Re: upgrading, was Power adapter

[dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar)]

Don asks

"Just out of curiosity, is it because you all need the extra few pixels and
megahertz enough to shell out, or is it one of those corporate pecking order
things (ie not your own money) where you are in a position to get the newest
thing that comes through the door and hand off your months old antique to
the next guy down the list?"

I can certainly answer for myself that it is both the screen real estate
and raw speed that are important. I do major compiler development work,
involving bootstrapping the compiler several times a day, so speed is
very important, and I prefer to work in a completely consistent physical
environment as I move around (I spend weekends away, so I am often
computing remotely). I do not want to use a separate monitor some places
and not other places, so the quality, size and resolution of the screen
are critical to productivity.

"I think I would have a tough time going to my accountant and explaining that
I bought 6 different model laptops over the course of a year at $5-7K each for
business use and sold each 2 months later for half what I paid and that it made
good business sense."

Well first of all, even if you are keeping at the cutting edge, it is more
like two or at most three a year, not six a year. Second, the questoin of
whether spending 15-20K $ to improve the productivity of person X is worth
while depends on person X! Finally we do not sell our old thinkpads, there
are other people who need a machine and do not have the same computing
requirements who can make good use out of older machines.

For most people, it is indeed nuts to buy the latest machines. You can get
spectacularly good buys in notebooks if you are willing to buy last years
model, and for most people that makes far more sense. I have helped many
people buy notebooks, and what I almost always do is to steer them to
buying brand new, older models at huge discounts. Desktop machines are
the same way, you can get GREAT buys on machines that just 18 months ago
cost five times what they are selling for new today.