So I went to Office Depot which didn't open until noon and bought an HP, paying about $250 more than the laptop I returned elsewhere this morning. When I got it home, I discovered that it was a resealed package. Stuff had sloppily been thrown back in the box, it looked like there was stuff missing, the battery pack had been left in the unit, there was already an administrator account on it called "Office Depot" (it didn't offer me registration or personal setup screens) and there was an error message about needing to restore Windows. I immediately packed it back up and returned it only to find out they had no more other than the display model.
The manager checked their system and found the nearest replacement was in Mobile Alabama! I hit the interstate and headed to Mobile. Although the computer had shown there were 3 there, there was actually only 1, but 1 was all I needed
Just got it hooked up and I like it even better than the one I returned. It's a wide screen. It doesn't have the SD card reader for my camera the other one had, but I got a USB gadget to take care of that.
It automatically picked up my wireless router inside the house and has a great connection (I'm about 20' away in a FEMA trailer). Now I can get back to working on pages late at night (when I do my best work) in comfort (the house currently isn't very pleasant and especially so at night).
The best thing is that if there's a problem I can return it locally
Off to do all kinds of updates, customization, install needed software and remove bundled demos and crap I will never use and
then I'll be a happy camper
...literally
