Bob,
You've posted a nicely put, "realization" on the never ending quest for the perfect machine. It reminds me of the early days when my company (won't mention the name, but you all can guess), started issueing Laptops for their staff. Back then, we had to go for OS/2, running on 386DX4, 100Mhz with 8Mb machine. But it was sexy, the ThinkPad 755CD. A multimedia box on the go, costing us close to $10,000 a pop
. Well, on the next round was of course, a time to cut cost by categorizing the type of users, are you a normal user, or a power user. Most of us will claim we are power users (and who wouldn't) just so we can get our hands on the biggest, baddest, most powerful LapTop.
I am now on my 5th "refresh cycle" as it's known in the industry, which is when your PC has fully depreciated. I got a not too bad, ThinkPad model T40, running on XP. But on this cycle as the previous one, I really didn't care whether it was the latest and greatest. The lady coordinating this activity sent me an e-mail saying my machine is due for a refresh and she has this particular model on hand. All I needed, was a machine for doing MS Office, e-mail and browsing. And you're right, all the rest are fluffs. She did says if I wanted the lastest model, which was then a model T42, she would order one. The type of work I do involves a lot of travelling, working from customer's location, another branch office, hotel, wee hours of night, etc. So my need is simple, just a machine to get me connected with the rest of my team member. A bigger screen perhaps can help these old eyes read better, but then again, it's bad on my shoulder to carry the extra weight with a bigger size Laptop. So, I settled for the T40.
When it comes to PDA, I have the same question as you. Every time I'm at the Changi airport here in Singapore, I just stare and drool over the latest pocket PC, Palm T5, Zodiac. The only reason I can think of for upgrading my M515 is the screen size. I mean, how many words can a 160 x 160 screen really hold using the smallest font? It's not easy on my eyes for sure. Beyond this improvement, will I have a better way to schedule my calendar, or a means to balance my cheque book? And even for scheduling, my secretary (hello, will they still have secretaries 5 years from now?) does most of my scheduling on our Lotus Notes e-mail system, which of course, gets synchronized with my Palm. This is probably the holly grail for Blackberry, which is to enable a corporate-wide calendar synchronization on a realtime basis. I mean, when I enter a schedule on my palm, and if my secretary also enters another meeting on the same time slot, I'd be in trouble. So, just a better screen and perhaps, a speedier response for $300? Hmm, let me stick with my M515 a bit longer.
And by the way, I still have my unreliable SanDisk 64Mb SD card. I formated with FAT32, but alas, it's not recognized by my M515
. I'll stay with non branded MMC card for the time being. At least, I can use it on my Nokia 6230 phone
, which surprisingly, will not accept an SD card
