A select few in my life have known that I’ve been saving up for months and months for my own computer. With the huge commute that I do day in and day out, I’m equally hugely exhausted by the time I get home. And then, when I’ve got enough energy to do some writing…the laptop was always being used by someone else. I shall not name names.
It became pretty clear that when the computer was in use, it was staying in use until after I went to bed. So, I noticed that an entire week would go by before I had a chance to have any significant time on it. And even then, I had to check out my gossip websites first. It just became harder and harder to write the blog.
Boxes of cookbooks piled up. The car got heavier and heavier. Pretty soon, it was so stuffed that I was the only one that could ride in it…and it’s an SUV that should seat all four of us.
So, I decided that I really needed to do some research and find something that could work for me. I liked the idea of something light like a tablet but that had all the capabilities of a laptop. I like the option of having Word capabilities so that the documents I’ve partially written on the family laptop can be transferred, accessed and finished up on the other device…easily.
I’ve been looking at commercials for Microsoft’s Surface for a while now. I’ve done online research and the consensus seems to be that the Surface Pro 2 version gets the thumbs up from the critics. I think it may be what I’m looking for with the expanded memory capacity to hold my photos and documents.
Did I mention the cost? The Surface Pro 2 was the more expensive price tag as well. Any saving that I had to do needed to had to be extended to cover the cost of the Pro 2’s additional cost. Then, I found out that the Pro 2 didn’t come with Microsoft Office pre-loaded. Yikes…now I’ve got to save up a little more to cover the cost of that Office package.
So, whenever I had leftover garage sale funds, I would put it in my savings account. Birthday time was also very helpful. Slowly, it added up.
Then, it was the holidays. Would it go on sale? Should I wait and scour every Black Friday event, every Sunday sales flyer and wait for the price to drop? Wait, would it even drop?
Then, the tech blogs started buzzing in mid-December. “Someone” had leaked a Microsoft sales plan and showed the items scheduled for each day of the event. And sure enough, one of those days had the Surface listed. Yay!!!
That designated sale day was a Saturday, so that helped with my schedule. I found the Microsoft “store” (it was actually a kiosk down at Southpark Mall) and decided that I needed to one of the first to get the deal.
Now the “deal” turned out to be a lower price point on the Office package and some other items thrown in. No deal on a cheaper Surface…but I had finally saved up enough money and I was ready to be a door buster during the holiday season.
And as far as being a door buster, I was the only door buster there for the deal. So, I ended up getting a lot of attention from the sales staff. The manager, Maryam, and assistant manager, Nick, were really attentive and answered all of my questions and concerns.
Nick even spent some time and went through the set-up process with me—while making sure the screen protector was free of air bubbles.
So, here it is…my step into the tablet world!