On poor impulse I bought an ACER 5520 something or other and have regretted it almost from the moment I swiped the credit card.  Why didn't I take it right back to the shop where I bought it?  I was out of town, and I was traveling, and I was frustrated, and I was on deadline and...time flies.

We're still in the midst of trying to work it out...I need an affordable computer and the folks I bought the ACER from are working hard to please me, which I truly appreciate.  Looking at a Toshiba.  Had a Dell and loved it for a few years and then...long disappointing story about my experience with the last two techs before I threw the laptop off the fourth floor balcony...I mean, I imagined throwing it off the balcony and seeing it shatter into a million bits of plastic and metal when it hit the pavement below. 

My point here is a firm grasp of the obvious morality tale:  DO YOU HOMEWORK BEFORE YOU BUY.  BEFORE you buy.  I winged it.  But in my defense, I had a Gateway tower years ago that I loved for a long time so I decided to get a laptop---the week ACER bought them out so I bought the ACER.  BIG HUGE ERROR in judgement.

According to my salesman/tech yesterday, the ACER is one of the best computers out there yaddy yadda...and the true problem is that I can outtype it.  Do what now?  I can outtype the keyboard processor and that is my fault, not an indictment against the ACER.  Right.  So far I haven't outtyped this backup Toshiba that my dad has had for years and years with 512 ram memory and the ACER I had had 2GB ram!  supposedly twice as fast...    okay geek, if that's not related, I apologize.

But my point is, there are plenty of us writers out there who type really fast and can barely keep up with the story that ribbons out of our minds...so ANY laptop out there should be able to keep up and if it doesn't, it's crap. 

I also didn't like the Dolby sound system...even with all the options and ways of listening to music (like underwater or through a pipe...please), none of it sounded pleasant enough...unless i put in my earbuds, then it was okay---and okay through itunes, not the youtubes... 

At least I am now better educated.  About $800 better.  The keyboard matters, cheap shortcuts on anything will affect performance.  That's true of equipment.  It's true of human effort.  I took the shortcut---didn't want to do the homework beyond assumptions based on past experiences...and one voice commendation.  Sometimes that's enough.  Sometimes it's not.  I wish I had typed that thing into the ground before leaving town without the "oh, it will shake out" because all computers are essentially alike misconception.

Do a lot of writing?  Don't get an ACER.  Look it up---ACER has a history of really bad issues with freezing mouse, freezing keyboard, and then my issue, typing along, keyboard freezes a split second, and i lose up to eight characters.  doesn't sound like a big deal but if you're being interrupted every two or three minutes while you're trying to work, it is a problem, and then the time it takes to correct the problem, and the frustration that mounts from being interrupted and spending the time and energy to fix it EVERY THREE OR FOUR MINUTES, is a whole lot of disintegrating negative energy and ... I can't take it anymore.

Now I'm paranoid about trying Toshiba.  Sigh.