Then on occasion I pull away from the 1024×768 XGA screen and look at what I’m using.
My old, scratched up, dented and faded Dell Latitude.
It’s been sitting quietly on my lap for the best part of 3 years, it’s succumbed to having cups and plates sat on top of it (closed), it’s fallen off the couch on more occasions than I’d care to admit, it’s lived in the boot of my car for weeks, it’s traveled with me to most parts of Europe, it’s been knocked, bumped, kicked, scratched.. etc
But you know what? It’s still here. Sat on my lap, keeping my legs nice and toasty as I type this message, it’s fan whirring away in a meager attempt to keep itself cool after the 4 hours it’s been on this evening. Sure it’s not perfect, it throws up the odd BSOD every few months after running the same XP install for 2 years and these days the battery won’t last more than 20 minutes when unplugged from the mains.. but a 5 year old device isn’t going to be perfect, is it? I tried for a while to keep it up to date as much as I could, I updated the Ram from 256MB to 2GB and the disk from 20GB to 80GB around 2 years ago to give it a fighting chance of keeping up with tech. It’s still running the 1.8GHz Pentium M and that’s fine, because it’s never maxxed out. It handles everything I’ve thrown at it and more. Infact, I’m sure it’s handled better than most modern laptops would when succumbed to the same physical treatment and I have little doubt it’ll carry on doing what it does for a few more years to come. Just looking at it, I can see it’s a device built to last, which is more than can be said for some of these new, shiny machines.
For example: My brother picked up an Asus a few months ago, the other day as he was typing (he is a brute, to be fair) a key shot off the keyboard! I’ve dropped a cup on my keyboard and have not seen a scratch appear on it. Naturally this could be an isolated incident, but it’s perfect for my point.
When things like that happen, it makes me appreciate this old, battered, semi-indestructible fat Dell all the more and in turn has me asking myself…
Will owning a new, shiny piece of tech really improve my life?
I don’t think so..
It’s so easy to get sucked into the marketing campaigns and urge to have the latest, greatest machines on the market, but ask yourself this,
“Will this piece of kit really improve my life?”
Posted from Oxford, England, United Kingdom.