Some people look for features in a laptop.
But really, two processor cores? 1.5Gig of RAM? I don't even need that in my desktop, let alone a laptop.
I recently destroyed my latop. Broken network socket, giant radial crack in the screen from stepping on it, and a dead hard drive.
Yes, hardware doesn't like me, and I certainly don't like it.
So I'm in the market for a new laptop.
My basic demands are:
1. 512 meg of RAM
2. Wireless networking
3. If at all possible, costs less than $1100.
That last one would be the certain clincher. In Australia, $1000 + $100 GST is what they call the immediate depreciation limit.
If you purchase an asset (as a business) below this threshold, you can write off the entire asset immediately. The is incredibly attractive because it means the laptop is entirely tax free (because you treat it like an expense instead of an asset, so you don't pay company tax for those first two years before it depreciates).
It also makes the burden of tracking the accounting for the laptop trivial.
Looking back, 80% of the time my laptop is a glorified iPod anyway (seeing as I have a desktop system, and servers most of the time) and as long as the screen is big enough to be legible, I find I can increasingly find a big monitor or a portable projector to plug into if I need to demo things.
And lets face it, I'll probably destroy it in a few years anyway, so at least now I'm destroying a $1000 laptop, instead of a $3000 laptop like last time :/
