> After soliciting input from friends, perusing reviews online and doing comparison shopping at stores, and weighing the data from all of the above, I am now the proud owner of a Toshiba A305-S6898 Satellite notebook computer, to replace my dead Dell.
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> I purchased it at Best Buy for just under $800 and am paying it off in $20-a-month installments, but since I'm paid every two weeks instead of twice a month, I'll have a third paycheck coming to me in May, which I'll be able to use to pay off the remainder of the balance on the laptop, and in the meantime, I can certainly float $20 a month.
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> It boasts a 320GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, a 15.4" hi-res widescreen, a built-in webcam and FM tuner, wireless-capable Internet surfing (which doesn't matter at home, since my house is thoroughly insulated from wireless signals, but which might allow me to surf the Internet wirelessly when I visit the folks), awesome speakers, and connection ports for just about every type of card, stick, cable or line I might need (including ones to plug regular and HD TVs into the computer, so that my folks can watch my downloaded shows on their bigscreen TV).
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> The CD/DVD player/burner my dad had to pay extra for on my Dell comes standard on pretty much all laptops by now, but Toshiba's cooling system is so vigorous as to be describable as proactive, with all of its cooling vents made unblocked by design, and its cooling system activating well before it ever gets warm (Toshiba was apparently sued over this years ago, and several product reviewers attributed their current measures to overcompensation).
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> It's got a jazzy, glossy, shades-of-gray metallic wave print finish, and both the casing and the keyboard keys are sturdy and hands-friendly. The backside of the screen is extremely reinforced (as one reviewer noted, pressure on the backside of the screen won't cause any distortion of the image on the screen itself).
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> In short, it's a pretty sweet ride.
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> One of our computer guys at the office has promised to transfer my files from the dead Dell to the new machine within the week for free, so I don't even have to worry about that (as I told him, "There are a lot of naked women on my old hard drive that I'm not ready to let go of just yet." He laughed, and told me that he shares my pain and understand my needs).
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> So, with my first payment set for next month, I'm good to go.
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