Laptops

Following on from yesterday's post. The hard disk on my computer made a bunch of strange noises on startup. Last time that happened, it was a precursor to failure. Well, after doing backups in a panic, the noise stopped. Huh?!

Well I did load a bunch of security updates the night before and the noise wasn't so much the screech of heads gouging platter as prolonged excessive seeking. And it wasn't so much panic as hurried caution. And a little reflection that backups should be done *before* applying operating system updates.

But it did remind me that last year I was looking at getting a portable device - a laptop or something similar. That plan got subverted into a media player purchase instead. But now I'm seriously looking to re-visit it. As well as being a travel device, the laptop also becomes a backup for basic computer functions.

All of which is a long winded way of asking for any of your thoughts out there as to the right sort of machine to get. Given the basic condition that it is cheapish and has wireless connectivity and an optical drive. Any bad experiences? Any really good ones?

Why yes, I am using you as an information resource. You got a problem with that then?