My laptop died today, after nearly eight years of loyal service.

The charging port has been unreliable for months. Yesterday the charging cable head got blisteringly hot and wouldn’t charge any more. At first it looked like it was a problem with the charger – I plugged in a different charger and all looked good. Percentages going up, no overheating. Today, though, even the other one wouldn’t work. The battery is old enough that without a charger I can get maybe a couple of hours’ of use out of it.

I have been planning to buy a new laptop since this spring, not only because of the worn-out battery but because the old one is old. It won’t let me upgrade the operating system because the hardware doesn’t support the latest version, and that in turn means that I cannot update the Office package, and some other software. So it really is time.

Nevertheless I kept postponing buying a new one because there were always other, more time-sensitive purchases to be made. Now all the delaying left me with the worst timing possible: not only because of money (of which I have less than usual due to Christmas gifts, and just having paid for flights and hotels for a vacation in February) but also because all the shops will be full of last-minute Christmas shoppers. I’ll have to manage until past Christmas Eve at least.

My work laptop (which is what I’m using this moment) will fill part of the gap in the meantime but I have no way to process or even access the photos from my camera, so I won’t be posting any of those for a while.

Meanwhile I will be off to research laptops. Do I stick with a Macbook, which I like and am used to? If I get a Windows laptop for about half the price, will I regret it daily for the next five years?