First New Computer in Twenty Years

[kevin_standlee]

I haven't bought a truly new computer for roughly twenty years. For most of that time, I've taken advantage of my employer surplusing my work machines when replacing them and letting me have them, usually wiped, although in a couple of cases they put a "clean" OS on them. This string of living on hand-me-downs has come to an end.



This is a Dell G7 15, a "gaming laptop" and not a low-end one as far as I can tell. Lisa bought it for me as an early Christmas present, but it's for her as well. I don't do gaming to speak of, but the extra power, memory, and video card are part of this package so that I can do the video editing that has become increasingly difficult as software outstrips the abilities of surplus laptops from 10-15 years ago, running Windows 7 and XP (the latter of which I don't ever put on line anymore, but that I keep because it has legacy software that I use and because it will connect to my (also Menlo surplus) HP laser printer on which I print Match Game SF question cards. Yes, I've got a lot of old computer equipment.

I spent a large chunk of today starting to get this new computer running. I'm disappointed to see that docking stations are apparently not a thing anymore, as being able to use my laptop as a workstation but then undock it for when I go on the road was ideal. Instead, I have a USB 3 mini-dock that is supposed to be able to push everything (two monitors, ethernet, two USB 3 ports) through a single USB 3 port. I haven't finished putting that together yet and I'm writing this post on the old computer that's sitting on its dock. I'll need to pretty much completely disassemble the desk in order to take things apart and reassemble them with the new computer.

We're still not done, either, as the old computer could directly read the P2 cards that come out of the pro-grade Panasonic camera, but this new one certainly doesn't have a PC card slot as that's way too old-fashioned apparently. There are devices that will connect P2 cards to USB 3 ports (important due to the size of the files), but they're pricey. We'll see how things go the next time we're in a place where Lisa has actually filmed a WSFS Business Meeting and I have to quickly edit it into something practical to upload to YouTube.

Comments

[delosharriman]

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a docking station for my Lenovo Thinkpad x220 (top of the line, bought secondhand a couple of years ago for about $100). It seems to be brand new, but I would bet that it had been sitting in a warehouse (or being shuffled from one warehouse to another) for a number of years. Regardless, it's convenient to have. A good use of $25.