It's so… depress-iat-ing
I bought my first ThinkPad notebook computer a couple of years after moving to Sydney. There was a fantastic deal in Hong Kong, and a mate and I got one of our colleagues over there to help us to secure some. It was wonderful – the machine was basically my life in a portable black slab of circuitry. It stored personal information, allowed me to play games, functioned as a portable DVD player and a whole lot more besides. My back was turned to the world of desktop computing.
However, the Geek Lust does not give up so easily. Notebooks weren’t designed to be upgradeable, and as the march of technological progress continued, I found myself with a less and less capable machine. Great games were passing me by! Then, a few years down the track, let’s just say I was very pleased to find myself in possession of a brand new top-of-the-range model (long story). But the pleasure was hollow, since with the pinnacle of anything, there is no way up, only down. Never have I felt this more accutely than when I finally decided to throw in my love of portable computing for the upgradeability of a desktop computer.
At this stage of my life, with mortgages, babies and other costs looming, one of the consolations I gave myself for splurging on a brand new desktop was that I should be able to recoup a decent amount from the sale of my notebook, which would have cost over $5,000 when I first got it (if I had to pay full price for it). However when I checked around on eBay, the prices being offered were no more than a thousand or so. That’s four-bloody-thousand dollars worth of depreciation in around 12 months! That is absolutely ridiculous. I mean, yeah technology, like cars, is a commodity that depreciates very fast, but surely not four-grand-in-a-year fast?!
Well, I guess it’s a great buyer’s market right now. My new desktop (a Dell Inspiron 530 with a 24″ widescreen monitor) was cheaper than I could have ever imagined for a machine of that calibre, and now I have the luxury of upgrading incrementally. Oh, and having a huge screen is nice, very nice…