As I mentioned a while back, last fall I bought myself a new Dell All-in-One Computer. My first non-laptop style computer in 20 years or so.
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Diner Control Center 2 |
However, because my current Laptop is still working; because it has all the passwords to sites I regularly visit stored in it and because I wasn't real happy with the keyboard that the Dell came with
(key travel too long for my taste mainly), I didn't get round to actually using it all that much and replacing the laptop with it as my main Diner Control Center computer.
In order to resolve this issue, about a month ago I ordered a new Razer Gaming Keyboard to substitute for the keyboard it came with and finally made the switchover, although I keep the laptop active as well on the side.
I chose this Dell for a few reasons. It's
NOT quite "state of the art" as in being jam packed with the fastest processors now available or super gobs of memory, but I need neither one of those bells & whistles. I don't game and I don't do a lot of video processing or photo editing of massive raw files, so I just don't need all that computational power. You sacrifice a little of this, and the unit comes in way cheaper, in this case it cost me $750 instead of the $1200 or even more I could have spent.
I also could have gone for one with an even
BIGGER screen than this one has, which again drives up the cost. However, this one already has about 50% more Screen Real Estate than any of the laptops I have owned for the last 20 years, and other than going legally blind and needing to view pages at large magnification, I can't imagine needing more screen than this. If I really wanna go big screen anyhow, I can plug it into my 45" Flat Screen TV which is never used and sits in my pile of preps. I used that as a monitor when teaching in the Homeschool program we ran at the gym for a couple of years, plugged into my laptop.
I also chose it because it was fairly portable, easily. The Stand that holds it up folds flat against the back, so it's EZ to pack into a Medium Size Suitcase. Just about fits into an airline size carry-on wheely bag. I wouldn't risk it with the baggage handlers though. It also came with both a Wireless Keyboard and Wireless Mouse, and I like both of those because they make your desk less cluttered and especially with the mouse, the wire can get in the way of smooth mousing.
After getting the keyboard situation resolved, I began considering the Mouse issue. Through the Laptop Years, I've been using a Touchpad for the most part, although I have mice I can plug into it. Mostly wired mice, although I do have a couple of wireless ones also, including the wireless mouse that the Dell came with, which is what I have been using.
It's a good basic mouse, optical sensor, right and left buttons and Scroll Wheel. Just by itself, this is a big improvement over working with a touchpad in general, and I am kind of surprised at myself as a tech nerd that I got so lazy and just used the touchpads that the laptops come with rather than plugging in a mouse. However, no Touchpad coming supplied with the Dell, I
HAD to go back to the Mouse, or of course buy an auxiliary touchpad.
Now, I
COULD have just stuck with the Wireless Mouse I got with the Dell in the package, but after sprucing up the unit with the new Razer Gaming Keyboard, I began to think about the Mouse issue. I basically
LIVE at the computer, and the Keyboard and the Mouse are my main Interface devices to communicate what is in my brain onto the World Wide Web. I decided that since this is my main vocation in life now, I should have the
BEST Mouse on the market along with the
BEST Keyboard!

So, off to the Tech Review sites like CNET and Gizmodo to find the
BEST Mouse Money Can Buy!

The overwhelming favorite here was the
Logitech MX Master.Besides the normal left and right buttons and center scroll-wheel, it also has two User-Defined buttons and a Thumbwheel as well to do side scrolling. It's also Bluetooth, which means you don't need a Dongle to operate it with most modern computers that have Bluetooth built in. So I can use it not just with my new Dell, but also with my Galaxy Mega Samrt Phone, at least I think I can. Haven't tried setting that up yet.
This is the total Cat's Pajamas! You can program it to open and close regularly used programs, copy/paste, whatever. Makes everything much more convenient. Price on the Mighty Mouse varies widely, from as high as $200 down to $70. I got it for $70 at Best Buy Price Matching off the Internet.
If you are a heavy internet junky like I am, I highly recommend the Logitech MX Master Mighty Mouse as a valuable accessory worth the price you pay for it. Great flexibility and controls, and really generally more important than spending extra money on computing power you probably will never need except for gaming and video.
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