Ordered my first Dell!

I've ordered my first Dell ... a notebook.

My old notebook, while not dead, is definitely dying. Well, maybe eroding is a better word for what's happening to it. I've noticed a crack in the chassis just beneath the keyboard, I found a screw on the floor the other day when I put it down, and when I went to put it back, noticed that several had gone walkabout. Oh, and the battery life has dropped dramatically over the past few weeks, and the optical drive is dead.

I can't complain really, that old notebook has had three really tough years. It's never had XP reinstalled on it since the day I got it and it's more than paid for itself and it's time for it to be retired.

I've lived for three years with a 17-inch notebook, but I'm not going for a 17-inch model again because I've decided that portability and time away from a mains outlet is more important than screen size ... to a point. I did toy with the idea of replacing my notebook with a netbook, and while I love some of the designs out there, and think that the Intel Atom processor is an amazing piece of silicon, I find that the keyboards are too small (it doesn't help that I'm quite broad at the shoulders, have quite small hands and short fingers ...). I decided I needed something a little bigger, with a screen capable of higher screen resolutions, preferably running Vista 64-bit ... oh, and with a backlit keyboard. 

I usually buy an off-the-shelf notebook but I couldn't find anything that suited my needs so I took a look at Dell's website. There I found the Studio XPS 13.

My notebook is currently at the "in production" stage ... I'll let you know how things go.