So it looks as if my 12″ powerbook is about to leave my side, it’s been all over the world with me and the only cosmetic damage is a missing rubber foot and a z key which falls off occasionally, I’ll be sad to see the little girl go. I’m sure it will go to a good home (most likely one of the production team), the agonising decision I had to make is what to replace it with.

I love Apple, I love their products, their aesthetics and their whole brand, but choosing a new laptop has become an increasingly difficult task, with reduced product life cycles and Apple’s renowned secrecy, it’s hard to know when to buy and when to wait. I was just going to plonk down the cash (my company was) and get a Macbook, but then your start thinking about glossy vs matt screen (that’s another debte entirely), reduced ram, integrated graphics - I only really wanted it for a bit of web design, graphic design, coding, print work, network maintainence…. ah, you see the problem, suddenly I realise that I need it for a lot of different tasks. Goodbuy Macbook, hello Macbook Pro.

I went with 2gb of ram and the 160gb HDD upgrade. It’s £350 ($680) extra for the additional 1gb of ram and there was no way I’m going to pay that, 1gb extra (2gb stick) of lappie ram can be brought for £150!!

My only two concerns now are

• Waiting for it to turn up
• Reorganising the powerbook with UB applications so the transition goes as smoothly as possible

Although I might just transfer everything over manually, that way I can be sure the laptop will work the way I want it to.