Global Reset

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Couldn't Resist

Posted by Scott Hughes Sun, 15 Jan 2006 19:30:00 GMT

I just couldn’t resist its siren call… I’ve been looking for a good reason to upgrade and Steve Jobs finally announced it at the last MacWorld. An Intel-based Apple laptop, with a 4-5x power increase over the previous generation of PowerBooks. I’d been looking to upgrade the Mac Mini to something beefier, but the stats on the PowerBooks didn’t have me convinced that I would’ve noticed too much of a performance increase. I thought I was going to be stuck with one of the desktop G5’s, but I was really hoping that I could finally find a high-performance laptop as my next desktop replacement.

I went with the $2499 model:

• 1.83Ghz Intel Core Duo
• 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2
• 15.4” Widescreen Display
• 100GB 7200 RPM HDD (upgraded from the 5400 RPM drive)
• 802.11g, Bluetooh 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, iSight, USB 2.0, Firewire 400

It’s an expensive machine, considering that I usually self-build my machines for well under $1000. I did get a slight discount on it, which basically equated to the retail price without tax. It’s my first real laptop machine (omitting a retired clunker or two that someone’s given me), though it will spend most of it’s time docked on my 20” lcd monitor at home. I am looking forward to the ability to undock it and bring some work with me.

The Mac Mini will likely become my HTPC (Home Theater PC). I’m not sure how that’ll work out, but now that you can install Apple’s Front Row on any Mac, I just need to find some way to remote control it.

Update:

I can’t wait for this thing to ship. Apple is torturing me with the mid-February ship date. Some folks are reporting that they are getting their units the week prior.

I guess the demand is pretty high. Hopefully that translates into making the demand for all the apps that I want to run on an Intel Mac equally as high, so I’ll see Universal Binaries without much delay.

BTW, this obsessing over ship date contrasts nicely with my wife’s treatment of her Nano. She got it in before she received the screen protectors, so she just left it in the box and waited patiently for two weeks. I guess that makes us a good pair, technology obsessive vs. technology calm and accepting.