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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1798
Op-Ed: Is Everyone About to Upgrade Their Computer?
By Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac
March 9th 2003
PC upgrade cycle about to begin, the analysts tip.
Broadband. BlueTooth. Wi-Fi. Movie making. DVD burning.
Do you want any of these? Do you need any of these?
If the answer is 'yes' to either of these questions, then you're in line for an
upgrade. And that's what the PC industry is counting on, says a story in the Taipei
Times.
Remember when you bought your Tangerine iBook? Or slot-load Snow iMac? Fast.
High-tech. Airport on the iBook. CDRW on the iMac. So cutting edge.
Not anymore.
Steve Jobs' digital hub vision has made it even harder for you to keep up with the
startling pace of multimedia features on modern PCs. And it's not even easy to keep up
with the Joneses.
CDRW is old news; so common, it's mundane. So is making audio CDs.
DVD burning is the latest thing, and it's spreading like fire. No matter that it's
been on Apple's desktop Power Macs for over 2 years now. It's trickled down to
consumer models now, starting with the high-end 2002 iMac, and quickly spreading to
eMac and now PowerBook. In fact, the G3-powered iBook is the only Mac left without a
DVD-R option. And even they can run an external Mercury Pro DVD-R or CaptyDVD, even
if they don't work with Apple's own iDVD.
The capacity demanded by digital video, as well as massive numbers of MP3s has led to
increased consumer demand for larger hard drives as well. 500GB hard drives can be
found on retail shelves easily, even if they're not common yet. 120GB is nothing
special. Laptop drives will expand beyond the current 60GB ceiling to 80 or 100GB in
the near future. New DVD-Rs can accept double-sided 9.4GB discs to accommodate the
need for large-scale backups, which paltry 700MB CDRWs can't handle.
All of this is serving to fuel a new upgrade cycle - so the PC industry hopes. And,
given plunging prices, buyers get more for their money. Speed, memory and drive
capacity is up, CDRWs are faster, and DVD burners are optional on many models.
And, given the processing demands of DV and DVD-burning, the computers need all this
extra power. Even some at Apple would concede, now, that the original 733MHz
SuperDrive Power Mac of 2001 is only just adequate for DVD making.
Not forgetting gaming. CPU-intensive games require muscular video cards and nVidia and
ATI constantly one-up each other in their quest to deliver more frames per second.
Voodoo cards, once the top of the video card tree, now look positively prehistoric.
The Taipei Times cites one instance of a user who's swapped his antique PowerBook
G3/400 for a DP Power Mac with a 17" LCD. The message is clear: if you want to enjoy
and author all of this new media, you're going to need a new Mac.
Owning a 400MHz PowerBook myself, I can appreciate the quandary. On the one hand, the
Lombard does virtually everything I require of it. On the other, I want - not need -
to author some DVDs. I also need - and want - to run OS X faster. So, a new PowerBook
G4 is the obvious answer.
But much as Apple would like you to, I still think you should only buy what you need
when you need it. If there's no compelling need for an upgrade, then hold off.
Besides, I'm watching and waiting to see what Apple replaces the 15" TiBook with...
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