A long time ago, in a land far away (actually, here), she who must be obeyed needed a laptop for her MBA course. So we went out and bought a Sony Vaio with Windoze Vista installed. It sucked. Couldn’t print from it, couldn’t get any work done due to the constant interruptions from the OS (“you have moved the mouse, are you sure you want to do that?”) and the overall impression was of bloatware.
So I went out and bought her a Macbook. Never had a Mac before, but people I respected were full of praise. While she was waiting to sell the Vaio, I played with the Macbook and decided I liked it so much she wasn’t going to have it, so I had to go out and buy another Macbook for her. Suddenly we were a two Mac household and converts to the cause.
I discovered that my humble Macbook could process photos seven times faster than my theoretically more powerful XP PC. So when Apple announced a new range of iMacs a few months later, I went straight down to the shop and negotiated a discount on an “old” model.
And for the past year or so I have enjoyed my relationship with my 24" iMac. The screen is lovely and it handles almost anything you throw at it, although it can slow down a little if you have too many heavy applications running. Seeing Nik’s Mac Pro last year convinced me that one day I would own one too, but I would wait for the new model to be released in 2009.
The new model duly came last week, stuffed with Nehalem processors, but at a price that did not represent the value of the old model. So I did the same trick again. Called up iStudio and asked for deal on the old model; and what they offered me was an ex-demo machine for 30% off list price. Deal!
Off to Bangkok with Nik yesterday and we picked it up. Perfect condition apart from some dust, and they even gave me a brand new keyboard and mouse. With the money I have saved I am going to boost the memory to 10GB and stuff in the new 4870 graphics card.
It really is a gorgeous piece of engineering.
18 kilos of aluminium, stuffed with elegant design details. Two four core CPUs which must generate significant heat, but it remains whisper quiet as 23 temperature sensors control various fans which keep the beast cool. Actually it is rather intimidating. It’s sitting next to me now, all arrogant and superior. “So you are running Lightroom and Photoshop and Dreamweaver and Final Cut Express and Safari and a Word Processor. Not exactly taxing me are you? Give me some real work to do!”
Only downside is the monitor. I picked up a not inexpensive Samsung 25" monitor, just so I could see what the Mac Pro was up to. It’s crap. Horribly inconsistent TN panel, so inferior to the iMac. Sadly the current Apple monitor lineup is screwed up due to stupid changes in video plugs which means the latest monitor can only be used with the latest laptops. Duh. Things will be resolved in a month or so, meantime I will have to tolerate the Samsung junk offering. (SyncMaster 2693HM. Avoid).
But Spike, surely a Mac Pro is more than you need? Of course it is, which means it will as much as I need for several years to come. And being a workstation with server grade components, it should run trouble free for as long as I want to use it. Techno-bliss.