pelf-ism is contagious

Yes, I am NOT kidding you *winks* Can you believe it?!

Yesterday when I was in the office, I received a call from Annie. She asked me to get a new laptop because mine is already half a decade old.

I was reluctant to get a new laptop because, why.. My loyal Acer is still functioning! I can still use it to do my (much-dreaded) paperwork, to tabulate my raw experiment data as well as to run basic statistical tests, I can still use it to design a very pretty poster, to chat with my sister, the list is endless..

Moreover, I am really not that kind of person who buys a new product unless the current one breaks down. Like I was telling J the other day that I would not get myself a new car, even after I have started working. Instead, I would use my car until it dies on me one fine day and I would have to leave it by the roadside. “But by then, the old car will have NO value whatsoever anymore! Why don’t you sell it and get a new car when the old car has still got some value?” he would argue. Makes perfect sense to me though *smiles*

I digress.

Anyway, I was telling Annie the same thing. But she insisted that she would like to learn to use the computer and that the dinosaur at home takes way toooo long to startup. Plus there are a lot of stuff in that dinosaur and that she was always afraid she would accidentally erase any of our “data” in it. She wanted to learn to surf the Internet, to play mp3s and to chat with Mei Mei and I.

The dinosaur, by the way, refers to the 10-year-old PC we have at home. I remember receiving it from my paternal grandmother when I scored straight As in my PMR. It was our first computer, and we had a lot of sophisticated software installed in it. It is still useable today, but the speed of the processor (or what-nots) has been slashed down to one-fifth of the original. It takes quite some time to start up but takes only a jiffy to shut down (lazy PC). Sometimes the PC hangs whenever we open one too many applications at the same time.

Mei Mei has this tendency to name the old, big bulky stuff we have at home. The dinosaur is one. Our Canon Prima Super 130 is another one. The Canon film camera was the newest one we bought before we went to Hong Kong in 2005. It cost about RM 600+, if I am not mistaken, one of the best we could afford back then. But now that we both have our own digital cameras, she calls the Canon camera “an elephant” *smacks forehead*

I digress again.

So Annie was offering me RM 1,000 for my old Acer. And Mei Mei, who happened to be at the background said that it was too much. According to Smart Alec Sister, RM 800 should be sufficient.. ARGH…!

I was browsing through Dell’s website, and came across Inspiron 6400 and Inspiron 640m which I thought was OK, price-wise la. Now, my budget is about RM 3,500 but the cheaper (AND powerful), the better
So I need some advice and suggestions from you guys. One, what laptop brand/model would YOU recommend? Two, who wants to adopt my sister? Kekkkeke *winks*

By the way, Annie = Mum *grins*