My very expensive laptop decided to celebrate being 16 months old by bricking itself during a firmware update (which I pressed cancel on, but it did it anyway).

You’ll have to check back next week to see if John Lewis manage to repair it under warranty or end up sending me a brand new one (the 24 month warranty is why you buy these things on the high street), but as you can imagine, I was … displeased.

I ended up pulling an un-remarkable Acer Chromebook out of the pile of old gear in my office; this was a church purchase that had hardly been used by anyone, including me.

Somewhat to my surprise, it’s very usable as a primary system. ChromeOS even has a WSL-alike these days, 1password’s QR code based setup of a new system was a delight, and other than video editing, I can get basically everything I need out of this thing.

It also has USB-C ports on both the left and the right - what a concept! Other laptop manufacturers take note.

Late breaking update according to John Lewis’s sub-contracted repairer’s report, “software” was replaced and the laptop is on its way back to me. The IR receiver was right when tested, which is impressive as it doesn’t have one. It’s almost as though a box-ticking exercise by a bunch of jobsworths has taken place!