My home office setup is great. I have the work laptop docked to a full office desk setup, with a full-sized keyboard, mouse with wrist-rest pad, and dual monitors. That's why I do all my posting with it; especially cutting/pasting the countdowns. But as much as I like it, I realize that it
IS a work computer. And getting ready to retire means that I shouldn't rely on it. Plus, now that I'm a board member of the wind ensemble, I have to be able to work on shared spreadsheets and stuff like that. The work computer is prohibited from accessing Google Docs or any sharing links. And any time I open a spreadsheet, I have to have labeling applied to it.
We have a home laptop, but Mrs. Scotch uses that pretty much everyday. It's signed-in with her accounts and all. So I spent some time looking at mid-range laptops from HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Asus, primarily. I narrowed it down to 4 or 5 discounted choices from the BestBuy website, so that I could go there and see them in person. And what I learned was more about the state of the marketplace, rather than the products themselves.
Of the laptops I was looking to see, only the Lenovo was shown as being available in the configuration I wanted, and at the advertised sale price. None of the others were physically there. They had all the basic models, but none had the same config or price from the website. For example, here's an ad for the one I actually bought, a day later:
I got it for $799, directly from the store. It was $300 off the regular price. So what happens is these 3rd parties buy them on sale, and then resell them for a slight profit. That's why it now says "sold and shipped by Velztorm". Every laptop I wanted to look at was not in the store, but sold by a 3rd party. But I got this Lenovo at BestBuy before they ran out. The whole point of getting a laptop from the store is to physically get it from the store. I don't want a laptop shipped, and then have problems with it. But that's the way they're rolling these days.