A month and a half after my desktop computer was stolen from my home, I had finally gotten tired of limping along with my work laptop at home, just checking mail, and always hesitant to do anything "drastic" or permanent (i.e. installing my own scanner or printer software, installing my genealogy program, offloading the digital photos that are piling up on my camera, synchronizing my website locally so I could start making changes, etc). So I went out and made the first replacement of the more than $5K of goods stolen by getting a "converged" device.
Even though I now have an alarm, I'm still VERY uncomfortable leaving anything of value at home while I'm gone (as with any alarm, the intruders will still have five or ten minutes before the police arrive... plenty of time to swipe some cool stuff). So I just couldn't see myself getting a full-up desktop PC at this time. As such, I picked up a very nice Averatec laptop instead. Not only will this unit replace my desktop PC chasis, LCD flat panel monitor, wireless keyboard, and wireless optical mouse that were all stolen, but with its ability to act as a standalone DVD player (without having to boot the OS), it will also replace my portable DVD player that was swiped as well.
Thus far I have spent several hours with this puppy and I am quite pleased. I have already leveled it (reinstalled the operating system -- it came with the non-upgradable MS Windows XP Home and I have a license from my desktop for XP Pro) and built it up the way I want it to be. Some things will take getting used to, but it shouldn't be too bearish. Now I have to do all those things mentioned above and more, but that could take a week or more. But the beautiful thing is that when I am done computing, I can put the 1" thick device in my bag and take it with me. This thing isn't leaving my side (for awhile anyway), and so I'm not having to continuously wonder if it will be there when I get home.
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