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At 06:49 PM 12/31/97 -0500, Geovanny M. Ortiz wrote: >All these numbers are too technical for me. My question is: Is it worth >the money for the upgrade? Well, this is difficult for me to answer. I had wanted to just let the numbers speak for themselves and not render an opinion, but if forced, I'll editorialize a bit. In a nutshell, I don't think so--at least for me. I had a 486-75 MHz, so this upgrade boosted it to something about the same as a 486-100 MHz. Overall speed increase in typical applications...I'd say about 20%. For me, that's just not significant enough. For me, I require at *least* a 75% speed increase--preferably a 100% increase (at or near doubling) before I think its worth considering an upgrade. For me, in laptops I went from a Sharp 386SX-20, to a ThinkPad 750 (486SL-33), to a TP 701 (486-75--but I have to say that the smaller form factor of the 701 made the less-than-stellar performance increase less of an important factor), to finally a TP 560 (Pentium 120). In every case, that was a speed increase of about 2x or better (a little less in the case of the 701 acquisition over the 750). That's just something I require before I spend money on a new machine. Now an upgrade may be something different for you than it is for me. I always very much liked the 701--so much so that I rather missed it when I moved to a 560 (I gave the 701 to my wife, so it was still around), but I got over it without too much pain. For you, your 701 may be so near and dear to you that you can't imagine leaving it for another computer. ;-) If so, by all means--consider whether a 20% increase in speed is worth it to you to pay for the upgrade (or maybe even a greater increase--keep in mind I was upgrading a 486-75--many of you hav 486-50's out there that would see a considerably greater speed increase of 40% to 50% instead of my mere 20%). So would I have paid for this upgrade? No--not unless the price was somewhat nominal. 20% speed increase just doesn't do it for me. I barely notice it the difference. But that doesn't mean it isn't it worth it to you or to someone else that has different things that are important to them. For me, I've grown to really like my 560. Its thinner form factor has actually become preferable to me over the 701's smaller, but thicker form factor. I no longer pine for my 701. But for those of you who can't get over that, by all means--this upgrade is one way in which you might be able to justify stretching another year or two of use out of it. One final note: PEP appears to be a very different outfit than they were a year or two ago when they annoyed us all with their blatant advertising on the list. Their new salesman, Leonard, has been most helpful in allowing us to do this and upgrading my machine free of charge so I could do the benchmarks and report to the list about the results. And when this question about "OK, cut through the numbers crap--was the upgrade worth it?" was posed, my first reaction was, "Well, I don't want to bias the results with my opinion--just let the numbers speak for themselves." I wrote Leonard and told him what my truthful opinion was--which you see in my note above. I didn't want to convey that to the list because it seemed ungrateful to all they had given us to do this. Leonard's reaction? "Tell them the truth." Now if you ask me, that's integrity--because he knew the truth was less than flattering to their upgrade product. The previous sales guy who used to infect our TP list used to tout claims of "Pentium-level performance" (and we now know that claim is a pile of manure). If that integrity is any indication of how things have changed at PEP, I'd have to re-think my prior negative impression of them. No agenda--just honesty. I was surprised and relieved because I really felt a conflict in providing these results. I was determined to remain unbiased and honest--and I was. the numbers you see in the benchmarks are the gosh-awful truth and are not monkeyed with. My personal opinion was that this upgrade was no big improvement. But having said that, I think you should examine the performance difference and see if its worth it to *you*, rather than simply echoing what I had to say. ------- Randal J. Whittle whittle@usc.edu (213) 740-7775 Director, Electronic Commerce Program Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California