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I’m typically an early adopter on things: hardware, operating systems, software, you name it. I’ve run beta software on alpha OS’s, on overclocked machines. The total lack of stability adds an element of excitement to an otherwise average day on the computer. But I have been getting mature and reasonable earlier this year when I made the claim I wanted nothing to do with the first generation of Intel machines from Apple.

But that was then.

Now I’m jonesing for a new machine. My venerable Quicksilver Dual 800mhz G4 seems to be getting slower and slower by the day. I’m sure it isn’t actually, but it’s a question of perception now. But I just can’t make my mind up about my options. I don’t want a machine I might regret soon after (mac mini), I don’t want to invest in hardware that doesn’t run my favorite apps (Intel macs), and I don’t want to pay top dollar for yesterday’s hardware (PowerPC).

Mac mini Intel Duo

I like this option a lot, for the simplicity of it. I’ve always had large, noisy machines that tend to cost around $2000 a pop. I max them out with ram, load them up with drives. etc. I once stuffed 6 drives in my Quicksilver and had to tape one drive to the top of the CD drive. It might be nice to give that all up and just have a small machine that I could replace every couple of years, instead of feeling like I have to keep a box for 4 years because of the up-front expense. A tricked out mini Duo runs $899 with a ram upgrade.

Dual G5 Desktop

While I like the simplicity of the Mac mini, I don’t like the idea of running all my Adobe/Macromedia apps through Rosetta transcoding for the next 9 months or so. I’ve heard it’s pretty quick, and it’s likely the speed of the chips make up for it. But still. It’s not going to be much of a leap in speed using emulated software. And while my iTunes library could use the speed, I spend a lot of time in Fireworks, Dreamweaver, and Flash. I’ve seen dual G5′s between $1499 and $2799.

Powerbook G4

If I’m thinking of going with a simpler setup and stay on PPC architecture, it might be fun to go with a tricked out Powerbook G4. The 15″ is the perfect size, or a 17″ hooked up to my 20″ display could provide oceans of screen estate. But that’s a pricey route – between $1599 and $1999.

MacBook Pro

And if I’m considering a laptop, there’s always the option of going Intel. I would feel a little silly paying top dollar for yesterday’s hardware. So if I was to get a portable, it would likely make more sense to get a newer model. But once again, not cheap – between $1999 and $2499.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 at 10:46 pm and is filed under Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.