Buying a Laptop is Like Choosing a Woman

Dirk's Laptop Quest continues as I compare reviews, check out various discounts (Dell's got some killer deals, but they'll get better by the time school start gets closer) and generally scratch my head at the best course of action.

The problem is that after you configure and purchase a laptop, there's little you can do about it if you don't like most things about it. You can't buy a bigger monitor, plug in a faster graphics card, add a couple more hard drives, etc. What you get is what you'll have. I'm used to building my own desktop PCs - carefully selecting the best parts for my budget, knowing that nothing has gone into the case that I didn't want and what I've gotten is the best quality. No lowest bids for me!

While discussing this with a co-worker, I stumbled onto the realization that buying a laptop is like choosing a woman (or man, I suppose) because....

* While you can make moderate tweaks and upgrades, the core stuff can't be changed. After enhancing the peripheral bits, if it was slow and unstable before, it's not going to be much better afterwards.

* While they're both designed to be portable, some are a real drag to lug around and many run out of juice after a too-short while.

* As soon as you commit to one, a better overall deal will come along, leaving you with buyer's remorse, but little in the way of recourse short of dumping it on eBay.