At work, we were talking about our home computers. I have a Gateway Desktop and a Gateway laptop notebook. One lady at work didn’t even realize they were still in business until I told her I bought one at Best Buy here in Katy and the laptop directly from Gateway’s website online.
When my old Compaq computer died last Sept., I did not plan to buy two computers. I planned to buy one – a laptop … a touch screen notebook. I bought a HP touchscreen from Best Buy – it did not work correctly (but another thing was that I practically had to beat on the screen to use the touchscreen – it hurt my hand and wrist holding the stylus and hitting the screen so hard – I was NOT going to be able to use it to paint with which was the entire reason to get a touchscreen – turns out that was an HP touchscreen feature – there was something else wrong with the notebook so they had to take back or exchange for me) – when I took it back, they did not have any other touchscreen notebooks in the store so since I needed a computer … I started looking at the desktops. I refused to look at any HP product … the poor salesguy kept trying to entice me into buying an HP … nope … the last two computers I had before were both Compaq computers … each lasted a year and then died a complete and irreversible death – even with a warranty, I was determined NOT to buy an HP computer.
The most cost effective and middle of the road bang for my buck was the Gateway desktop that is sitting in my office right now that I use every day … blogging … digital painting … creating graphics … checking my affiliate reports … checking email from merchants and Affiliate Managers … I have my Wacom graphics tablet hooked up to the desktop though I could easily hook it to the laptop as well – it is very portable. My Gateway Desktop is a GT5622. Very nice and I bought a 3 year warranty – it it dies … I pick it up and drop it off to Best Buy and they fix it if I understand correctly instead of me spending a 500 to a grand every year on a new computer like happened with the Compaq Presarios that died.
An artist shopkeeper (on a business email list that I belong to) has a Gateway touchscreen laptop and she recommended it to al of us very highly – she said it works great for her for painting and working on graphics. I kept thinking about the fact that I am gone so much commuting (2 to 2 1/ hrs a day 5 days a week) … I get an hour for lunch … I had to babysit at my daughter’s house several times too on a few week-ends and of course with no laptop … I could not work on my business stuff while the boys were upstairs playing video games because I didn’t have a laptop computer. Those two reasons convinced me to bite the bullet and buy a Gateway touchscreen laptop notebook for digital painting and portability – the only upgrade I did on it was to get more memory since I am using it to paint.
I have Corel Painter loaded on it and have digitally painted at lunchtime many times … sometimes when the weather is nice instead of so cold, I still paint with my watercolor pencils sitting in the car at lunchtime … but usually this entire winter nearly every day, I heat my lunch up and close my office door to paint while eating lunch. I’ve taken it to my daughter’s with me several times now also when I needed to keep an eye on the boys – she is a Realtor and week-ends are a busy time for her to show houses and it is easier if her husband has things to do at the other house for me to go hang out over there and now I can work on my stuff.
It has wireless capability and they have a wireless router so one Saturday while babysitting at her house, I was able to work on my Flying in the Wind affiliate blog site – I did not lose an entire day of my week-end from accomplishing my stuff like I would have if I hadn’t bought the laptop. AND – it does not hurt my hand or wrist to use the stylus – it is easy to use for painting! I also use it for my computer painting workshops.
I’m not sorry that I bought the desktop either though – I type faster on it’s keyboard for blogging and since I have Office 2003 on the desktop (Excel is fabulous for reports in particular), I do not have to load Office on the laptop. Would I recommend everyone have two computers? It depends on what you need and use them for – I could have survived with only a desktop … I would just be even further behind in accomplishing things I want and need to accomplish in my personal business.
I’m still losing 10 to 12 hours a week in travel time … but I’m using 5 hours of lunch time for more than just traditional watercolor painting … on the computer, I can use much bigger canvas sizes than I can sitting in my car in the parking lot – 9″ x 12″ is almost too big a watercolor block size for in the car and my pencil box keeps sliding around the passenger seat. I will be back in the car with the watercolor pencils again when the weather gets warmer this spring … but for me this fall and winter, having the laptop has been a real blessing – I have to take my lunch so I spend less on lunches … I am not out & about in the cold wet damp either so I am not driving to places to eat and back to work so I am conserving gasoline and saving money on not buying as much too.
Posted under Computers / Electronics
This post was written by Barbara Burns on February 7, 2008
