I’m not going to go into the details, but the Thinkpad I bought didn’t work out. After two botched repair attempts on a failing wifi card, I demanded a refund. So now I have a Dell Inspiron 6400. It took over 6 weeks for Lenovo to get the Thinkpad produced and shipped to me, and I think it took Dell about 10 days.

And with this laptop I have:

• 1.73 GHz processor (better than Thinkpad)
• 2GB RAM (better than Thinkpad)
• 160GB hard drive (better than Thinkpad)
• 1280 x 800 pixel screen (better than Thinkpad)
• 2-yr in-home repair warranty (better than Thinkpad)

And all this for about the same price as the Thinkpad. Now there are some people that I work with who have had horrible experiences with their Dell notebooks, but I’m trying to keep a positive outlook. So far, there was a bit of a rattle when I put the first CD into the DVD-ROM drive… but nothing since. Maybe it was a poorly balanced CD?

There was really one thing that I really liked about the Thinkpad, and that was the design. I liked that it was black, that the “Enter” key was blue. I really liked the little red nub in the middle of the keypad that I could use as a mouse. I got so used to using it that I felt crippled when the new Dell came without one. But you have to be flexible in this line of business, so I’m getting over it.

It’s been a long time coming. Hopefully it will be here in the next couple weeks. I’ve very excited because I have a wireless network at home, and this comes with a wireless card. So I can sit downstairs while my wife is watching television and my son is running around like a 2-year-old lunatic and peck away and whatever geeky escapade I choose.

This may be the best thing that has ever happened to me… I’m moving in to a new era. I have a list in my head of all the software I’m going to need to install on it. It only comes with Windows XP Home Edition, but I have a legit copy of XP Pro. So I may need to rebuild it. Does anyone happen to know if reinstalling a Windows OS on a laptop is the same as reinstalling on a PC?