Classic Rant #48: (July 21, 2009): I Need a New Computer

Well, actually I don't, but my son does, so I am going to have to buy it for him, thus the title of this post.

My son's laptop finally died about two weeks ago. I think it was on life support for about the last couple of months. I have been told by two repair shops that the motherboard is gone, and that to repair this thing would cost me more than $600. It is simply not worth it. I can buy another computer for that amount.

I have done some shopping around, and I am not that happy with what I have seen.

The heralded netbooks--mini laptops that are very portable--are quite frankly, a waste of money. They get you on the Internet, and you can do word processing with them, but you can't burn any disks without an attachment. And they are beginning to cost around the same amount of money as a traditional laptop--which comes with the burning feature--so why would I buy a netbook?

So I will get my son another laptop, but the good ones are pretty expensive, in the $700 and up range. I can get him a cheaper one, in the $400-$600 range, but will it last more than the three or four years his previous computer lasted?

I hate looking for computers because even though I do the research, I don't consider myself a computer expert. I originally thought the netbooks were a good idea, because I thought that they could do what their larger cousins can do. But they can't--at least, not without attachments--and since their cost is getting up there, what is the sense of buying one of these things?

My son will get a laptop, but I don't know how much I will spend yet. At nearly 14 years of age, he really needs a computer, a good one, not a piece of junk.

But again, don't believe what you read about netbooks. They are pieces of junk in my opinion. They are good as second or third computers, but nothing more.

Ah, I harken back to the days when the only electronics parents had to worry about were radios and black and white TVs. I often wish we were back in those days, because it just seemed that things were slower--and cheaper--way back when ...