You know,
I've spent all week mentally kicking various Macintosh models
to the curb, an I must say that I don't enjoy it. I really
do wish I could own one of each, because they all have their
merits, but as it stands I can only add one to the collection
right now. Back in Volume
One
of this series, I shared that I'll be bringing a new Mac
into the family within the next six weeks. I then spent Volume
Two ditching the entire PowerMac and PowerBook lines based
on the least glorious of reasons, namely budgetary limitations.
In Volume
Three I quite possibly smashed my own dream of finally
owning a SuperDrive while thinking how odd it was that Apple
actually managed to release new eMacs while I was writing the
article, and in Volume
Four I
pretty much wrote off the entire current iMac line,
because the 17 and 21 inchers are too extravagant and nothing
about the 15 inch model seems to make sense. So I've settled,
hypothetically, on either an iBook or an eMac, and I say hypothetically
because I have the funniest of feelings that Apple will manage
to whip out even more new Mac models just in time to turn
all my research so far into theoretical dust. Nonetheless,
I soldier onward. And I ask myself: am I a desktop or a laptop
person?
There was
a time when it wasn't even a question. I was unapologetically a
laptop person, and that was that. But then again, the circumstances
were a bit different than they are now. My devout
laptop days were largely due to the fact that my job at the
elementary school required me to be in any number of different
rooms during the workday, and so having a laptop to take with
me was essential. And I became such a laptop person that it
was really all that I ever wanted to use. I mean, yeah, I loved
spending time fiddling with other people's flat screen iMacs
and PowerMac G4's when I was up front, but if I was
going to do actual work, it simply made more sense to reach
into my bag and grab my own laptop. I had everything set the
way I wanted, and the nifty campus-wide wireless network I'd
constructed didn't hurt, either. I'll go ahead and point out
that we were the first to do so in the entire district, and
we were the first elementary school in the district to supply
every teacher with an iBook, as well as being one of the very
first to migrate the entire staff to MacOS X. Okay, now I'm
bragging. I guess sometimes I feel just a bit too proud about
what I managed to put in place there before I left, but anyway,
let's get back to the computer shopping, shall we?
Hopping from
room to room with my laptop represented vastly different circumstances
than I face today. For the past five months I've been using
a desktop G3 iMac, and although I wasn't thrilled with the
idea of losing my portability, I've grown quite used to the
advantages that a desktop setup offers. A full-size keyboard,
an actual mouse, a machine that sits on a table instead of
my lap, it all definitely has its advantages. In fact, for
a home user, there are precisely only two reasons to own a
laptop: the ability to take it around the house with you, and
the ability to take it with you when you travel. And at this
point I must step in and remind myself that I do in fact already
own a laptop. So why on earth would I consider buying another?
Well, because
my laptop is a first-generation blueberry iBook from 1999,
that's why. It runs Panther very nicely, it's great for checking
my email or doing some websurfing, and it's blissfully cable-free.
But it doesn't come close to mustering enough processing power
to fuel the kind of design tools I use to run these here crazy
websites of mine. Not with enough speed to keep me from
going crazy, anyway. It also sports a screen with a mere 800x600
resolution, and if I'm ruling out the flat-screen iMac because
it only stretches 1024x768 pixels, then you'd better believe
that ye olde iBook isn't going to cut it for my heavier computing
tasks. It also suffers from no CD burner, the world's weakest
video card, only one USB port, and so on. Perhaps most disappointingly,
it lacks a FireWire port, meaning that I can't even connect
my own iPod. Sure, I could dump a fortune into modernizing
all the various aging specs of the machine, but I'd end up
spending as much as if I were to simply buy a new machine.
Add up all my iBook's quaint deficiencies, and you'll see that
it's not up to the task of being my main machine, but it'll
serve as a great secondary rig.
Which probably
leads you to ask: what on earth does "secondary rig" mean?
Well, it means that if I want to lay on the couch and answer
reader email, or to look up whether the Florida Marlins won
today while I'm in the kitchen cooking dinner, my old iBook
can fill those needs. But if I want to sit down and write a
column or work on the website template, or do something like
update the iTunes Bottlecap Map or some such, it'll have to
be done on my main rig. And that means that if I go with a
desktop, I'll have to perform such tasks without the freedom
of mobility. I think I can live with that, considering how
I don't envision myself trying to write a column while prancing
about the house and doing other things. At least I don't think
so. Well, I guess there's something to sleep on.
The other
reason for owning a laptop, the ability to travel with it,
probably doesn't rank nearly as highly on my priority list
as I wish it did. I mean, I can't wait until I get my name
out there to the point that I'm being asked to travel the globe
and make presentations at various Mac-related events...hey,
a man can dream, can't he? But in any case, that's certainly
not the situation right now, and the only Mac event I foresee
myself attending within the next year is MacWorld Expo in San
Francisco (along with the tiniest chance that I'll attend MacWorld
Boston). I'd certainly want to have a laptop with me at the
Expo, but am I willing to buy a laptop instead of a desktop
just for the sake of one event? Of course not. I'll rent a
dang laptop for the Expo, if I have to.
What about
non-Mac-related traveling? I don't know about this one. If
I'm heading out of town for a few days to attend some concert
festival or such, I'd just as soon not have a computer
with me. When you're looking to get away from it all for a
few days, you have to literally get away from it all for it
to be of any great benefit to you. Bringing a laptop just means
that you've brought your everyday world with you, defeating
the whole point. Lastly,
there are the times when I head down South to visit what I
might refer to as "the homeland," but those trips never last
more than a day or two, and this is a case where ye olde iBooks
could actually fit the bill of being my traveling companion
and keeping me connected to the world if not publishing or
otherwise being productive.
So what I
appear to be concluding is that my primary machine does not
necessarily need to be a laptop in order to suit my needs.
And I guess that's a good thing, because right about now it's
hitting me that while the iBook does indeed come in a 14 inch
model, its screen still only stretches to the same 1024x768
pixels as its 12 inch counterpart. As the word "bummer" floats
through my mind, I begin to think that I've finally concluded
what I pretty much knew coming into this: the eMac is my machine.
Its big 1280x960 screen, strong technical specs (which were
boosted significantly this week), and low price more than make
up for the fact that it weighs 55 pounds and looks like it
spent a past life serving as the nose cone for the space shuttle.
So hypothetically
at least, I've settled on the eMac (unless some other new option
magically appears on Apple's home page soon if not sooner),
and now all I have to do is figure out which eMac to get, and
whom to buy it from. As I said, it's been five years since
I've done this comparison-shopping thing (other than in pure
theory for research purposes), but if I recall correctly, it's
actually kind of enjoyable (at least when you're buying something
like a Mac, where there are no bad options and you're relatively
safe with just about anything you end up with). It's time to
look at who's offering what for how much, and what deals are
out there. And I'll explore all of that and more in "Bill
buys a new Mac, volume six," which
you can look for tomorrow.
No
Panther user should be without:
