photo credit: dougbelshaw
If this post on Macrumours is true, I am pleased. I’m due a phone upgrade at the minute and naturally want to upgrade my original 2G iPhone to the new 3GS. All these reports of discolouration and overheating are really putting me off at the moment. Of coarse now I’ve just read about a new complaint, crappy battery life </sigh>.
I’m thinking maybe I should wait a bit for these things to sort themselves out. I don’t want to play early adopter Russian Roulette. What do you think? Is it worth listening to these rumors or are these kinds of reports inevitable when a new high profile piece of kit is released?
photo credit: Sister72
Apple don’t half know how to build hype around their product launches. For the past few days rumour and hearsay have permeated through the blogosphere about what Apple were goi to announce today in their notebook conference. It turns out that much of what I have read has come true. It all looked so promising this morning, I was hoping for more though…I was disappointed.
The thing is their isn’t much of leap forward in terms of the machine’s specification. They look nice, the new manufacturing process and aluminium cases will hopefully improve some of quality issues I’ve experienced with previous models, cracks in the plastic cased models and bends in the aluminium ones.
The Multitouch trackpad sounds nice, but is it really that useful. Will software developers take advantage of this when you consider the small install base, I don’t think so. Also, it’s made of glass! Why? I guess it will look good but it’s not really a killer feature for me.
Battery life is claimed to be improved, but I hardly ever spend more than a couple of hours away from a power point. When I do I certainly don’t have my laptop with me so that’s another bonus that doesn’t mean anything to me.
The one area that tempts me is the graphics. Dropping the Intel chipset in the MacBook and sticking SLI in the MacBook Pro is almost enough for me. I use my laptop for occasional game and I also mess around with OpenGL programming. The features of the GeForce 9000 range would be quite an improvement over my Inspiron’s 7900 graphics. That said, any serious games playing is done on the XBox or Playstation and I can generally get buy with what I’ve got on the 7900 for OpenGL.
Of coarse the final factor that prevents me from upgrading is the cost. I’m not interested in anything with less than a 17inch display so the MacBook is out, which just leaves the MacBook Pro. Base price of the unit £1949, that’s some serious cash, something like that is going to need insurance, which is extra cost of coarse. Oh yeah, then I need to buy another copy of Windows Vista, which isn’t cheap either. With extras I guess it’s looking at around £2500. Forget it.
Doesn’t look like I’ll be upgrading my laptop this year. The old Dell Inspiron 9400 is an unwieldy beast, but it performance well, especially with top of the range display. Sorry Mr Jobs, the only way you’re going to get any cash out of me is through the iTunes Store.
Apple, Gadgets | Matt | 
July 5, 2009 8:26 pm | 
Comments (1) 
