I have sad news to report: Mona has finally given up the ghost. Actually, it’s not so much as she’s out of commission as she’s been put out to pasture. I just couldn’t take the constant stress of wondering if the next crash would be the one that would cost me everything on the hard drive.
I mean, she had a good run for an Emachine and she served me well, but with the crashing, cracked hinges, and spotty touchpad I felt it was more than time to say goodbye to the old and hello to the new. This sentiment couldn’t be more appropriate given I’m living in Seoul where if you’re not in possession of the latest techno gadget hot off the shelves then you may as well consider yourself an aging dinosaur right up there with Eight tracks and VHS tapes.
So whats a Seoul dwelling consumer to do who’s in search of a laptop? Head to Yongsan, of course. I naively told myself that I would only need about an hour to find what I wanted. My critieria didn’t seem to be that outlandish: a great graphics card, 2 Duo Cpu, a solid build at a price of 1500 US dollars, and a global warranty. Piece of cake? Nope. Eight hours later I left Yongsan with my power cable tucked between my legs.
I found nothing to my liking. I had done my research so I knew I was looking for particular brands like Asus or Sager or LG, but when I searched the sprawl of IPark and beyond I discovered that the GS1 Asus I wanted could only be ordered for 2,200 dollars, the LG X-Notes didn’t have the video card I wanted, and that Sagers were nonexistent in Korea.
I briefly considered getting a MacBook and would have if I didn’t plan on gaming. The thought of running windows on a Mac just didn’t seem so appealing. HP has a huge presence in the laptop market in Korea, but the models just didn’t do it for me. I had just about given up hope of getting everything I wanted at a decent price when I stumbled upon a review of the Dell Inspiron 1520 on Notebookreview.com. Eureka! Here was a laptop that could be customed built to have everything I wanted at under 1,500 dollars!
I’ve never owned a Dell so I scoured the reviews and comments and pretty much decided that the Inspiron was for me. Most of the negativity seemed to surround Dell’s customer service, or lack thereof, and a few gripes about the laptop screen possibly being or poor quality depending on the luck of the draw. I thought I would gamble and take my chances since I figure I could always just ship it back if I wasn’t satisfied for a replacement.
I’m glad I did. First off ordering was easy as pie on the Dell Korean website. Easy as pie considering I had one of my Korean Co-workers there to help me navigate the site. Minutes after my order had gone through I received a phone call from a Dell rep confirming everything and even throwing in some freebies like the webcam and an express delivery option at no extra cost to me. Thanks, Dell! By Friday my Inspiron had arrived and was waiting for me at work.
As you can see I opted for the Lime Green. I love it. It’s cool and refreshing and moves me away from the same old boring laptop colors I always see. The Inspiron also comes in Red, Blue, Yellow, Pink, White and Mocha.
So far I have been more than pleased with my Dell. If you’re looking for a laptop then why not give them a try?
