I love love love my Dell XPS 13 laptop. It's been quite a nice workhorse.
I bought it at Best Buy several years ago, and over time I've learned a few things
about it that soured me a bit on the experience — primarily, that I couldn't
expand the RAM beyond the 8GB it came with. But with the Intel Core i7 processor,
it's still been a very capable machine — capable enough that I would absolutely
order another through DELL (with a custom configuration, of course).
That is, I would have purchased another through DELL, if it wasn't for
the ThinkPad I was issued by an employer a couple of years ago.
I was really taken by a few things about the ThinkPad. One, it was amazingly thin. Two,
the keys had a nice feel — and that's super important to me. Years ago I had a Toshiba
laptop that I regretted buying about a week in because the keys wouldn't give good
feedback to my fingers. I had to constantly retype things because it felt like I wasn't
striking keys — I was just pounding on a flat surface with my fingers. But the ThinkPad
T470s felt good. Three, the ThinkPad had a docking station that allowed me to run multiple
monitors from it, and to secure the machine to it. All-in-all, I really enjoyed my experience
with that machine. PLUS it was a 14" laptop. A little larger than my personal DELL, but it
didn't feel big.
So, for funsies, I started surfing yesterday for Black Friday deals. Not as a serious
shopper — just as a curious consumer. I started at Dell, and didn't find anything exciting
there. Then I hopped over to Lenovo... where they were selling the T490 — a $1900 machine --
for $749?! What the what?!!
Things got more serious. I reached out to their sales support people to address a single
concern: is the RAM expandable beyond the 8GB it ships with? Answer: Yes - the board can
handle up to 48GB!!
I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on it yesterday. I let it sit in the cart
while I was wracked with indecision. Laurel and I have been working very hard on getting
debt paid down. To me, this represented a significant detour from our plan, despite my
current machine's occasional "senior moments." So, with that, I let it go.
Fast-forward to morning coffee today. Laurel mentioned we now have a little money coming
in we weren't expecting — compensation from an auto accent at the start of the year. So
she gave me the go-ahead to buy the laptop if I still could.
With a mixture of excitement and guilt, I powered up my Dell and pointed the browser
back to the Lenovo site. I was amazed to find they'd extended their sale — and that the
T490 was still in my cart at the discounted price!
The new machine should be here this coming week (SQUEEE!!).