Hello everyone. Sorry about being so quiet recently. I had hoped to blog about my weekend trip to Yorkshire this week, but my attempts to write it have been constantly thwarted by the awful laptop that I have to use. I’d forgotten how bad it was, but it didn’t take long to remember why I upgraded; it’s just a terrible piece of equipment. Slow, clunky, broken…it’s a typical example of the Windows Vista operating system at work. Or not at work, as the case may be. It’s just awful.
What’s wrong with it? Well, mostly everything, with a few particular areas that it really fails in.
The sound, for one, rarely works. What’s great about that is how it doesn’t tell me it has stopped working, so I’m ready to listen to music or watch a video, only to discover that I can’t. I reboot the laptop, sound is back, open up Skype…sound is gone again. How fun is that?
Next are the error messages that pop up on a regular basis. No idea what most of them mean. This little guy is a permanent visitor to my desktop.
The battery life is another fun one. I reckon it lasts about thirty seconds, tops (and this is the second battery I’ve had for it!). Several times I’ve accidentally knocked out the cord without realizing, and before I can plug it back in, it has died. Awesome.
The internet is pretty awful too. I’ve got Firefox, Chrome and IE, and all three are broken on this laptop. Firefox is definitely the one that suffers most though. I turn it on and boom, plugin has stopped working.
Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, I have to be very careful lifting it because the screen has detached itself from the keyboard. And not in a cool windows tablet way (did I make this joke before? Eh, let’s assume I didn’t) either.
The only thing that I’ll give this laptop credit for is the fan, which runs quietly and coolly. If only my new laptop had a fan like that then I wouldn’t have to use this damn thing in the first place. The irony is not lost on me.
Ugh. It’s starting to act up again, so I should probably give up and do something else. I’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe then I’ll be able to discuss my weekend. Here’s hoping.
Alex
writingonthecitadel 