Upgrades

I’ve made lots of unplanned purchases these past months, some of which I ‘justified’ as extended birthday gifts to myself (check out my new bags here and here) and some I bought because of the irresistible deals I’ve found at the shops: drop-down prices and deferred payment scheme through credit card (no cash outlay required!).

I’m talking about the Lenovo Ideapad S210 Touch subnotebook with touchscreen feature that I bought at Gilmore last month and the Lenovo K900 android phone I recently bought at Electroworld in Glorietta.

Both were on sale, and cost less than P19,000 each after discount. I got the laptop on a 6-months intallment term with little interest, while the phone is payable for 12-months at zero interest.

Since last year, I’ve been planning to upgrade my netbook – an Asus Eee1005HA model – which I bought in 2011. Because it’s just a netbook with a modest 2gb RAM that is not upgradable, editing pictures (for the blog, mostly) always took time.

AJ and I researched for a budget laptop that could perform faster than my old netbook and saw this Lenovo model. The reviews we found online were all okay (check out this one from notebookcheck). We also compared it with the equally popular subnotebook, the Asus Vivobook, which has all the features of the Lenovo Ideapad, but with a higher price tag.

What sealed my decision to get Lenovo over Asus was its affordability. We chanced upon an ongoing sale of Lenovo laptops at Gilmore, and after deducting the discount and adding up the little bank interest charges (because I used my credit card for the purchase), the Lenovo Ideapad S210 Touch still ended up P3,000 cheaper. What’s more, I get to pay for it in installment basis.

I was able to sell my old Asus netbook too, so part of my installment payments are now covered by the proceeds of this sale.

This encouraged me to upgrade my android cellphone too, especially after seeing that the Lenovo K900 android phone, previously priced at P24,000 is now on sale at P13,999!

I’ve always admired the superior image quality produced by Lenovo cellphone cameras, and even their budget phones produce really clear pictures. AJ has been using a Lenovo cellphone for close to 2 years already, but he got inggit with my upgrade so he bought the same phone for him too, hehe! Lenovo K900 really rocks! Never mind that it has no memory card slot, I can always transfer the pictures and videos to my laptop anyway.

Upsizing. My 5.5-inch android phone and 11.6-inch subnotebook.

Oh, I’m loving Windows 8.1 too. The sleek and colorful design of the main menu makes you want to use the touchscreen more often, hehe!

I’m quite pleased with the upgrades I’ve made on my gadgets. Editing pictures in my laptop is no longer time-consuming and I can finish my blog posts faster too. I used to experienced slow internet performance with my previous netbook, and that’s quite understandable because it’s working on 2gb RAM only. Now, I got one with twice as much capacity as the previous one, and an OS that is said to be less resource intensive, thus functions with more speed.

Before I end this post, may I interest you with my used Xperia P phone which I bought in 2012 and is now for sale.