WHY I SOLD MY LAPTOP, DESPITE NEEDING ONE

Before the end of last year, I had to sell off my "almost three-year-old" laptop, despite needing a laptop. If you are thinking I sold the laptop because I needed the money, you are very wrong. To say it briefly, it wasn't serving its purpose perfectly and was giving me minor issues as well. I just waited till I used it to complete my project work before selling it; it honestly really helped me with that project part. Let me tell you all about why I had to sell it off, despite the fact that a laptop is a major gadget in my field of profession—I am a professional photographer and editor.

The backstory...

I bought my laptop in 2020 and also in a certified laptop shop. That particular day, I had to go alone to get it, and I actually had little knowledge about laptops at the time. Although I called my brother to guide me on which one to buy, there were limited choices because they didn't have a lot of laptops in stock, and the attendant convinced us that the particular laptop we were contemplating buying was a very good one. Also, I was keen on buying it that day because I didn't want to use the money for something else since I had it already. I thought the specs were quite exciting, and that was exactly where my problem started from, and I will sure tell you about it. I bought this particular laptop for 300,000 naira (approximately 300HBD), and below were the specifications:

1 TB space, 8gb RAM, 1.19GHz speed, windows 10 pro, HDD, corei5. Also, it was slim and not heavy.

Till today, I always say that if I actually knew what I know about laptops now at the time I bought it, I would never go for that kind of laptop. I really thought I was getting a high-end laptop until I got back to school and saw the laptop my friend had at almost the same price (I think it was even lesser) with really mind-blowing specifications. Although it was a UK-used laptop, it was really worth the price. It was a foldable laptop (360), had an SSD, had screentouch, keyboard light, and was really, really sleek! It was a proper high-end laptop, and even till now, he is enjoying his laptop and can sell it anytime at a really great price. Mind you, my laptop didn't even have keyboard light. If I want to press it at night, I will have to set my brightness really high or put on my phone's torchlight if there is no power supply.

I was not even really feeling the heat because I barely used it at the time. Actually, I just got it because I thought I might need it later, not because I had a specific thing I wanted to use it for.

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Then, photography happened...

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I had always had an interest in photography, but I never thought of learning it on a professional level. When the opportunity came, I took it with all my heart because I felt really connected to it and wanted to become an artist. During the course of my learning, I had to install some heavy software on my laptop, like Photoshop and Lightroom. My laptop was always hanging whenever I opened those applications, and it even got worse if I dared to open both apps at the same time. It was frustratingly annoying because it really slowed down my work rate. Another issue I had was the screen type (I think it is called graphics resolution professionally). The one on my laptop is very low, and it confuses me to see the actual color of the image I edit. For instance, I might edit a picture to my taste on my laptop after adding the right tone and color until I import it to my phone😭 That is when I will realize that it's a case of "what I ordered vs. what I got." It might be way too warm or cold, or just not what I visualized in general.

It was very discouraging to keep using it for editing because, most of the time, I always have to import a single picture on my phone multiple times before I get the right tone I want.

At a point, I wanted to sell it in order to save more money on the amount I got from it so as to buy a better one. I was offered a very useless amount that I could not even take, so I dropped the idea of selling it then. I hadn't used the laptop for up to a year (2021), and I bought it new. You can imagine my shock when I was offered 100,000 naira (100 HBD) for it. I decided that I would rather hold on to it and manage it than sell it at such an amount.

Fast forward to 2023...

I just decided to sell it after using it for my final year project, and moreover, the hinges were also giving me issues already. My asking price was 130,000 Naira (130 HBD), but when I finally got a buyer, it was someone close to me. So, when it was priced down to 100,000 Naira (100 HBD), I agreed and sold it to him.

I am still trying to save up money to buy the laptop that will be perfect for my work, I hope I figure it out soon.

Thanks for reading❤️