The long wait is over… my new baby has finally arrived! Except that it’s not a human being… it’s my new lappie!

After more than a year of collecting countless pricelists and product flyers from various computer shops, I finally fulfilled my long-time wish of having my own notebook computer. Woohoo!

I’ve been using a desktop computer for the longest time, and honestly, I can still live with it. I’m home-based so using a desktop shouldn’t be a problem. Owning a laptop started to become an obsession only last year when I got so hooked on blogging. Since my desktop computer was situated in our guest room, I was eternally torn between watching over my son in his playroom and updating my blogs or doing other computer-related activities in the other room. It came to a point when I had to give up blogging because my son was pleading with me “not to work anymore” so I could spend all my free time with him. The mobility of using a laptop was indeed very enticing, but I didn’t have the resources to purchase one. Being a mom was of utmost priority, so I gave up blogging and social networking for a while.

But God is really good… He makes things happen. Someone got interested in renting our former house, so that means additional income for our family. I was still hesitant to use the extra funds for my gadget “luhos” but considering the support I got from my family (my parents included), I eventually took the plunge. To appease my “guilty“ feelings of spending so much on a gadget in these times of global economic crisis, I decided to sell my desktop unit and some other unused stuff in our home, so I could use the funds to partly cover the cost of the laptop.

For about a month, I languished over what brand and model of laptop to buy. Cost was a major consideration, but I also didn’t want to scrimp on the features considering I’ll be giving up my desktop computer. I wanted something that could function just as well as my old computer did. I was really tempted to try out those cute UMPCs like the MSI wind, but I didn’t want to strain my eyes even more given the reduced size of the display. Plus UMPCs aren’t ideal for the multimedia activities (photo and video editing) that I intend to do.

After some careful thought, I decided on getting an ASUS X80N notebook. It took several days to install all drivers since I decided to use Windows XP for my operating system. The package came with Vista-compatible drivers but I read from a forum that XP works better with this model, so I patiently waited for the computer shop to provide me with the complete set of WinXP-compatible drivers for my notebook.

I’ve been playing with my new baby for about 2 weeks now, making sure that everything is functioning well. I can definitely say I’m happy with it! Now I can look after my kid and work for a few hours on the computer at the same time. Just what I wanted!

Now, if only I could afford to get a good broadband connection. But that’s another story…