I was recently forced to make some major upgrades to to my gear. I had two minor catastrophes befall me almost at the same time. First, my laptop died. I’m not sure what caused it but I suspect that it was turning it on before it was up to proper operating temperature. I had it in winter storage while moving. It will run for a while, but I reliably get the “you are fucked in every language” screen. It was a Power Book G4, so it was like a great, great grandpappy to the MacBook Pro now available. It was not really an unexpected loss at that age.
To replace my old laptop which wasn’t even fast enough to run YouTube videos anymore, I bought the 11″ MacBook Air. I am pretty happy with it. The only thing that I can even complain about is the shiny screen. I’ve never been a fan of the shiny; it makes your screen a mirror with ambient lighting. Also, battery life is no where near the 9 hours Apple boast. I’m running just Safari now and I am at half a tank just from writing this post.
Next , there was a power outage that claimed my 23″ Apple Cinema Display despite having it plugged in to a surge protector. The monitor just never powered back up after the electricity came back. I can’t exactly tell if it was the 200 pound adapter I had to use to convert to the signal or the monitor itself that actually broke, but because the monitor was so old, I didn’t have any other device to test it with. Once again, this was an old piece of equipment and not really an unexpected loss.
One of the reasons that I kept this monitor so long was because I wasn’t a fan of the alternative monitors out there. The aluminum Cinema Display was pretty good, but Apple discontinued it before I got a chance to buy it. The new Apple lineup is a lineup of one monitor. I remember when there was three options, but the 27″ Cinema Display is all they have in terms of a lineup these days. It only comes in shiny screen. The MacBook Pro has a matte finish option, but no such luck with the so called lineup. Despite the limited options, I am a Mac dick at heart and I had to buy Apple. So, I bought the Cinema Display and I am overall happy with it. The shiny screen took a while to get used to but if you keep your room lighting a certain way, it is not too noticeable. I think the MacBook Air screen kind of prepared me for the shiny on this thing. The other thing is the cord is way too short. I had to move my computer closer to the monitor to plug it in. On the pro side, the monitor has three USB 2 ports, an awesome iSight camera that works with Skype zero config and internal speakers if you don’t have speakers already. It even has a MagSafe plug if you want to plug in and charge your laptop. That’s if the cord will reach. I guess you just got to take the good with the bad.
Overall, I am think I have some good products that will last me just as long as my retired Apple products.