Laptop woes

Once again, writing from my family's slow desktop computer. Although it seems to be working a little better now, thanks to my cousin April.

This week, my package with the new charger for my laptop finally arrived. It was one of the slowest Amazon packages I've ever had--both because it seemed slow and because it actually was slow. (I make good use of Amazon's "spend $35 and get free shipping," buying things I want but wouldn't otherwise buy. This time, the supplementary purchase was the complete series of Get Smart, which was on sale. Don't make fun of me.)

I was disappointed with the new charger, because it was obviously inferior. It was a three-prong plug instead of two-prong, and it was significantly shorter. But that wasn't the real problem. When I went to plug it in, I realized that not only was my original charger broken, the place where I plug it in on the laptop itself was broken as well.

So I made two trips out to Best Buy this week. The first guy said he might be able to look at it and guessed it might be around sixty dollars to fix it. The next day, I decided that was worth it, so I went back; but I talked to a different guy, who seemed more experienced, and he said he thought the replacement part would be more like $120 to $150.

I got this laptop for Christmas in 2012, so I think I'm just going to get a new one. Of all the computers in our house, it was the best one. We have the virus-riddled desktop computer from 2009. We have a tablet-sized pink laptop my dad got used in 2011. And there's a lemon of a laptop from 2013. My 2012 Toshiba Satellite was the best of all of them.

In fact, I think I may very well get another Toshiba, just a newer model. I wanted to see if I could get one that used the same battery so that I could charge the battery on the new computer and thereby get files from my old one. A Google search led me to believe that laptops using that battery are now obsolete. Fortunately, most of my important files are on the cloud--work documents on Dropbox, music on Google Play, pictures on Picasa Web/Google +. Most of what is on my computer is old homework.

Consumer Reports says that Toshibas require some of the least amount of repairing. And they're affordably priced. They may not be perfect, but they suit my purposes just fine. The only problem I had with mine was a year ago, when my touchpad decided not to work for a few months. It was a software problem--when I started the computer, the touchpad would work fine, but after a few seconds it would stop, as if the computer was like, "Oh yeah. I forgot that I decided not to work anymore." I tried everything to fix it. But after a few months, it mysteriously fixed itself. I think that's the only major problem I had with it in a year and a half of college and a year of working. My requirements are that my laptop must have a CD drive (I still buy CDs), and it must have a number pad (it makes it fifty times easier to type foreign letters, although I don't do much foreign typing anymore).

I'm not a Mac person, so that's out of the question. There are some things I like about Macs. I love their Help feature; I think it's much better than Windows in that regard. But I absolutely hate switching between programs. It's like I have a cluttered desk that is impossible to organize in a satisfactory manner. And Macs are more expensive. Why would I pay extra to have a cluttered desktop?

I think most computers now have Windows 8.1, but I've heard that Windows 10 will have a free upgrade for those on older versions. Seriously, nobody likes Windows 8.

I hope to get a new laptop soon. I'm tired of using my phone and slow computers.