Apple Power

Last week the dockable DVD/CD-RW combo drive in my laptop suddenly ejected itself, flew two metres through the air and went bang in the floor. Miraculously, it looked undamaged and I re-attached it to the computer. The light in the front blinked like it was supposed to and the drive appeared in Windows Explorer, so I figured everything was OK.

Wrong.

A couple of days ago I was going burn a CD with some network drivers - I’m still trying to salvage the remains of the living room computer I was going to “fix” - but the drive refused to spin up, meaning that it had gone FUBAR after all. So I had to order a new one, something that’s not a terrible hassle, but still a unforeseen expense and no one likes that. So, I thought that if I were to spend $150 on a new CD drive, I might as well go wild and buy myself a new computer. My trusty Dell is about two years old now, and it’s starting to lag behind.

And I want an Apple. Give the man a PowerBook G4! At least it was a good idea until I checked the price. Those things are fucking expensive! I can get a pretty hard-core laptop from Dell for the price of a 15-inch PowerBook. I was able to put together a PC with far better specs than the PowerBook, and it cost me $300 less. So I won’t be buying a computer from Apple any time soon.

Actually, I won’t be buying a new computer at all, instead I ordered a replacement drive from Dell. My current model should last for another year or so. I can’t play Half-Life 2 on it, but I’ll survive. The Xbox covers all my gaming needs at the moment.

Another gadget I’m really keen on is the Creative Zen Micro. It’s a bit smaller than the iPod Mini, maybe not as cool when it comes to design, but it has a larger hard drive, better battery life and it’s actually cheaper. I bought a new MP3 player about a year ago, a Jens of Sweden, and I’m very pleased with that one, but 256MB is a bit limited. My only concern is if I can jog with the Micro or not. After all, a hard drive means moving parts.


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