Posts by chino

Upgrade-hungry office drones ponder PC prangs

Depends what you do with it

As a dev (Business Intelligence), I use a snappy machine. There's nothing worse than running demanding applications on a machine that can't cope. At any time I might have SQL Server, SSIS, a dozen spreadsheets and word docs plus a couple of remote desktop connections and goodness knows how many peripheral apps running. My brain may feel like it's going to implode, but as long as my machine can cope then that's one less thing to worry about.

The directors on the other hand have nice light acer netbooks because they write reports, emails and use spreadsheets. So it comes down to what you use it for, but I won't need an upgrade any time soon.

The 99p mobile phone: What's the catch?

Bare-bones but good as a backup

I paid £3 (+£10 orange cred) for one of these from Carphone Warehouse 3 weeks ago when I was away from home with a dead battery. It came pre-charged and I haven't needed to charge it since. It's a great backup. It has predictive text, colour screen, FM radio (which works well) and a frankly ridiculous battery life.

Apparently people have been buying these to re-sell abroad, since the handset is apparently worth around £40 (only quoting what I was told by the sales rep). Consequently CW now limit the number you can buy within a given period, and they run a check at point to sale to see how many you've bought to date!