Why I Bought a G5 (Saturday)

posted on october 27, 2003, tag: tech

Okay, let me start off by acknowledging the irony of writing a post entitled "Why I Can't Buy a G5 (Yet)" and then buying a G5 a day later. I know. It will be hard to convince you of this now, I'm sure, but I am not some out-of-control crazy person who cannot stop spending money. I promise. Yes, I know, I bought three Apple computers in a year. There are good reasons, which I'll share with you now.

The Cycle

Like anything technology related, when you buy a computer, you always assume the risk of future innovation. By that I mean buying a computer today for $1,500.00, which is near top-of-the-line (hereafter referred to as TOTL), could easily be rendered outdated and old (and expensive) in a short period of time. Nearly everyone knows this. I call this "the cycle."

The cycle is as such: technology moves in a never-ending path toward Back to the Future, Part II, Minority Report and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Along that path is your computer. In front of it are countless more, each one faster and (probably) cheaper than yours. Behind it lies 20 years of computers, each one slower and more expensive. But don't think of the line as a simple row of computers, think of it as groups of computers, organized by technology milestone. For instance, Pentium II computers would be grouped together. Power Mac G4 machines as well.

When you think of computers that way, a pattern emerges. Learning from that pattern, you can devise two coping strategies:

1. Continue buying non-TOTL machines every time the speed increase is "noticeable" (meaning day-to-day use is noticeably faster).

This will keep your computer up-to-date technology-wise, but will cost you quite a bit of money (trust me, I know). This strategy is like moving forward on the technology line, but only within each major group. An example would be buying a 733MHz G4, then a 1GHz G4. While the speed difference is great, the jump is not very large, so to stay up to date, other small jumps will have to be made in the future. And, at the rate technology evolves, you might have to start jumping every few months.

2. Purchase a "leaps-and-bounds" machine.

This is where you beat the cycle, at least for an extended period of time. Instead of moving up the line inter-group, you completely skip to the front of the line and purchase the latest technology and speed. This is especially effective when said machine is a leap-and-bound ahead of its predecessor (enter the Power Mac G5). While this isn't a permanent end to the cycle (there is no end, obviously), this will put you in a pretty great position for a comfortable amount of time (comfortable being, at this point, about 3 years).

So, why did I buy three Apple computers in one year? Because I started my cycle with Apple products using the first strategy.

The iBook

I bought the 12" 700MHz G3 iBook last November (5, to be exact). At the time, the iBook was the cheapest non-iMac option to break into the Apple world. And I wanted in very badly.

In the beginning, the 'Book was a plaything, but it very quickly became the computer I preferred to work on—even though I had built a P4 2.26GHz machine just a few months before.

When I moved to Brooklyn, the iBook became even more important, since we couldn't get high-speed Internet access in our apartment and my PC didn't have a modem (I eventually bought an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station with a built-in modem). I stopped using my PC completely. The iBook was all I needed. Well, until part of what I needed was to use Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver MX and BBEdit at the same time. Or until I started developing xPad. Then the iBook started to show me why it was an inexpensive laptop.

The G3 processor just wasn't enough. Luckily for me, Apple released the all-new 12" PowerBook 867MHz G4. It was basically the iBook but faster, lighter and prettier. And it had some other goodies too (like Bluetooth). So, I decided to sell the iBook and buy the PowerBook. I received the machine mid-March.

The PowerBook

What a beautiful little machine. Aluminum casing, light, fast, great screen and keyboard too. I've used the PB as my primary computer for the last seven months. It sat on a Griffin Technology iCurve stand next to my old Samsung 17" CRT monitor, where it spanned displays. I had an Apple Pro keyboard and an optical mouse, an iSight, the iPod, and the PowerMate all connected to it. If you didn't know better, upon quick glance, it looked like a desktop computer with two small monitors. And that's how I treated it.

Sure, from time to time I would unplug everything and take the PowerBook into the living room to surf the Internet while I watched TV, but other than that, I never used the portability of the machine. It was never really a laptop to me. Either was the iBook, really. I bought laptops because they were cheaper than the desktop options, and I wanted the fastest machine I could get with limited funds.

So why did I buy the G5 then? I'll tell you.

The Apple Cinema Display

Remember in the ironic post previous to this one, how I mentioned I was going to buy an Apple Cinema Display? Well, I did on Friday night (at the Panther event). In fact, I was about to take it out of the store when I suddenly realized that my 12" PowerBook needed an adapter to go from its mini-VGA port to the... uh-oh. Yes, that's right—my 12" PowerBook had the same bastard mini-VGA port as my 12" iBook. Which meant, sadly, that the ACD would not work (the new, 2nd generation of 12" PBs have an ADC port on them). I returned the Cinema Display and left the store, disappointed and depressed.

Then it hit me—the reason I was willing to wait on the G5 was that display. The PowerBook was fast (not as fast as I would have liked, but fast enough), but the display was tiny. And spanning the display to my CRT monitor was helping, but not much since it was an old cruddy monitor only capable of doing 1024x768 at 85Hz. Multi-tasking between large applications was difficult, because of the small screen space. The Cinema Display would have solved that problem, and would have made using the PowerBook much better. Once I found out that wasn't an option, the outlook of using my PowerBook with its limited screen space was quite depressing.

A decision had to be made. I could continue to use the PowerBook, limited, until I decided to buy a G5, or I could take advantage of the Panther event to get 10% off the G5 and ACD, and sell the PowerBook. After all, what I really wanted was a really great desktop machine. Actually, that's what I wanted from the very beginning—but now I had the opportunity to buy a leaps-and-bounds machine (and with a good discount).

The Decision

So I did. I made the decision at 11:15PM on Friday night, 45 minutes from the Apple store's closing time and the end of the 10% discount. Oh, and I was in my apartment in Brooklyn when I made the decision. Double-trouble. So I raced to SoHo and made it with 10 minutes to spare, which would have been great if my check card didn't have a daily purchase limit of $2,000 that couldn't be raised between the hours of 10PM and 4AM nightly.

I spoke to the manager, who was very understanding, and he extended the 10% discount for me until the next day. I went home, exhausted, and couldn't sleep. The next day I got my limit raised with my bank, and headed to the Apple store. 20 minutes later, I was waiting for a hired car at the corner of Prince and Green with the Power Mac G5 and a 20" Apple Cinema Display. 20 minutes after that, I was heaving the boxes up two flights of stairs to my apartment.

The Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5

Absolutely fantastic. There's really no way to describe the Power Mac G5 accurately. The easy way is to say it's huge, heavy, smooth, amazingly designed both inside and out and faster than God. And I only have the factory installed 512MB of RAM right now. I can't imagine how it could get any better, but we'll see in a month or two when I drop in another 2GB of RAM. The combination of the G5 and Panther is insanely fast. Exposé is not only the greatest new feature of an operating system in the last 10 years, but looks great even when you have 20 windows open. Its animation is smooth and fluid, and the feature is already part of my natural use routine.

I was also surprised by how quiet the G5 is. For all that power and speed (and size), the G5 is much, much quieter than my P4 tower. Sans the hard drive access sound, it's almost completely silent 99% of the time. The addition of front ports is great (especially for headphone access), and I'm now a proud owner of my first SuperDrive (DVD-R/CDRW). One of my new goals in the near future is to borrow shawnmorrisons DV camera and take all my college films from the box of tapes and make DVDs. "What am I getting you for Christmas? Oh, a copy of some of my college films on DVD." Sure, people will be insulted, but it might be fun?

Long Story Short (or even longer)

Yes, I bought three Apple computers in one year. I know, I know. But I'm selling two of them. The G5 is all I need. I've escaped the cycle for a long time to come, and I'm extremely pleased with this machine (and monitor). In fact, you could say I'm ecstatic. Pictures are forthcoming.

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