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…