FINALLY A New Computer Is On Porwest's Desk
By Jim Bauer
@porwest (78761)
United States
April 10, 2021 4:35pm CST
I am far from broke. Why in the world do I torture myself so?
A while back my charging port went kaput on my old computer. I opted to buy an external battery charger and a couple of extra batteries. It worked well enough.
Then, the keyboard went kaput. But I had a very old keyboard from an old Compaq computer I had once, and I plugged that into the USB port and it worked fine.
It worked well enough.
But this morning one the batteries which said it was fully charged had no charge at all, and I found myself dead in the water for hours. It was agonizing.
That's it, I said. Time to pull the trigger and just get a new computer. My old one is about 12 years old anyway, and it is just time.
There was one at Walmart I was looking at for a while. $399, and would suffice. Finally decided I will just go and get it. Nope. Not in stock. Off to Office Max i went. Nothing in stock.
I finally found a Dell for about $600 that pretty much does what I want and meets my needs at Best Buy.
I bought it. I have it now. It is still in the box, but I will set it up tomorrow morning. Once I do get it set up and get used to it, I know I am going to be asking myself a very serious question...
Why in the hell did I wait so long?
Once I get it all set up I will take a picture of it and share it. I am happy with what I did, finally.
I guess I look at it this way sometimes. Even though I HAVE the money, the fact that I make things last as long as I possibly can is part of the reason I DO have the money.
So, maybe that is the silver lining.
I just hope that I like the computer once I get used to it. Change is often a difficult thing for me. You get used to what you know and when something is different, I don't like the "foreign" nature of it.
It is what it is. But I should be 100% back in business very soon and I think I am going to definitely like that.
18 people like this
15 responses
@LindaOHio (155957)
• United States
11 Apr 21
Why the hell did you wait so long? lol Computers are one thing that I pull the trigger on when they start getting old. I get too frustrated with screens freezing up and slow response.
2 people like this
@LindaOHio (155957)
• United States
11 Apr 21
@porwest The computer is something that I have very little patience with. Right now I am putting up with waiting as long as 1/2 hour for pages to load and for the internet to be running smoothly. I think it might be because my caches are full. What do you think?
1 person likes this
@porwest (78761)
• United States
11 Apr 21
@LindaOHio I think you are right. It is probably those caches. That would drive me insane.
1 person likes this
@porwest (78761)
• United States
11 Apr 21
@marguicha That's just it for me. My plug stopped working. Not sure if it is the plug itself or the connection on the computer. So, I had to buy an external charger and a couple extra batteries since it takes a couple hours to fully charge them and they only last a couple hours on a full charge. It gets very annoying, particularly on a weekend when I am on the computer more and have to keep changing the batteries out.
1 person likes this
@marguicha (215346)
• Chile
11 Apr 21
@porwest I just use an extension cord and plug it to the wall. No problem.
1 person likes this
@MarshaMusselman (38652)
• Midland, Michigan
11 Apr 21
That's exciting that you bought a new toy that is useful and shouldn't need anything replaced for a long time.
2 people like this
@MarshaMusselman (38652)
• Midland, Michigan
12 Apr 21
@porwest we keep it's as long as we can too but I'm not sure they've lasted that long. My current one is one a few years old and already the cd drive quit working and it doesn't recognize one of my expansion drives in ausb slot. For that I think I can figure it out but not the cd drive.
1 person likes this
@porwest (78761)
• United States
13 Apr 21
@MarshaMusselman I just wish the price would come down a bit more. Computers are still rather expensive.
1 person likes this
@porwest (78761)
• United States
11 Apr 21
Yeah, even for me, I still use a couple of my old computers, for different purposes. I will still use my old laptop I just replaced, but less and less. I do need to transfer a lot of my files, and that is going to take some time. But I will get it done.
1 person likes this
@m_audrey6788 (58485)
• Germany
11 Apr 21
I understand what you mean. I`m also the same. I will surely not buy a new one not until it stopped working. It`s ok. I think. We need to make use of it to the best of its capacity until the end. 
1 person likes this
@porwest (78761)
• United States
14 Apr 21
@m_audrey6788 I think so too, and now almost 4 days into the new one I am VERY happy I did it.
1 person likes this
@kaylachan (57599)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
10 Apr 21
I am the same way. I grew up learning to make things last as long as humanily possible. I've never been a fan of change, either. And, I had to get used to a computer that doesn't have a touch screen. And, while I'm slower and putting more wear and tear on the tab and arrow keys, I'm happy with the result and am fast enough to do what I need to do.
2 people like this
@kaylachan (57599)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
18 Apr 22
@porwest Yes. I agree. I was raised to make things last and save my money. Which is what I strive to do.
1 person likes this
@porwest (78761)
• United States
19 Apr 22
@kaylachan Me too. It is a wise way to live for a lot of reasons. I do not want to participate in the throw away society we live in today.
@RebeccasFarm (86732)
• United States
10 Apr 21
Yeah good but that is why you have money..you dont waste it too. That is another reason that you have it.
Glad you got this anyway.
I dont need a lot..just a small Chromebook does me fine always under $150 around every 6 yrs.
2 people like this
@NateB11 (816)
• United States
11 Apr 21
@porwest Back when I got mine I was writing online all the time, was attempting to make a living that way, which didn't happen; but anyway it was a struggle because my computer was so old. So I figured out how to get one. These days though seems a good computer is almost necessary either way considering how much is done online.
1 person likes this
@porwest (78761)
• United States
11 Apr 21
@NateB11 For me that is really it. I do almost everything online. Banking, investing, paying bills, communicating, writing, making money other ways. It seems like the $600 I paid for the new one will more than pay for itself in the long term. Maybe even in the short term.
1 person likes this
@porwest (78761)
• United States
11 Apr 21
That was the thing for me. Money was not an issue. I just figured if I could make the old one work and work around the irritations, I'd be saving money and I'd be happy with that. But a computer for me is a pretty important thing, and so I probably should have bitten the bullet much sooner.
1 person likes this
@RasmaSandra (73368)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
11 Apr 21
Enjoy your new laptop, I also have a keyboard attached to it I could never learn ot work on the laptop keyboard so got one I could plug in, I also have a separate mouse,
2 people like this
@lovebuglena (43065)
• Staten Island, New York
12 Apr 21
So you caved in and spend twice as much as the one that was out of stock. But hey, $600 ain’t a bad price either. Mine cost me over a grand. It’s a Lenovo one that converts into a tablet when I flip the screen. That’s great, except it doesn’t work well in tablet mode. Slow and can freeze up. I just use it as a laptop, though sometimes I do things by touching the screen.
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (43065)
• Staten Island, New York
16 Apr 21
@porwest I do that sometimes. Wait too long to pull the trigger on a purchase and then when I finally decide to get it it is more expensive.
1 person likes this
@porwest (78761)
• United States
17 Apr 21
@lovebuglena I try to avoid that at all costs, but sometimes it does still happen. I hate when it does.
1 person likes this
@Nakitakona (56302)
• Philippines
11 Apr 21
At last you got a new one. You're now back in business. Good luck.
2 people like this
@FourWalls (62096)
• United States
11 Apr 21
That’s amazing that the old one lasted that long. They’re usually not made to last more than one OS update. (Remember when you had to replace everything when you upgraded to Windows 95, 98, ME, XP, 7, etc. because the “drivers” didn’t work anymore?)
1 person likes this
