Pondering My Real Portable Computing Power Needs And Hardware Upgrade Choices – The ‘Book Mystique

I like to have the sense that I’m getting actual use from power I’m paying for, which is one reason (other than budgetary realism) that I’ve more often than not gone with low end rather than cutting-edge high performance computer hardware. My computing power needs are relatively modest, and coughing up the price of a 15 inch or 17 inch MacBook Pro with dual graphics processor units and the latest, fastest mobile CPUs, while all of that would be nice to have, would also be overkill for my actual computing requirements.

For middling power-users like me, buying high-end laptop hardware is analogous to buying a Ferrari or Lamborghini supercar capable of 200 mph as a daily driver for commuting to work in. Another automobile analogy would be that of a friend of mine in Bermuda, where my better half hails from, who bought a Mitsubishi turbo, even though the highway speed limit in Bermuda is 35 km/h (20 mph). I don’t get it. If I lived there, I’d have a small vehicle that emphasized excellent fuel mileage, preferably equipped with a two–cylinder engine like the TwinAir mill in the very cool new European-spec. Fiat 500 (Cinquecento)
that sports innovative electro-hydraulic variable valve actuation.

I’m also thinking that these days the power-overkill provided by most full–featured personal computers -– both laptop and desktop -– well be a major factor driving the phenomenal market success of the iPad, and before that the short-lived PC netbook fad. It’s evidently dawned on a lot of users, both consumer and professional, that a small, handy, modestly–powered computer is not only adequate for their needs, but actually a better choice of device in practical terms for a whole concatenation of reasons, such as lower price, longer battery life, cool quiet running, easy, comfortable portability, and so forth.

Anyway, excess power is not an issue with the two almost 11–year–old Pismo PowerBooks that I use more or less for the same sort of routine Web stuff many folks are doing with tablets and netbooks these days. The advantages of the ancient Pismos are that they are really, really nice computers to interface with, run a reasonably up-to-date version of OS X (10.4) and a full slate of real desktop production applications, support full PC control and editing conventions, and are fully depreciated so their cost has been well amortized by many years of faithful service.

My two-machine Pismo fleet (plus a non-functional parts mule) consists of my home and office utility general dogsbody machine, with the other somewhat more swishly fitted out unit that serves as my road laptop. This combo, working in tandem with my main production 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo unibody MacBook, has worked well for me for the past several years. It was particularly satisfactory when both Pismos had pretty much the same specification configuration – 550 MHz G4 processors, 8X DVD–burning SuperDrive optical drives, and 1 GB of RAM. Unfortunately, over the past six months or so the utility machine has been showing signs of use fatigue and faltering from its former anvil–like dependability. There was a refusal to wake from sleep issue combined with sporadic black screen booting that I eventually traced to a bad 512 MB RAM module.

I substituted a 256 MB module, which reduced the total system memory to 768 MB, and was astonished at how much of a performance hit resulted from that. The other Pismo, purring along with 1 GB of RAM and a 100 GB Seagate 4200 RPM hard drive, is still a quiet, smooth and elegant performer, but the older unit, which admittedly has a gazillion hours on it, has been struggling, especially at running up-to-date Web browsers, of which I keep a minimum of three on the go to support my workflow.

Last week, this all came to a head with an unexpected wireless broadband outage that had me back on dial-up Internet access. For five days of no broadband, the old Pismo increasingly wanted a restart to clear its oversubscribed memory heap, but I kept putting that off because it would take so long over dialup to reload my open webpages in the browsers, so I just kept plugging away while the elderly Pismo got less and less stable, with spinning beach ball time–outs and the cooling fan cutting in every few minutes.

Broadband service was finally restored, and I restarted the machine, but things still weren’t right. SeaMonkey in particular, which used to be a good working performer, slowed to a snail’s pace crawl. Then, in the middle of my Thursday morning work session, I began hearing a sort of faint, high-pitched whining sound, and barely had time to form the thought that I’d better hit Save on my open documents, when the PowerBook just quit. Black screen; hard drive silent; and it refused to reboot. I was sweating a bit because I’d logged several hours work in multiple applications that morning that I wasn’t sure about the saved status of, so I started the process of swapping out the hard drive to connect to another machine in hope of salvaging as much as I could. While I was at it, on a hunch, I removed the 256 MB RAM module in the Pismo’s upper memory slot, and stuck in a 128 MB stick I had kicking around. Happily, this is all simple and quick to do with the Pismo, so I buttoned the machine up and pressed the Power button. Happy days! It started right up. To test, I put the 256 MB module back in, and the laptop’s non-responsive status returned. Back in with the 128 MB stick, emailed my work in progress files to myself fortunately with little unsaved data loss from the crash, and finished out the morning session on the “road” Pismo.

Friday, I decided to try again, but made some practical changes to accommodate being down to 640 MB of system RAM. I like using the classic version of Tex Edit Plus better than the OS X version, partly because of an auto–scrolling utility I have that works in OSX Classic Mode, but which was never updated to native OS X support. However, I figure I can live with manual scrolling in order to bypass Classic Mode’s hardware and RAM overhead. For browsing, I’m going partly retro as well. The TenFourFox port of Firefox 4 to Power PC is great, bringing attractive and useful Firefox 4 features support to OS 10.4, but it’s also unfortunately a real resources hog. The alternative is to go with good old Netscape Navigator 9, which is still a decent and somewhat less demanding performer in OS X 10.4. It’s seriously out of date security–wise, but this is my utility machine, so that’s not a major worry. If I need to do any banking or online ordering I can fire up Safari, and Navigator’s been working reasonably well. The old Pismo is back to sort of normal again. The fan hasn’t been cutting in at all and virtual memory isn’t getting quite the swapfile workout it had been (although it’s not going to atrophy for lack of exercise!)

I’m happy that I can squeeze a bit more service out of this old machine that I have a lot of affection for, having had it pretty much continuously in service since buying it used in October, 2001, which is a very long time in computer years. However, the proverbial writing is on the wall. Power PC and OS X 10.4 Tiger are getting more and more marginalized, and with the memory downgrade, the power deficit is really apparent. I could buy another 512 MB RAM stick, but I’m disinclined to spend any more money on this old computer, especially since I haven’t a clue what caused the failure of two RAM modules in a row. My strategy going forward is to to buy either an iPad 2 (most probable), a MacBook Air, or perhaps both, since I have a main production system upgrade penciled–in for sometime in the early months of 2012.

Indeed I almost certainly would’ve had an iPad 2 by now, if I could just get hold of one. I had a somewhat discouraging telephone conversation with an Apple sales rep. on Monday, who informed me that supply is still stretched very thin, and that my local (the only one within 150 miles) Apple reseller’s end of the month ETA for iPad 2 stock arriving is likely way too optimistic. Irony.

Another option would be an Apple Certified Refurbished MacBook Air, but the Air is rumored to be up for a substantial refreshment and upgrade to Intel Sandy Bridge Core “i” CPU silicon and a Thunderbolt I/O port in the near future, and the Can$899.00 price tag Apple Canada has on the ACR 11.6″ 1.4 GHz 2G RAM/64GB SSD MacBook Air — or Can$979.00 for a 4 GB unit — just isn’t that enticing given that the nascent Sandy Bridge Air will likely sell for Can$1,149.00, will blow the Core 2 Duo MacBook Air into the weeds performance-wise, and might even come with (I can always hope!) a more adequate 4 GB of RAM standard. It’s still a waiting game for a while yet, looks like.