New laptop

So far, so good.  It's a Lenovo IdeaPad 110.  8G memory/1TB hard drive.  Runs Windows 10.  I've turned off all the "Getting to Know You" shit, so privacy issues should be addressed (who uses Cortana, anyway?).

It's quick.   There's a few weird quirks--the right hand shift key is TINY, and on the far side of a page up/arrow up key.  I have VERY small hands.  My eight year old son's hands are almost as big.  Makes hitting the shift key...problematic.  Especially with more than two decades' familiarity with a full-sized shift key on both sides.

I'm probably investing in a USB ergonomic keyboard.

I've got a USB 2 and a USB 3 port, and an HDMI port.  It has made uploading the files transferred with a jump drive at least 4x bigger than my first laptop*--and a hell of a lot bigger than my first desktop--really fast.  Less than an hour to get ALL of the files transferred: documents, music, and pictures.  

36 G total of files transferred.  In less than an hour for the upload.

Speakers are wimpy, but I usually use headphones.

It's having...issues...downloading iTunes, which happens to be my preferred listening platform.  I can probably find a good work-around for that, though.  And who knows.  A download that might have not worked yesterday may work on a different day.

Got my Firefox bookmarks transferred, too.  It just left my bookmarks toolbar behind.  I can deal.  I can rebuild it.

One of the big failures with both of my Averatec laptops and then the last two Acer laptops was the DC jack.  In all four cases, the jack was on the right hand side.  This laptop has the DC jack on the left.  None of the DC jacks that have been on the left hand side have broken on me.  I hope this is no different.

All in all, I'm hoping this laptop can last me for a few years.  I really don't like changing machines, especially not mid-book.

And I wouldn't have, if the keyboard on the old one had remained reliable for a while longer.