I just want to get one thing clear - I’m a Mac user. For years now the battle lines have been drawn for me - ever since my senior year of college when my PC laptop crashed catastrophically and took my undergraduate honors thesis down with it, I swore I would never go back. That day I went online, bought a PowerBook G4, and never looked back. Until yesterday, I was the proud owner of two computers, a Macbook Pro second generation and an iMac second generation desktop, both of which I loved and got very attached to.
So when I got the bad news from law school: that I would have to buy a PC laptop because law school exam and state bar exam software don’t work on Mac computers, I went through the five stages of grief. I denied it, I bargained, but I finally gave in and started shopping for a laptop.
I was faced with a huge dilemma. How do I buy a PC? The last time I bought a PC laptop, processor chips were singular (not core 2 duo), Windows was ME or NT, and all the numbers made sense! Ack! I was afraid. And I knew I would need time to acclamate to my new computer, since, as a media and graphic artist computers are an extension of me as a person and I really have to know them, not just use them. That meant I would have to buy it sooner, rather than later - I knew it would be a better decision to go ahead and buy the computer now, and get used to using it, re-acclamate to the PC-lifestyle and all the changes in PCs since I left them, than wait until the day before law school starts and be completely lost and disoriented on my first day.
So I took the plunge. Yesterday I dragged Liz and our friend Ruben down to Pentagon City, because I thought I wanted a Sony Vaio, and there’s a Sony Style store there. Well I thought I wanted one until I saw the price tag - no matter what I might be getting, I’m sorry to say, $2100 is a bit too steep for me. So I turned around and walked straight out of the store; nothing in the world could have talked me into that ‘bargain.’
We walked over to Best Buy where the prices were a little less discouraging and the salespeople a little more helpful, and I played the ‘helpless idiot girl’ act and got the salesman to tell me the basics of the new Windows Vista stuff and what the new numbers on PCs mean. He was trying to push me into a Toshiba, which I’m kind of allergic to ever since they were the high school issue laptops, and I knew I didn’t want a Dell, so I found something that was nice and seemed perfect: an HP Special Edition. It had everything I needed and a little more for less than $800, 4gb of RAM (which on a Mac is a lot but apparently on a PC with Vista is just enough), lots of hard drive space, it’s nice and small (13″ screen), and it has a great little tattoo design on the back and inside. It’s light, so it’ll be easy to carry around, and it’s small too. Plus, it pleases the graphic designer in me, so that’s a plus; as opposed to its brick-like cousins who made me cringe.
Now. What I’m about to say is controversial. I’ll admit I was utterly lost for the first few hours as I opened the box, installed Office (what the hell is OneNote?!) and tried to get the hang of this - but I have to say, I actually kind of like Windows Vista. I know it’s not trendy to say this, but I like the way it looks, I like the way it acts, I like the feel of it. Now I know I’m inclined to go with design over function and maybe this is my aesthetic side betraying me, but I enjoy the Vista experience. I even stayed with Internet Explorer just because I like the look of it. Crazy, huh?
Now I’m sure I’ll change my tune the first time the whole system crashes (something I’m not used to after years of Mac-usership) but for now, I’m a happy camper.
