A Computer Shouldn’t Have Flair
One BIG downside of leaving StreetWise was that I needed to give back the laptop I’ve been using for the last 2 years. I loved that thing; it was perfectly tuned and configured for how I work. On the other hand though I was forced to buy a new one which means it’s upgrade time. Hooray!!
Stock Car Brasil team NASCAR
I decided to stay with Gateway for the brand and chose the NV52 which is twice as powerful as the last one. Of course it’s also covered in stickers that proclaims my laptop include an
<blockquote>AMD Athlon X2 processor, ATI Radeon video, Windows Vista powered with Dolby Surround Room for sound. Gateway was also nice enough to include an additional sticker that includes the specific stats and configuration.
Left side of computer
Right side of computer
The flair on the computer is one of those decisions that has, near as I can tell, zero redeeming benefit for the user. It appears to be 100%, wholly dedicated, to making a couple extra bucks for Gateway. It’s hard to imagine the argument for how it could possibly benefit the user; if I were to try though I imagine it would be something like this:
No, no, no!! I’m telling you, the user’s going to need to know what video card they have in the computer at all times. No, I don’t think they need to know the model or anything to identify issues; knowing just the brand is all they need.
Ooh, it’d probably be a good idea to include as many stickers as possible too. Let’s be sure to include them for as many different components as possible. Oh yeah, it’s important to keep as little information on them as possible; just the brand logo if possible.
Silliness aside, I’m sure one of the arguments is cost; getting money from the hardware folks to put a sticker on a computer helps keep costs down. Well, fine but I just don’t care about the stickers. It makes the computer look like a freaking stock car and I like a clean computer.
There’s a nice article on how to remove the stickers that was pretty helpful on WikiHow. I went through the process laid out, and while a couple stickers were a little more trouble than others, it was a pretty straightforward process. Of course, now it’s going to be difficult to know what companies sponsored the computer but life goes on.
I guess I’ll just have to memorize that my computer has an AMD Athlon X2 processor with ATI Radeon video, Windows Vista powered with Dolby Surround Room for sound
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Heh. But don’t consumers, when computer shopping, just buy the computer with the most flair? It must be the best, right?
It reminds me of software companies adding features just so they can have more bullet points on their box.
That’s kind of my problem with it Jim; there’s this false sense of quality being implied with the stickers. It’s almost, almost, sleazy.
I hate those stickers on laptops, especially when they start coming off by themselves and are half up half down. You do have to consider though, many computer users won’t know how to get that information from the computer itself. I’ve not seen one with a full sticker like that before.
But then, I’m a Dell girl (or should that be Della? -_- ) They tend to only put 2 stickers on – OS and processor. I’m getting a new laptop this week, I hope there’s only the 2 stickers still! I may perhaps have an extra one for ATI though, it’s the first laptop I’ve bought that actually has a “proper” graphics card.
I don’t think knowing the brand of a component is enough to do much of anything (especially when there’s an issue); the model is WAY more important. If you can find the model the brand is found along the way so if there’s an issue the sticker is superfluous.
Does Dell make it a point of not litttering their computers with stickers? I hadn’t heard that but now that I look back on all the Dell computers I’ve setup I can’t recall a plague of stickers…
A little advice on the new laptop though; make sure you get one that’s running a 64bit OS. This way you’re not locked into 4GB of RAM. I can’t tell you how stoked I am to be able to upgrade my laptop to 24GB of RAM; 4GB just isn’t enough anymore.
I don’t know if Dell makes those but for sure Gateway does and they’re REALLY inexpensive (mine was retailing for $499 with a free upgrade to Windows 7 in October).
I’m not sure they make a point of it, but I’ve certainly never seen many stickers on a Dell before. I can think one other sticker they put on the back or underside, and that’s the computer’s unique ID to give to customer services, which you need to be able to access that way if the computer breaks.
I’ve already paid for my new laptop, waiting on delivery, but thank you for the advice anyway. It is Vista 64-bit though, seems to be what Dell ship with everything now. I’ve never considered having over 4GB RAM, but boy am I jealous hearing you mention 24GB of RAM!
$499 for a laptop? Wow! I think Dell’s cheapest laptop on the UK site is £399 (laptop rather than netbook). Mine was about £560, in a deal down from £710.
That’s one of the best selling points for going with a 64bit CPU; it can recognize more than the maximum of 4GB of RAM that 32bit can. In theory, it’s possible to have a couple hundred GB of RAM with a 64bit OS but it really depends on the motherboard.
Take a look at crucial.com to see the maximum amount of RAM your new laptop is capable of using.
Plus, with 64bit you don’t have to worry about the 2038 issue
Thanks for that link. The max is only 4GB which is what it comes with. I’m not one for upgrading laptops anyway, too scared of all that delicately packed in hardware. Do you know what happens if the max RAM is exceeded (hardware max rather than OS max)?