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Well it’s about that time of year again.  People are starting to take down their holiday decorations.  The snow is melting, causing rivers to start flowing and running high on their banks.  The grass is starting to grow, and flowers are starting to bloom.  People are going without jackets – some even crazy enough to wear shorts.  This can all mean only one thing…  The annual computer upgrade season is upon us. For those of you who have read some of my earlier posts on the subject, you’ll know I’ve had an on again/off again relationship with my Mac, and that I have nothing but hate and loathing for HP.  Well I’m going to start this tale with a telling of what got me into this situation – why I’m going to celebrate the upgrade season this year…

A long long time ago – I believe it was early 2009 – I was living in the far away land of Qatar.  I had just purchased a new HP desktop computer – a floor model with a scratched screen.  It was the last in the store, and the deal was too good to pass up, providing they committed to replace the screen, which they did.  Commit, that is.  They committed to replace it when they received new inventory.  However four months on I was still without a screen, so I took it back in a shopping cart and demanded they refund my money.  They did.  Note: Never underestimate the power of a loud, unhappy customer in full view of other potential customers.  This is the reason they put the Customer Service counters off to the side, or at the back.  It’s out of sight.  Don’t bitch there, as your powers of persuasion are greatly diminished.

I took my refund elsewhere, and (stupidly) bought another HP product.  This time, a laptop.  Not just any laptop, but a “desktop replacement”.  The thing was heavy as hell, but looked nice.  Interesting thing about Qatar and the Middle East in general – it seems to be on the tail of the supply chain for consumer electronics.  I remember that the iPhone 3GS wasn’t available in Saudi until late 2009 – 5 months behind its launch.  Computers – laptops in particular – tend to be “last year’s model”, or older.  And the one I bought was no exception.  But it was “top of the line” in the country, and I hadn’t learned my HP lesson yet, so I bought it. It didn’t take long for me to learn the HP lesson.  What a piece of shit.  I won’t regurgitate that story, but the turning point here was that I moved to Saudi shortly after I bought it, so returning it wasn’t immediately viable.  I was stuck with a lemon.  I made the most of it until disposable income got the better of me and I picked up a Mac.  Why a Mac?  Because we were using them at work and I was in the “on again” phase of my relationship with them at the time.  Particularly where build quality was concerned.  All I had to do was come home from work and put the Mac (Macbook Pro 15″, hardware version 5,1 to be specific) next to the HP, and start typing.  That’s it – I just put my hands on the thing and I would immediately gravitate towards using the Mac.

This wasn’t an OSX vs. Windows imbalance – it was simply about the build quality.  It was around this time that I developed my primary hardware build quality test – the Lid Lift Test. The concept behind the Lid Lift Test is pretty simple.  Apple puts so much “attention to detail” into the product that on the whole it simply becomes a more natural and stress-free experience.  The first time I noticed it on an Apple product was on one the first iMacs.  It was a half-ball base with a monitor on a swivel stick.  It looked a bit like a cross between a Star Trek computer terminal and a desk lamp.

I first saw it in a Future Shop I think, and I expected to have to hold onto the base while using some effort to adjust the monitor position.  You know, like any non-Apple desktop monitor.  I’m sure you know the type – even after wrestling with it, it’s still not quite in the right position, because after you let go, it moves a bit under its own weight.  The plastic creaks and the center of gravity is such that it just… kind of… wobbles a bit too.  But the iMac… didn’t.  In fact, with only one finger I could move the screen into any position, and didn’t have to steady the base with my other hand.  And it stayed right where you let go of it.  It was… amazing!  The attention to detail that went into that design has continued through other Apple products through the years, including the Macbook Pro I have in front of me.  When the lid is closed, I can open it with one finger, with one hand.  Seems simple enough – but try to do the same thing on the HP (or most other non-Apple laptops, with the exception of many from Sony).  Even though the HP weighs as much as a car, the design is so piss-poor that the hinge resistance exceeds the weight of the base.  Open the lid with one hand, and the base comes up off the table with it… until it gets high enough for the weight of the base to exceed the resistance of the hinge, and – BAM! – the base goes crashing down on the table.  I’m sorry, but who the fuck thought that was a good an acceptable design?

So I’ve been using the Mac, and loving every minute of it.  Except when it crashes.  Or doesn’t wake up from sleep properly.  Boy, those minutes sure are frustrating.  Those minutes I want to throw the frickin thing through a window, because it’s just so random and… and not supposed to happen.  Before this turns into a Windows stability vs. Mac stability contest, to be fair I don’t believe that Window’s reputation for the Blue Screen of Death has as much to do with Windows or Microsoft as it does with extraordinary fragmentation of devices and device quality.  In other words, the hardware makes all the difference in the world, as do the drivers written for it.  Frankly, given the sheer diversity of third parties injecting their crap into Windows, I’m surprised it (Windows) manages to pull things off as well as it does.  Anyway, let’s not jump the shark here… The Mac is predictable in terms of hardware and software, and by and large shouldn’t just randomly crash.

So I took it to the Apple store where they told me that my motherboard was hosed.  This fell in line with “predictable”, so I was happy.  The bad news was that I didn’t have AppleCare, so a replacement would cost $600.  At first this made me slightly less happy.  But after considering the options for a while now, I want to talk for a minute about why this isn’t so bad…

• First and foremost, this laptop would sell for $600 on eBay.  It’s what – 2 years old?  Lesson: Macs retain their market value.  PC’s don’t.  Try giving away a 2-year old HP.  I could, in theory, sell the Mac, and take the $600 I would have spent upgrading the motherboard, and buy a brand new one.  Of course, now everybody knows I have a flaky motherboard…
• Try getting your HP fixed when it’s randomly crashing.  Hold on a sec – I did exactly that (although it was a different symptom).  It was the most excruciating tech support experience of my life.  They didn’t resolve the problem.  They wouldn’t acknowledge the problem.  They couldn’t even give me a decent option for “hands-on” service.  And this is HP – the biggest (well, second biggest) desktop brand in the world.  Lesson: Access to support is more important than the cost of replacement.
• The only reason it would have cost me $600 for that motherboard is because I didn’t have AppleCare – an extended support plan.  The situation would have been exactly the same if it were an HP, although the part may have cost slightly less.  However in the HP scenario, the cost of the part would have likely exceed the market value of the laptop!  Lesson: These are laptops, not desktops.  If a part breaks, you can’t just swap it out – you need a support plan.  These are typically $300-$400 and cover you for 3 years.  In my experience, the only companies that even offer support plans are Apple, HP, and Dell.  In the case of HP, it would have been useless anyway.

Which brings me to the next step.  I need a reliable computer.  Here are my options:

1. Get the Mac fixed for $600
2. Buy a new Dell with 3-year support plan (price will be discussed later)
3. Buy a new Sony – 3-year support plan not available (price will be discussed later)
4. Buy a new Mac (price will be discussed later)
5. Drive over the HP 3 or 4 times with a truck.  Or a bus.  Or maybe I can get a guy in a bulldozer to do me the honour.

Oops.  #5 is actually not an option because it’s not optional.  A couple other points to keep in mind:

• The wife also needs a new computer.  Hers is an HP as well (took me far too long to learn the HP lesson), and it overheats and the screen goes blank from time to time.  We have a “fan tray” for it, but… come on now.
• Just bought and built a new desktop for the family.  It’s fantastic.  But I’m always mobile and need a laptop.  The wife could probably get by using just the desktop though.

Coming in Part 2: the features I would be looking for in a new laptop, and why.

Stay tuned…