This is my Dell Latitude E5470. It's a solid machine with 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, and a Gentoo Windows 11 setup. I can't go wrong with that. How did I get this machine? This goes far back to the summer before my first year of college. I was working at my high school as an IT support technician, so we did things like disassembling Chromebooks for parts, setting new ones up, and setting up the classrooms for the upcoming school year. I had fun working with my friends and messing around with technology. There was also a nice perk: access to the school's surplus. They had a lot of cool things, and I said cool things. I never had a computer; I could tell it was "mine." Until then, I had my sister's old Chromebook, her old Inspiron, and a $17 Lenovo Thinkpad R400. The R400 was a piece of junk, so I threw it out. I got four things: This Latitude E5470, E5440, an iPad, and a Surface RT. Did I need it? No, it was quite a waste in hindsight because I couldn't access the iPad. It had an Apple ID login, and the account info I was given was invalid because it had been deleted. The surface was initially exciting, but I found that it was the surface that was a paperweight. I started using the E5470 when my sister's inspiration she gave broke. There was some short, and it got to the point where it'd spark every time I turned it on. My attempts at repairing it failed. Ultimately, it was a lost cause. I then decided to use the latitude E5470. It was a solid unit until I gently grabbed it by the screen, and it cracked. It was in storage for a while when I got an insiron. The E5470 was in the backburners for a long time until Spring '23. Something you might not know about me is that I was a biological science major in my first year in addition to music. I was told before coming to Rutgers that doing a double major in CS and Music wasn't allowed, so I did that for a year. I learned it was BS; I started working towards the requirements in my second year. I'm a second-year rather than a junior. That's not the topic tho. I have a thing for shitboxes. Computers that barely work, and you'd do whatever you need for it to work. My sister's Inspiron was a shitbox while it lasted. I wanted two computers: one for general use, and another for work. My work computer would be the shitbox. My dad had a hopelessly slow and old Inspiron, so I removed the screen and slapped it onto the latitude. To say it didn't fit is a vast understatement.
It got a lot of attention. During class, people would ask, "What is that?" During data structures recitation, I remember someone approaching me and asking the same thing. It was a conversation starter. On the day of the Discrete I final, something tragic happened: the screen cracked. I got careless and started to keep the computer in my bag. It was fine until it broke, then it returned to the back burners. I then thought of finding an actual screen, and I've been scouring eBay for a reasonably priced one. The thing about fixing computers is that it's hard to find reasonably priced parts. Screens alone were going for a crazy amount, 30,40, up to 50 bucks. Again, it was ludicrous. I recently found and got a top assembly for 15 bucks, and as luck may have it, it worked flawlessly. Things were back in motion. I found some RAM sticks I salvaged from my sister's old Inspiron and slapped them into my computer. 16 GB of RAM, I can't complain about that. The next idea was to hackintosh it, but it'd be too complicated. Dual booting arch and windows, hell yeah. The issue was that the laptop only had a 128 GB NVME drive. Solution: get a 1 TB one and slap it in. Now, it has Gentoo w/ sway and Windows 11. It's an enjoyable laptop; having both operating systems is a plus. What's the conclusion? I don't know, maybe get an older, more powerful laptop instead of a new, low-quality one.