# Buying a new laptop - your advice?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buying-a-new-laptop-your-advice/525470>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [January 18, 2010, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buying-a-new-laptop-your-advice/525470 "2010-01-18T21:31:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buying-a-new-laptop-your-advice/525470/21 "2010-01-22T00:35:15Z")

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What could you possibly want a floppy drive for? The only use I can think of is on old legacy servers. 1.44megs is nothing. Is it for old games? Surely you can just put them on a thumbdrive or burn them on CDs.

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**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buying-a-new-laptop-your-advice/525470/22 "2010-01-22T00:50:22Z")

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If I could change one thing about my laptop (Dell Vostro 1000) I’d make it smaller. 17" is too big for my lap for more than an hour or so at a time; after that it puts my legs to sleep. I still mentally gnash my teeth that they discontinued the 15.4" model I had in my shopping cart the day before I submitted my order. Of course, by the time the next 15" model came out, they discontinued XP which was the point of getting a dell the summer of 2007…

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**Author:** ![Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Picard_Kills_Kirk)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buying-a-new-laptop-your-advice/525470/23 "2010-01-22T04:31:15Z")

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> [@JSexton](#):
>
> What could you possibly want a floppy drive for? The only use I can think of is on old legacy servers. 1.44megs is nothing. Is it for old games? Surely you can just put them on a thumbdrive or burn them on CDs.

I think there was a thread a few months ago on this, but it seems some musicians still need them for their instruments. No reason to replace a perfectly working thousand dollar instrument because the disk drive got outdated, or something like that.

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**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buying-a-new-laptop-your-advice/525470/24 "2010-01-22T04:37:45Z")

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If you are actually going to use this on your lap (like I do) try to stay away from the ones with the giant battery pack on the bottom, it makes it uncomfortable and wobbly.

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