Future acquistions

Entry posted by EricBall October 31, 2013

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I want to get an Acer C720 Chromebook for my son to use at school. (Supporting the school's BYOD & Google docs plans.) Sure the screen & keyboard aren't as nice as the new HP Chromebook 11, but the Haswell Celeron in the C720 will make for a far more pleasant user experience.

Unfortunately, the C720 isn't available in Canada. (It probably will be at some point, but there's no indication of when. It will also probably have a international keyboard, which is guaranteed to have quirks.) In the US it can be ordered from Amazon, but is currently out of stock. So I'm waiting. (In theory it's also available from Best Buy, but again it doesn't appear to be in stock.) OTOH, I will probably be going to the US in the future, so maybe at that time it will be in stock.

I also want to buy a Mac Mini as a "home computer". But while Apple has upgraded the iMacs to Haswell, they haven't done the same for the Mini yet. And while the rumors included a Haswell Mini announcement as a possibility in the recent iPhone 5s and iPad Air events, that didn't happen. However, the Haswell iMacs were announced separately from the events, so maybe the Mini will be as well.

OTOH, two things I'm not planning on acquiring are the PS4 and Xbox One. Between the PS3, Wii U and 3DS I have more than enough "modern" consoles to suck as much free time playing games as I am willing to spend. (Not to mention other free-time projects I could be working on.) I also have more half-finished games than I can count; so I'd rather spend the time playing those than spend money acquiring a new system.

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EricBall 239

Posted November 29, 2013

I ended up ordering the C720 from Amazon.com and having it delivered to a US PO Box just across the border from where my parents live. They then picked it up and mailed it to me.

My son loves it - I'll probably have him do a review in a couple of weeks. I love it because I've set him up as a "supervised user", which means I can see which web sites he visits. (And he knows this.)