A little over a year ago I had the opportunity to play around with ’s Mac Mini, and loved how it seamlessly integrated with so many devices. I’ve come to accept over the years that while Apple’s products may be a little more expensive, you are also buying a package of components specifically designed to work with each other. My desktop PC, which I built myself back in 2002, has a mishmash of parts from manufacturers that I’ve never even heard of. Forget downloading a driver to make that old hardware run on the latest version of Windows!
And then, Apple went Intel. I knew that if I was going to buy one of these new Intel-based Macs, I would want to make sure it had been out on the market, had been fully vetted by those claiming Mac-guru status, and had the proverbial “kinks” worked out. From the reading I have done over the past year, there were definitely many rough patches, especially in terms of backwards compatibility with older applications. However, my IBM ThinkPad (some call them “craptops” or “StinkPads”) has no remaining battery life, and recently the DVD/CD-RW combo drive went kaput.
I decided to include Apple’s MacBook line as part of my search for a new laptop. The sweet deal known as “IBM’s Employee, Friends, and Family Discount,” which allowed savings of up to 20% off new IBM hardware just by knowing someone at the company, seems now to limited only to used/refurbished equipment. I knew that a consumer-oriented model from Best Buy was just not going to cut it in terms of durability. Price isn’t the problem, I’m looking for good value. Summer is apparently a perfect time to shop Apple, because they offer some sweet back-to-school deals.
All told, I bought a new Apple MacBook Pro 2.16GHz at a reasonable education-discounted price (I had Erin, a college senior this year, buy it in her name with her student ID), along with an academic version of Microsoft Office (which, coincidentally, is the first time I’ve actually ever paid for any Microsoft software, before that there was always ResNet with Phynd), and a new 30GB iPod (which came not only with a discount, but a huge rebate). I now have most of my files moved over, and so far so good!