I don't buy new computers very often. Once about every 2-3 years seems to be my current pattern and since just about two years have passed, I suppose I was due. So, I bought a new laptop.
Now mind you, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with my current laptop. It's just BIG. I'd noticed a few co-workers carrying around spiffy little netbooks and now that I walk to and from work each day, my 7lb laptop starts to be a bit tiresome to carry home each day. I bought it about two years ago as a 'desktop replacement'. At the time my only computer was a huge Dell XPS desktop I'd bought in about 2005 to play games. It seriously is like 3 feet tall and weighs about 30 lbs, so the laptop seemed tiny.
The biggest motivation for getting the laptop was to checkout the code I'd been working on and get it running somewhere before I left my last job. Not with the intention of doing anything nefarious, but rather I find I can't remember jack shit unless I have example code where I did it before. Most of my coding is little more than copy-pasting, I guess. I'd probably struggle to put together "Hello, world!" in Java without some code lying around.
So, I started with the idea of getting a little 10'' netbook to carry around. A few people I know even have IDEs install and seem to be able to use them. But once I started looking at the tiny-ass screen I realized my vision was nowhere near good enough for that to work for any appreciable length of time. After reading a few reviews, I settled on the HP dv2. At 12.1 inches a little shy of 4 lbs it seemed portable enough, but could be used as my primary machine.
For the money (about $550 before taxes), I don't think you can beat it. 4GB ram, 260 GB harddrive, Athlon Neo, discrete video card, 12.1 WXGA.
But then my doubts started to gnaw at me. It didn't matter that the dv2 seemed to run Vista just fine (most netbooks can't). Even Eclipse booted up pretty quickly. Still, I started to obsess that the thing was just a little too big to carry around. I needed somethign smaller. The battery life wasn't quiet long enough at 3.5 hours. I need at least 6 hours. Oh, and it ran kinda hot. I don't want a hot computer! I also read comments about how the Neo, not being a multi-core processor, would bog down with multiple apps. I wasn't sure I noticed that problem myself, but I started to think maybe I did.
So, I took the damn thing back and went to lenovo.com to configure some crazy ass 12.1 inch x200 on Lenovo for over twice the money. It has a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 160 GB SSD HD, 6+ hour battery, and is marginally smaller.
Will I really see any benefit? I doubt it. In fact, the Lenovo won't be able to play games since it doesn't have a discrete graphics card. Some people have gambling addictions or alcohol, I have this OCD thing where I have to have the best available computer possible. Nevermind the damn thing will be outdated within a week of its arrival.
Thus far, I've tried to keep this blog fairly specific to the topic of software development and this is really a bit off topic. But thinking about my goofy need to have "the best", I can't but help draw some parallels to software development. Often we can get something that pretty much does everything we need with a fairly low cost, but then we start imagining needs
"Maybe the customer will change his mind and need this extra feature."
"Oh, we need to make sure that the screen loads in 0.2s rather than 0.3s"
"Oh, what if we need to store this extra data in the table, we shoudl design it so it's completely extensible and easy to update"
And quickly the budget and timeline have exploded, when in all liklihood the customer wouldn't have really noticed the difference and will never use the extra features that required so much additional effort. Of course, solving that problem is one of the mandates of things like Scrum and XP, but even when we use them I think engineers tend, by their nature, to gold plate things. Hell, the example of my laptop purchase shows how much even I can be driven by "emotion" rather than real logic.
I guess I should start saving now for my next computer. Two years isn't a very long time.
Now mind you, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with my current laptop. It's just BIG. I'd noticed a few co-workers carrying around spiffy little netbooks and now that I walk to and from work each day, my 7lb laptop starts to be a bit tiresome to carry home each day. I bought it about two years ago as a 'desktop replacement'. At the time my only computer was a huge Dell XPS desktop I'd bought in about 2005 to play games. It seriously is like 3 feet tall and weighs about 30 lbs, so the laptop seemed tiny.
The biggest motivation for getting the laptop was to checkout the code I'd been working on and get it running somewhere before I left my last job. Not with the intention of doing anything nefarious, but rather I find I can't remember jack shit unless I have example code where I did it before. Most of my coding is little more than copy-pasting, I guess. I'd probably struggle to put together "Hello, world!" in Java without some code lying around.
So, I started with the idea of getting a little 10'' netbook to carry around. A few people I know even have IDEs install and seem to be able to use them. But once I started looking at the tiny-ass screen I realized my vision was nowhere near good enough for that to work for any appreciable length of time. After reading a few reviews, I settled on the HP dv2. At 12.1 inches a little shy of 4 lbs it seemed portable enough, but could be used as my primary machine.
For the money (about $550 before taxes), I don't think you can beat it. 4GB ram, 260 GB harddrive, Athlon Neo, discrete video card, 12.1 WXGA.
But then my doubts started to gnaw at me. It didn't matter that the dv2 seemed to run Vista just fine (most netbooks can't). Even Eclipse booted up pretty quickly. Still, I started to obsess that the thing was just a little too big to carry around. I needed somethign smaller. The battery life wasn't quiet long enough at 3.5 hours. I need at least 6 hours. Oh, and it ran kinda hot. I don't want a hot computer! I also read comments about how the Neo, not being a multi-core processor, would bog down with multiple apps. I wasn't sure I noticed that problem myself, but I started to think maybe I did.
So, I took the damn thing back and went to lenovo.com to configure some crazy ass 12.1 inch x200 on Lenovo for over twice the money. It has a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 160 GB SSD HD, 6+ hour battery, and is marginally smaller.
Will I really see any benefit? I doubt it. In fact, the Lenovo won't be able to play games since it doesn't have a discrete graphics card. Some people have gambling addictions or alcohol, I have this OCD thing where I have to have the best available computer possible. Nevermind the damn thing will be outdated within a week of its arrival.
Thus far, I've tried to keep this blog fairly specific to the topic of software development and this is really a bit off topic. But thinking about my goofy need to have "the best", I can't but help draw some parallels to software development. Often we can get something that pretty much does everything we need with a fairly low cost, but then we start imagining needs
"Maybe the customer will change his mind and need this extra feature."
"Oh, we need to make sure that the screen loads in 0.2s rather than 0.3s"
"Oh, what if we need to store this extra data in the table, we shoudl design it so it's completely extensible and easy to update"
And quickly the budget and timeline have exploded, when in all liklihood the customer wouldn't have really noticed the difference and will never use the extra features that required so much additional effort. Of course, solving that problem is one of the mandates of things like Scrum and XP, but even when we use them I think engineers tend, by their nature, to gold plate things. Hell, the example of my laptop purchase shows how much even I can be driven by "emotion" rather than real logic.
I guess I should start saving now for my next computer. Two years isn't a very long time.
8 comments:
I know the feeling, I have to have "the best" everything as well. After a while, though, you have to realize that "really good" may be good enough.
I recently purchased an Asus EeePC with a 10" screen, a 6-hour battery, upgraded 2 gigs of RAM, multi-touch track pad, 802.11n, USB, etc., and I bought an external Asus DVD writer to go along with it. Other than a somewhat slow hard drive (which I think is failing), it's a pretty sweet little laptop. I may get an SSD drive for it to really speed things up, but it does what I need.
Yeah, totally agree.
Scott has the Asus eee and it seems pretty solid. A 10.1 inch screen is just too small for me to dev on, though. The dv2 was probably just fine, however, with it's slightly larger screen. The problem was that my compulsive behaviors derailed doing 'the sensible thing' (tm).
I got the Acer Aspire One and the 10" screen is no where near big enough for porn... I'm just sayin'...
So, what you're saying Matt, is that if you're like Jeremy and have a penchant for dwarf porn, the Acer should do the job just fine!
What I really like is that, unlike my Uber Lenovo work laptop, my Eee PC hooks up to my TV and lets me stream movies (Netflix, etc.) in wide screen without any aspect ratio issues. It's just powerful enough to do so smoothly, and by plugging in the audio into my receiver, I even get (2.0) surround sound. Granted, it's a far cry from my BluRay player, but for a $400 laptop it's pretty amazing.
As for porn... well... I guess a 10.1" screen makes for faster cleanup.
Yeah, that was the one of a few nice things about the dv2. It had HDMI out. That plus the discrete graphics card were quite cool.
The x200 I'm getting (not sure if that's the Lenovo you have) has neither. On the other hand, it's only marginally smaller (and about the same weight) as the eee.
I just can't win.
I WISH I had that Lenovo. I have the T400 with the extended battery, which means the laptop is huge AND has a big-ass battery sticking out the back. It weighs a ton and barely fits in my backpack. Thank you <insert my company name here>.
I think my EeePC's hard drive is dying, as it makes some screeching noises now and again. So, I smell an SSD in the near future.
I think your laptop will be pretty badass, don't worry too much about it man. I have the same "must have the best" OCD as you. You should see the TV and accompanying surround sound system I bought last year because of it. This illness is very rough on the wallet.
I think at some point you just have to realize that you can't buy happiness. And perhaps you're not shopping for happiness, just personal satisfaction and knowing that you have something great. Still, as I said before, "really good" is sometimes good enough.
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