The Convertible

There's a new addition to the Lebens family of laptops. Don't worry - the Pillowtop is still by my side. I love my Pillowtop so much. My thickest laptop has stuck with me through thick and thin. I still enjoy Windows 98 Service Pack 2, so much that I fired up the Pillowtop to write my blog this week.I feel happy every time the familiar Windows 98 desktop appears on the Pillowtop's small screen. Then there's Pillowtop, Jr., the slightly thinner Toshiba Satellite I bought from a recycling company last year. I was fearful that good old Pillowtop might not wake up one morning, since I think ten years in a computer's life are probably equal to a hundred in a person's. So Pillowtop, Jr. arrived as a kind of back-up to my favorite Pillowtop, a middle-aged companion to my elderly laptop.

Last weekend, while everyone else in the metro area was eating foods on a stick at the Fair, I was attending orientation for my Systems Analysis and Design certificate program at Metro State. It was a lovely day outside. The conference room where the orientation was held featured floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the wondrous skyline of downtown St. Paul. I could see people bicycling along the Missippi River path as I was stuck inside, trying to keep my attention on the library sciences staff member who was showing us on-line databases.

After the staff presentations, we broke up into small groups to discuss our respective certificate or degree programs. The head of the MIS program was very friendly and helpful in answering questions. It was almost time to leave, and suddenly a thought popped into my mind. "Are there any system requirements for the computer we use for classes?" I asked the last question of the morning, and the answer launched a frenzied afternoon.

Of course, even Pillowtop, Jr. is woefully inadequate in meeting the basic requirements for the class work that lies ahead of me. Poor little Pillowtops. They will never see the beautiful campus of Metropolitan State University. Realizing that I needed to find a new laptop by my first class session, I drove straight to General Nanosystems on University Ave. They offer a premier shopping experience. On the walls are giant white boards, listing the prices for CPUs, hard drives, server cases, and all kinds of goodies. You just walk right up to the counter and order whatever you want. Unfortunately, even with General Nanosystems' discounts, the price of the laptop I needed made me blanche. I staggered out of the store, unable to come to terms with the cost of actual laptops as opposed to Pillowtops. I just spent $80 on a perfectly good Pillowtop last year.

I fired up the Echo and headed to Micro Center in St. Louis Park to see if their rebates would save me a bit. Micro Center is really a dangerous place to visit for IT professionals. An IT professional in Micro Center, is well, like a kid in a candy store. At every turn, there are nooks filled with electronic goodies. There's an entire cave filled with laptops at the back of the store, a dimly lit alcove that showcases the clear, bright screens of dozens of portable computers. I wandered around the cave, poking at keyboards. Most of the laptops were kind of big. Or maybe I'm just flattering myself by thinking I have a small lap. Anyway, most of them were wider (although thinner) than Pillowtop.

I was having trouble deciding - Lenova, Acer, Toshiba, none of them seemed to really stand out. They all had the lame touch pad in front of the keys. I always disable that because I'm not coordinated enough to use it. I end up dragging the mouse around randomly with my wrists and accidentally clicking send on half-finished emails. It's embarrassing. Both of my Pillowtops have a nifty little pointer in the center of the keyboard that makes it much more difficult to move the mouse, and it's well away from my flailing wrists.

My salesperson abandoned me after an hour in the laptop cave. I ended up chatting with the Fujitsu rep, as I tried to come to grips with actually buying a laptop. Everyone else was marching in, plunking down the plastic, and marching away with a new laptop tucked under their arm. Cripes, people were even buying brand-new laptops for their kids. The Fujitsu rep was showing me the superior strong hinges on one of his products when a tiny, funny looking little computer on the highest shelf in the furthest corner drew my eye. At first it didn't register to me that it was a computer, it had a really strange looking keyboard. I had to pick it up. Before I knew it, I couldn't put it down. This odd little Fujitsu model,called the Lifebook, has a screen that you can write on with a stylus and a voice recognition program that takes dictation. You never need to type. Probably the only thing I don't like abut the the Pillowtop is the typing. I type all day at work. It seems like a chore to do it at home. The Lifebook has the power to eradicate that chore. Plus, it has a pointer in the center of the keyboard. My fear of spending money evaporated. I told et the Fujitsu rep I was ready to buy.

Unfortunately for them, Micro Center didn't have any Lifebooks in stock and weren't planning to order anymore. At this point, I'd been hanging around their laptop ave for two hours. I'm sure they were ready to get rid of me. They offered me the demo model for 10% off, but since someone had written on the screen with a ballpoint pen, I declined their offer. The Fujitsu rep generously gave me some pens to take home.

As I walked to the Echo, blinking in the warm sun, half-blind after spending two hours in the dark peering at computer screens, disappointment washed over me. I really liked my new, free Fujitsu pens, but I was hoping to bring home another Fujitsu product as well. Luckily, Fujitsu's on-line store carries refurbished Lifebooks. They're half the price of the new ones! My Lifebook arrived this week. I pulled Pillowtop out of its laptop pack and nestled the Lifebook inside. The first time my hubby saw me flip the screen of the Lifebook over to turn it from a PC into a tablet, he said "It's a convertible!" So my new computer already has its own nickname, the Convertible. Welcome to the family, Convertible. I hope our days together are filled with a long battery life and a fast Internet connection.