Oh boy. When I do get into a spending streak, I tend to get on a roll. I’m proud though that my number-crunching has kept my spending still below my monthly earnings. There’s probably only a few people who could beat my compulsion when it comes to monitoring finances. My savings per month aren’t just as high as in previous months though.

It only sucks since I am really liable to GAS. I’m not a real techie but when I buy tech, I want to get the best buck per bang machine that fits my purposes. With the configuration of technology today, it’s pretty hard to get a gadget that hits all of those.

I’ve been really wracking my brain on my next important purchase – my next rig. I’m now playing the semantic game calling the purchase “important” rather than “big.” At least that way, I . I’m really compelled to get a development PC but I’m still split between a new laptop or a desktop.

Wouldn’t be such a huge decision if I could trust that my A8Jr will hold being mobile once the new casing arrives. That way, I could just buy a desktop then reformat this laptop and set it up as a streamlined office on the go.

I can even try to upgrade this. Contrary to ASUS’ specs, I believe that the A8Jr can take as much as 4GB of RAM and more than just 160GBs of HD space. I’ll be able to do that once the warranty lapses but will the cost justify the performance boost? Keeping this laptop has quite a lot of cons though – expired warranty, dying battery, and the general uncertainty of an aging piece of electronics.

Still, it’s a toss-up between a desktop and a laptop. If it’s a desktop, it’ll be a mid-range gaming machine. With those specs, I can definitely do not only basic productivity (in fact, it’d be overkill) but multimedia development as well. I’m estimating that a machines with those specs (either a laptop or a desktop) would cost somewhere around Php 40,000 to Php 60,000. Huge huge money. A possible windfall might allow me to put up that amount as by late June but I really want to put up a significant buffer again before I spend.

And there are a couple of tech milestones this year that’s making me reconsider buying a computer now – Windows 7 and DirectX 11. Early adaption does pay off but price will definitely be an issue. To maximize hardware, it’s better to invest on a 64-bit OS but at what cost, I still don’t know .

I just miss gaming so much…

Check out these other posts:

1. Profit and loss
2. The quest for a new laptop
3. Help! I need a laptop!
4. And for a moment there, I thought I burned my “Little Sidekick”
5. Vista pushes consumers closer to the edge