They used to be beige, now they’re black. All the ports were in back, now some are in front. And by my reckoning, they are still the best ‘bang for the buck,’ in terms of the fastest chip, most memory etc. you can get for a sub-$1,000 price.
I speak of the lowly desktop computer, which if you step into any tech-related store now, like Staples (a personal favorite), you know has quickly become the Rodney Dangerfield no-respect former star of the computing world, now far more attracted to tablets and smartphones and big-for-pocket hybrid “phablets” and desktop all-in-one big-screen wonders.
So it’s with mixed emotions that I am replacing, at a fairly average point, my 3.5-year-old, almost-Windows 7 when I bought it (free upgrade when it came out a month or so later) HP desktop with a Lenovo (have one at work, all-in-one that is, and like it a lot) Intel latest (but not greatest, who can afford that?) Intel Core I5 speedier roomier (huh? A terabyte? I still have 450 of my 600-gig HD free anyway!) black box tower.
To find the formerly starring tower boxes at our friendly neighborhood Staples, look down – below the latest Windows 8 still-too-pricey touchscreen all-in-ones (that have cheaper chips, less memory etc.) — they have at most three black boxes on display, and they are … close to the floor. In fact, the Lenovo H430 I’m getting got primarily nice reviews at their and Best Buy’s site by purchasers – no actual ‘reviews’ out there in Webland, I’ve looked – that’s OK, the trusty PC I’m saying farewell to got bleh reviews in 2009.
I spend so much time kicking out the news in my home office, my wife and I have come to refer to it as the Vortex – a time-suck of the first degree. Escaping it takes some doing.
But things are changing. A lot fewer programs need to move from old PC to new these days, since so much work goes on via browsers, in ‘the cloud,’ as opposed to discrete programs on the PC. Data, sure – when your phone is a good camera, the amount of images grows.
So the computer I got because the power button broke on my last PC – seriously — is one of the first to go when it’s still trundling along. I’ll at least recycle it, though it’d be nice to find someone who wants to make use of it after the hard drive is wiped clean. I bet it’d have a few years of good use left in it.
It’s done me well, and I believe the new one will as well. They are just a tool, but for someone like me, oh so important. I don’t name them or anything. But they connect me the world, in ways unimaginable a few years or decades ago.
Which reminds me – does it ever feel really, really weird to say that we’re in 2013? I mean, shouldn’t we have our Jetson cars-that-fold-into-briefcases by now? And when you can work anywhere at any time, how hard is it for you to stop working? As for me… don’t ask;-)
Leave it to Barney 