Hello sexy!

It became clear to me very quickly that  after months with 13.3 inches, albeit rocky months, 10 inches would no longer do. (Get your mind out of the gutter I'm talking about computer screens.) 

Before I leaped this time I did some research. I wanted to find out if the SSD drivers are really better. As it turns out more gigs does not mean more speed. In other words 550 gigs of sata  would not be faster than 128 gigs of SSD. 

Must Haves:

1. Light. I like to go walking, biking and hang out with friends. And I like to take my computer with me. It quickly became clear that despite LG's problems I still got a lot more writing done because I'd fire it up for 30 minutes between doing this or that.  This the primary reason I did not choose another Lenovo. If you've every rummaged through a woman's bag, you know it's already full of stuff. A five pound computer will feel heavy in no time.

2. 12.5- 13 inch screen. My Lenovo is light but I've never liked the small screen. I never really got used to it either.

3. 6 hours or more battery life.

4. (Optional) Matt screen. Since I use my computer for writing the image quality of a glossy screen has never been a selling point.

5. SSD (not optional)

After much research, I settled on the Samsung Series 9 ultrabook. There are a lot of good models and if I'd been stateside Toshiba (!1.09 kilos) would have won me over. But there  were issues noted  about  the noiseof the fans and  the screen wasn't covered by warranty.  Since it's not a common computer in  Korea I suspect replacing it would be very expensive. Finally one user mentioned the body warped while  he was traveling and since I travel a lot that was a huge factor.  But the biggest factor was price. In the U.S. the Toshiba costs about $700.00 and the Samsung $1300. But in Korea I was looking at close to $1600.00 for the Toshiba. The Samsung is just a little more expensive.  

One of the interesting things living abroad is the cost of technology. Most of the chip sets and software are developed by American countries. This results in a higher price for computers even when they're made in the country you reside.

In the end my needs forced me to bite the bullet and spend a little on a computer. This also meant the Macbook Air was on the table. I know lots of people ho love their Macs and I've always wanted one. Or so I thought. But Mac has made some interesting business decisions such as not supporting flash and overpriced add-ons  wires for things Ethernet that that come standard on a PC. To connect to internet and connect my larger monitor I had to buy two wires at $50.00 each. These same wires run about ten for a PC.

Finally, because all my software is PC, I was either going to have to buy windows for Mac (the mac track pad is slippery on windows) or replace all my software ( about $500.00). So when I compared what you get for the money, the Mac didn't add up for me either.

The Samsung 9 serious offered every feature I wanted and every features I liked but wouldn't not buy a computer over (such as a back-lit keyboard). Finally, it's damn sexy. 

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