Another Switcher

More good news today: my fiancée’s mother just bought a Mac. Chalk up another switcher. In a way, this is the result of another debate. On one side, she has a husband with a desktop PC (Acer, I think) and a daughter with a laptop, an IBM ThinkPad. On the other side, she has a daughter with a Mac and a future son-in-law with a Mac.

Over the last 2 years, we have been raving about our Macs. The biggest problem we've had is that the antenna on my internal WiFi card wasn't fully extended so I wasn't getting a good signal. I took it into the (beautiful) Apple store in Soho, New York and they fixed it on the spot. It took about 15 mins and cost zilch.

On the Wintel side, the desktop at home has been plagued by one problem after another. A few months after they booted it up, the problems started. It will turn itself on in the middle of the night, by itself. (They now shut it down and physically unplug the machine to prevent this problem.) They paid a tech guy to come in and look at it, but he couldn't find the problem. Of course, he walked away with a nice wad of cash. And then they got a virus. And then Windoze's settings got all screwed up and they couldn't find the one little box that was checked that shouldn't have been checked. Et cetera. On the laptop front, the problems continue. I don't know how many hours I have wasted trying to fix the PCs I have owned over the years. And by "fix," I also include the hours installing the countless Service Packs that Microsoft sends out, which are essentially fixes, and the time rebooting after a dreaded blue screen. (Awesome link Denise.)

There is a law school student that brings a Mac to class that is about 7 years old. Do you know anyone still using a 7 year old PC? No! Of course not. Why? Because they have built-in obsolescence. (Great story in the The Economist to back me up on this, BTW.) Wintel's growth projections depend on your computer breaking down so that you have to go buy a new one. Apple, I believe, is more interested in created a good product.

Anyhow, I'll let some other guys have the last word on this one.

What is the average lifespan of a laptop?

stnnotop 06-24-2003
The reason I ask is, I know 3-4 people who all have Dell laptop's, and they have all turned into giant piles of shit. The keyboards all have problems, the LCD sometimes doesn't work, and they run like crap. I know if htey reload the OS, it will probalby run better, but as far as hardware goes, what should you expect out of a laptop? Are dell's quality subpar, or is it inline with the rest of the industry?

juanvaldes 06-24-2003
Every single person I know who has had a Dell laptop has had some major problem with them.