In late November, I booted up my laptop and noticed that my keyboard stopped functioning.  After further diagnostics, I realized that my motherboard partially died, so I managed to back up all of my data and began my search for a new laptop.  My old laptop was pretty much top of the line at the time I bought it.  Spec wise, it had one of the first Core Duo processors, 2gb ram, a nice video card, 15.4″ screen, and all the bells and whistles to go with it.  I upgraded to a 7,200 RPM hard drive because I’m the most impatient person when it comes to speed of computers.  When I was looking for my new laptop, the one criteria I was looking for was a 17″ screen to have the number keys on the side of the keyboard for when I do the company accounting.

I shot over to CompUSA, where I know (soon to be knew since they are going out of business) the General Manager from working there throughout college, and looked at the computers.  I had a few brands in mind of laptops I wanted, and the only two at CompUSA I was interested in was Toshiba and Sony.  The selection there wasn’t great for 17″ laptops so I went home and looked over my other options.  Ideally, I wanted to keep my budget around $1500, but after reading up on some new technology and weighing the pros and cons of certain features, I quickly surpassed that budget.  I ended up ordering an Asus G2 Gaming laptop which at the time had about as much power as you could get.  It runs the T7700 Core 2 Duo processor, 2gb of ram, 1gb turbo memory, 256mb 8600M GT video card, 200gb 7,200 RPM hard drive, and best of all the nicest 17.1″ 1920 x 1200 resolution display I’ve ever encountered.  The image quality is second to none from what I’ve seen and I worked at CompUSA on and off for almost 6 years.

I turn into a little kid on Christmas morning when I order a new computer.  One of the main reasons is because when a computer is brand new, it doesn’t have much crap installed and it runs its best.  A new hard drive also gives me the opportunity to reorganize all of my files and optimize the computer as best I can.  This is the first machine I used with the Vista operating system and it runs it flawlessly.  Vista gives this laptop a Vista Experience rating of 4.8 out of 5, which is pretty impressive for a laptop.  I’ve yet to encounter any problems and best of all Asus comes with a 2 year warranty that includes accidental damage!

The huge screen resolution gives me the ability to have multiple windows open simultaneously, which is awesome for doing accounting.  I will split the screen with Quickbooks and online statements from the bank, credit cards, etc.  The funny thing is, I was so excited with the features I got from this laptop, I didn’t notice that it didn’t even have the number keys on the side like I was hoping for!  Needless to say I quickly put that behind me, and if I really was doing a ton of number stuff I can plug in my USB number pad.

Since getting the new machine I can tell that my productivity has increased a LOT, primarily due to the better organization on this computer and the huge screen.  I don’t regret for one second spending over $600 my original budget.  I spend about 10 hours a day on my laptop and the increased functionality and productivity I got with this new laptop has already paid for itself.  If you are in the market for a new laptop, I’d HIGHLY suggest looking into an ASUS, which can be found at a great price from NewEgg.com.