Laptop Blues

[Zangor]

first of all i would like to let you all know i love my mom very much before all is said and done.
okay the holidays this year where amazing i got lots of the things i asked for(ipod touch and drawing tablet) and i was pleasently surprised when my mom brought out a laptop too.
now here is the problem. i had been wanting a laptop for a few months now so i can use it for graphics work and gaming. the one my mom got for me is pretty old as far as laptops go.
its a really old toshiba sattelite from 2003-2005 and i really don't think she knew what she was doing when she had it repaired(was broken hand me down from aunt) and supposedly upgraded to be "good enough to do anything graphical i would need" but i turned it on and found out that it had all the factory hardware.....all the stuff is clearly not mean to perform for all the processes i would need to do graphics work.

the thing only has a 90gb hard drive to start out with....then its running windows XP(no problems but i am too used to windows 7 to use XP again). also its got next to no graphics at all its running an ATI Radeon Xpress graphics card of some sort(integrated graphics cards perform really poorly and use the systems memory instead of having their own) and its only got an Intel Celeron processor inside(not sure how outdated that is) the only thing that doesnt concern me is RAM because it has 2gb of it even if thats sub standard again.
i am grateful that she tied to get me a laptop even if it was a hand me down but i just cant see this lasting me 4 years of college for graphic design when the programs id be using would take up all the memory. and the person who supposedly repaired and upgraded it said it would perform for these things and last 4 years.just want to know if you guys feel that she got ripped off because she might not know as much about computers as me and that even the cheapest laptop at walmart would have been better than paying the money to fix this one like she did.

Thanks for listening.
Zangor

[Moore]

"Upgrading" a laptop is not something I've ever even heard that is remotely possible besides putting in more RAM. Because it's not all separate components nearly everything is built into the motherboard besides memory/harddrive/dvd/cd drives. The sad kinda truth of computer repair business is that a lot of these places (in my opinion) practice rather shadily. They won't help the customer and they'll explain in vague terms basically anything to convince someone of anything they could possibly need. I was actually told in school that I shouldn't attempt to explain things to customers. They will pretty much do anything for a sale.

[Bulletdance]

Oh man that's a rough situation sorry it went down like that,but it's awesome she wanted to get you one As for getting ripped off it's hard to say. I had an apple laptop that lasted me a good 6-7 years and only broke because I dropped it. That said however,I may be wrong but I think your average laptop life span is about as long as the origional warranty two years. I'd say given the stats you've shown that the guy was either not very knowledgable or not entirely honest. With graphic design too as I'm sure you know sometimes you need more than one big program working at a time and a lot of space for big data projects. I'm not sure if it will work,but technology has come a long way since I was in school. Good luck with it and happy holidays!
also if your gonna buy the adobe programs wait til ur a student man they give great student discounts!

[Felidire]

Sounds like the exact same laptop I had gifted to me 3 or so years back, it was handy to have a laptop, but really, just how much can you "upgrade" a laptop? Especially computers with a 7-9 year old MoBo. I used Photoshop CS2 on there for 6-8 months, but it was extremely laggy, I ended up letting my sister borrow it well over a year ago and I haven't the foggiest where it is now. It just vanished. XD

I also had a desktop comp built for me 1 or 2 christmases ago for roughly $1000, it wasn't bad but the specs were totally different to what I was after. I ended up spending 3 grand on this current computer which i've had for about 2 years now, it should easily last me another 3 years without needing any serious upgrading or replacing. I think it's best that we buy our own computers - unless the person buying for you really knows what they're doing or has help from someone reliable.

My parents bought my sister a laptop this year, had some friend of a work friend upgrade it and they didn't even run the specs by me before commiting to the purchase. I had a look at it when it arrived and it's not half bad, but that was a massive gamble seeing as how neither of them knows much about comps, they were really lucky...

and I have photoshop CS5 open on this computer right now, and it's on 44% RAM usage, and i've had it peak very near 80% usage in the past, I have 12 gig. Also, some of the .PSD files are 100MB+ if I want to keep them saved in full resolution, I so I can understand your concerns with the HDD... So yes, if you're actually studying graphics design then you really should have a computer that you can rely on.

[Zangor]

for the moment i think i will stop worrying about it because when i talk to my mom about it theres really no way i can explain the situation without it being taken as a complaint....i love my mother and i love the laptop simply because its portable but my stepfather really hates me talking about it the way i do and i understand.....i sound ungrateful when i only just got the thing and hopefully i can save up my own money to buy a better laptop.