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I’ve been fairly quiet this week as I’ve been stalking notebooks on eBay. It was mainly Katharine’s idea; a coffee table laptop for when you want to look something up quickly (on Wikipedia, say) without trooping off to the study. It effectively takes the place of any reference books you might have sitting on your shelves.
While it needn’t be particularly powerful, it does need to have all the latest wireless gubbins and be small and good looking. Sadly, small and good looking means expensive. So I quickly gave up on buying something new and turned to eBay where I’ve been chasing Sony Vaio TXs.
These auctions are very competitive, but on Tuesday night I opened the bidding on this little beauty. It’s not a TX, but a Vaio 505DP. About fifteen months old, but with barely a scratch, it’s had a memory upgrade to 1GB and came with a spare battery. To my surprise (nay, consternation) nobody else put in a bid and I found myself in Asda Hulme’s car park the next day, looking like a drug dealer with a wad of cash in my pocket.
It was a right bargain (although extending my wireless network, has required a router that doesn’t want to play ball). So why no rival bids? England V Sweden is the obvious answer. And the lesson of the week is that if you’re looking for bargains, get on eBay when England are playing.
