Life Between 0 and 1

This is it, my new laptop that will be in my hands sometime this weekend.  An HP Spectre x360 2-in-1 (Model 13-4103dx) if you’re interested in seeing the specs.  It’s taken me over a month to narrow it down to this point and thankfully its not going to cost me and arm and a leg.  I like both my arms and legs, thank you.  My original pursuit was to get the Microsoft Surface Book, but unfortunately, the price they are commanding me to pay is just too damn high.  I don’t think I could ever bring myself to drop $2k+ on any piece of hardware regardless of how good it is.

My wife didn’t give me much grief on wanting to get a new laptop as she knows that I’m not too happy with the one I’ve got currently.  It’s a great machine and has served me well, but there is just something missing that no matter what I do can’t be upgraded.  It’s a feeling that its just slightly less than what I need, slightly less than the ideal system I require to do what I need to do, just slightly less in general.  It was a budget buy to replace an ailing system I had a few years ago…..

With all my research that consisted of Lenovo, Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, LG and of course HP (pictured up there), I kept coming back to the HP.  Every other machine I looked at I found very quickly was being measured to the specs of the HP.  My list of requirements was lengthy of course, because I know what I really want:

• 13.3″ 1980 x 1200 FHD display (don’t need anything higher)
• Core i7 with 8GB memory
• At least a 256GB SSD, 512GB SSD ideal
• Windows 10
• Minimum 2 x USB 3.0 ports
• 8+ hour battery life on single charge
• Reviewed well on various sites (CNET, PCWorld, LaptopGeek, etc.)

This laptop fit all those requirements and filled a few requirements I didn’t find to be a priority but are nice to have anyway.  After having gone through the hell I went through with my father-in-law and his desktop, I determined I would never ever own another desktop machine.  Laptop was the way to go.  Desktop power in a mobile format.  The other brands met some of these requirements, but not usually all of them.  Lenovo is big on battery life and huge format displays.  Asus is big on build quality.  Acer and Toshiba are big on reliability but generally are rather boring (form follows function here).  Dell is big into performance, especially with the XPS and Alienware lines, but pricing is on the higher side.  LG is too new to the field to make a decent enough judgement.  They’re only literally in their 2nd generation after never having made laptops before.

The HP is what I kept coming back to, each time.  I finally decided to just focus on the HP line and find the machine that fit my requirements the best and was a decent enough price, which is exactly what I found.  The reviews being fantastic on this 3rd generation x360 line helped a lot as well.  There it is, my new tech soon to be in my hands.  I’m looking forward to sitting down and typing out my first entry on my new machine.