Dell

Last night I was invited to watch a webinar introducing Dell’s new touchscreen computer. I love my touchscreen computer for a million reasons, but after a year of daily use I have a lot of questions about touchscreen computing.

Dell invited four mom bloggers to be in attendance, and at least a dozen more to attend the password protected webinar (I was logged on and was one of 13 people).

Here’s the webinar.

At 20 minutes in Miss Lori asks Dell my question about screen size. Someone also asked my follow up question about “why is big too big?” My screen is 26 inches, and I’d like my next one to be a little bigger. I like having the ability to open windows side by side, and with a few more inches I could comfortably look at three windows side by side.

I asked repeatedly about the computer’s processor. Buying a computer without knowing what processor it is running is a like buying a car that has cylinders, but no one is really sure how many.

I don’t blame the women in the room for feeling like they have to be Dell cheerleaders. I understand feeling the pressure to like a product after you’ve been treated kindly by a company. If I was in the room I’d also feel excited about the “prettiness” of the computer as well. I really and truly get that part of being the guest of a brand.

The presenter did mention the kid in the dorm room quite a few times. I love the idea of a PC/TV for young adults who don’t necessarily have room for two devices, but keep in mind that they’ll probably also need (at a minimum) a netbook to take to classes as well.

I had two takeaways from the webcast: Dell has a nice new User Interface, and Dell has a touchscreen.

A MacBook will be smaller (a full ten inches smaller), but only $50 more, and where the Inspiron One has a AMD Athlon™ II X4 610E (2.3GHz/2MB cache), the Macbook has a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache.

There is no bluetooth on this system. For many folks that’s a deal breaker.

It is pretty. Pretty counts in a home office. I’ll be the first to tell  you that, but much like my cars, I want my computers fast, fun and safe.

It’s entirely possible that the Insprion One is a fabulous computer, and a great solution, it’s just as likely that it’s an over-sized netbook and a real piece of junk. Apparently I’m going to have to wait for Dell to do a webinar for the men if I want to get any real information.

Which is just embarrassing for everyone.