I'm heading off to grad school in a month, and I'm wondering if I need a new laptop. My current one is getting low (for me) on hard drive space, and it's almost 4 years old. But I take care of it, and it's still working great. For my current patterns of activity, it's fast enough with its 2gb RAM (though Vista is constantly using some large percentage of it).
The question is, will I need something more for crunching data or visualizing protein structure, or whatever I'm going to be doing? If I do need need more power and a slightly more future-proof computer, back-to-school sales are the best time to buy laptops, and it would be another year before such chances come around again. My dad keeps saying that I should get a new laptop before this one breaks down, rather than waiting until I need one immediately. The situation has changed a bit though, since I won that 10" netbook last winter. If this computer dies, I still have something I can use for simple tasks. It even has the files I'm working with synced via Dropbox.
So perhaps I'll wait. The HP Envy 14 I customized on the site is making me quite envious, but it's also making my credit card cringe. In a year, the price of a quad-core Sandy Bridge processor will have come down, I'll have even more RAM than I know what to do with, switchable graphics will be easy to find on more computers, and the beautiful high-res display the Envy used to have will be back in stock.
Or...they might just discontinue the line. One or the other. Guess I'll just have to wait and see.
The question is, will I need something more for crunching data or visualizing protein structure, or whatever I'm going to be doing? If I do need need more power and a slightly more future-proof computer, back-to-school sales are the best time to buy laptops, and it would be another year before such chances come around again. My dad keeps saying that I should get a new laptop before this one breaks down, rather than waiting until I need one immediately. The situation has changed a bit though, since I won that 10" netbook last winter. If this computer dies, I still have something I can use for simple tasks. It even has the files I'm working with synced via Dropbox.
So perhaps I'll wait. The HP Envy 14 I customized on the site is making me quite envious, but it's also making my credit card cringe. In a year, the price of a quad-core Sandy Bridge processor will have come down, I'll have even more RAM than I know what to do with, switchable graphics will be easy to find on more computers, and the beautiful high-res display the Envy used to have will be back in stock.
Or...they might just discontinue the line. One or the other. Guess I'll just have to wait and see.
