can merely point them to this blog post and be magically done.

Now, this laptop is the first computer I’ve purchased since Janet, the thing I put together from mangled computer parts 5 years ago. Always an early adopter of technological ideas but a late adopter of hardware that I am expected to purchase with my own bank account, I put this buy off until the very last minute.

A few things you should know, first being that I’m a PC user. I think Macs are great, but see paragraph above regarding how I spend my own money, and Macs are not worth the money you pour into them. Piggybacking on that thought, I’m a big fan of Dell’s refurbished machines because, like a used car, you can get a lot of bang for your buck if you’re willing to accept the fact that someone else owned this beauty before you.

In this case, I had to buy my Inspiron new to use a gift card I acquired from cashing in my credit card points, essentially slashing the cost of the computer in half. Otherwise, I would have bought refurbished. I had also recommended this laptop to my Dad who purchased it about a month before me and so far has really enjoyed it himself. So I wanted to make sure I had made a good recommendation.

Here are the specs on my particular machine, so if you want something that is good and fast and will last you 4-5 years (assuming you’re a standard user who wants to edit photos, use a word processor, surf YouTube, and check your Gmail), I think you’ll be more than satisfied with a machine with similar power.

• Intel Pentium Dual T3200 processor @ 2 GHz
• 3 GB Memory

All the rest is just details. As for Vista, a lot of annoying things there, but the new 2007 Excel is completely worth all of the annoying bugs in the rest of the operating system. You will be amazed by all the new shortcuts.

Now that I’ve moved into my Inspiron, I’m undergoing the process of wiping down Janet and installing Xubuntu. I’ve been wanting to play around with a Linux-only system for a while and, by my calculations, have about 5 more years to get used to Linux before purchasing my next Linux-only machine.

Best wishes with your computer-buying!

P.S. If you want to go with a little less power for a little less cash try the one I recommended for my sister – same model of Inspiron but with 2 GB memory. So far she seems to be enjoying it as well.

P.S.S. I believe I gave a recommendation to Big Ma that wound up being a catastrophe. Could you give us a Consumer Report on that one, Big Ma?

P.S.S.S. Back in the day when I was working in the IT department of a really great company that seriously gave their employees the best tools for the job, I was hooked up with a beautiful XPS M1530 that was great for running the entire Adobe Suite all at once. If you’re doing a lot of multimedia all at once, I highly highly recommend this machine.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Family, Nerd-dom, Stuff I Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.