The Borg Aesthetic
Went laptop shopping today.
What a freakin disappointment.
Allow me to explain:
First of all, I am in the market for a new laptop. As many people may know, my previous laptop, which I had been using up until a little over a month ago, was a 500MHz G3 iBook. This iBook got me through many a battle: college, freelance, “real” work. Sadly, it was time to retire my little buddy, which, through various circumstances, had become permanently desk-bound, housed inside of a shelled out cardboard box, because it could no longer support its own monitor nor hold a charge in its battery.
Needless to say, I was in need of an upgrade.
From almost out of nowhere, I was blessed with a very inexpensive second-hand Mac Mini, still under warranty. That’s what I’m using right now. It’s a great machine for what I do, and a dramatic improvement over what I was using.
But, while it is a great machine, it’s not a laptop — can’t take it on travels, can’t work on it in the living room couch or in bed, can’t bring it to user-group meetings and conventions, etc. Now, the logical thing would be to get a MacBook Pro, seeing as how I have no idea when Apple will release any other modern laptops (as of this writing, the MacBook Pro is the only laptop to have moved over to Intel — my other options are an iBook or Powerbook, both of which are still running on a PowerPC G4 processor, and thus don’t have the longest of shelf-lives remaining).
A MacBook Pro would be logical, and anticipated, based on my history. All of my primary machines have been Macs:
- 1997 – 1999: Centris 650, 25MHz 68040
- 1999 – 2001: Lime Green iMac, 333MHz G3
- 2001 – 2006: 2001 iBook, 500MHz G3
- 2006: Mac Mini, 1.25GHz G4
Currently, I am in possession of three other machines I use off and on: two identical generic white-box machines I use for toying around with Linux, and a Zaurus. I do have a fetish for open source software, and it is precisely that which brings me to my problem.
I love Macs, and I love OS X. I really do. But I am also a developer on an open source project that is trying to do what OS X does and more, and the more time I spend using OS X, the less time I spend using Linux and Etoile and GNUstep, and thus the less motivation I have for helping my software grow.
And this is where it comes back to laptop shopping: I am looking for a laptop that I cannot run OS X on.
This means I am looking at the Sonys and the Toshibas and the Gateways and the Lenovos and the Dells and the HP/Compaqs of the world. And looking at them is hurting my eyes. Honestly, is there no one other than Apple who designs nice-looking, high-quality machines? I’m not sure who the audience is for these computers, but by the looks of them, they’re aiming squarely for the Borg — they are the epitome of horrible faux-future: black plastic and cheap brushed metal and glossy screens and blue LEDs. They have the worst port integration I have ever seen. And the excessive icons and decals! I believe by 2008, at the latest, when you buy an HP or Toshiba, it won’t even come in a plastic case, but rather a thin varnish of logos.
Really, all this is to say is that I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed that Apple is the only competitor for my money. Their machines are comparible, cost-wise, to most everything I’ve looked at, and infinitely more attractive, and their quality ensures that they last long after the tech magazines say they’re obsolete. I’m going to keep looking, but I’m really losing hope in the other hardware vendors. Seriously, people, make some nice machines and I will shower you with cash.