I ordered my new computer today, since my G4 733 has been feeling its age for a while now—or more accurately, I have been feeling its age. The slow, stuttering-music-playback-inducing app launching and switching has been thrown into sharp relief by my new iMac at work, as has the volume of the fans. Finally, I snapped.
I had been planning to wait for an Intel-based tower, since I've always been an easy-upgrade, separate-tower-and-monitor kind of guy. After all, it's far better to be able to upgrade your monitor or your CPU separately, right? And a tower is just way more expandable than an all-in one. So clearly, buying an iMac isn't the right choice for me.
Only... it doesn't really matter. I've owned 4 computers, not counting the one I just ordered, and I've never upgraded just the monitor or the CPU. Sure, there was a laptop in there to foul things up, but I wouldn't have stayed with a CRT when I got my G4 anyway, and in the five years I've had that I never could justify a new monitor to myself. And component upgrades? It's a nice thought, but mostly I just add memory. Being able to add a wireless card to the G4 was nice, but I never really needed it. The CD -> DVD upgrade was necessary for Tiger, but that was after the machine was already 4+ years old. So while it sounds nice, it's really not that big a deal for me after all.
“But surely,” I said, “I couldn't be happy with an iMac. I'm a Power User™, right?”
Right?
As it turns out: not so much. The most strenuous thing I do regularly with my computer is work with my digital photos. I use the internet and iApps, and that's most of what I need. Sure I play some games, but only a tiny fraction of what I used to—I don't play the kind of games that push the envelope of computing power. Diablo II is the most taxing game I have, and I can play that on my G4. Heck, I could play it on my old G3 laptop. It's not exactly cutting edge. And sure, I do a few super-geeky things still, but mostly that's scripting and web development. It only takes so much horsepower to run a text editor—especially when your text editor is vi. Yes, I do some programming that involves compiling, but not so much I need the kind of raw power a higher-end beast like the Quad G5 offers.
So here it is: Hi, I'm Stuart, and I'm not as much of a geek as I thought.
Category: Life
Subscribe