After putting up with incessant and seemingly insoluble Windows issues on my PC for the last year, I finally threw in the towel and replaced it. The old machine, an HP all-in-one PC, was fine when it worked, but the incessant hanging-up, failure to access the internet and other minor niggles just wouldn’t go away, despite a complete Windows re-install.
The new machine, also an all-in-one from Lenovo, seems very nice, with a lovely 27-inch screen, ideal for editing photos. But, like everything else it seems, there are a couple of design issues that have me scratching my head.
Why, for example, is the power on/off button concealed on the back of the monitor? It took ages to find it, and the tiny power LED is in the middle of the button, where it can’t be seen without craning my neck around the back of the machine. There’s no hard-disk activity light – a small omission, but it’s a useful indicator of whether the machine is doing something. (The old HP PC didn’t have one either. Both machines have SSD drives. Is there a technical reason for these devices not having an activity light?) But perhaps the biggest niggle is the absence of an integrated SD card reader. OK, I get it that features are removed from PCs as technology becomes redundant. I wouldn’t expect a PC to come with a floppy disc drive, or even a CD/DVD drive these days, but SD cards? They’re hardly redundant, and I can’t imagine it would add significantly to the cost.
So, I guess I’ll have to try and find an old USB SD card reader that I know is lurking somewhere, or buy another one. Tiresome and avoidable…