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And when my monitor went bad my iMac was 8 years old and more than ready to be replaced so I've got no such hang up in that respect. However I can envision times where an integrated monitor is less desirable. For instance a 20" iMac is too tall for my desk yet a similar resolution 22" monitor fits.

Yeah I'd have replace the system 12 months earlier If I hadn't had to save the money up as long as I had. Still it worked out well I managed to afford it the day Leopard came out.

Still there's some disadvantages to towers an agile bruiser such as your self might not understand despite your obvious intelligence.

I will occasionally mess with memory and storage (light weight universally transferable external drives) myself.

I seriously doubt I could afford full upgrades every 2 years. I gotta get other thing every now and again too.

user wrote:

You won't need to upgrade that much as a user. I upgrade every 3 or 4 years, but I'm a computer professional as well as an enthusiast. Part of the reason I got my new Vaio laptop is that I wanted to be conversant with Vista.

...much to my current regret....

Yeah, it's pretty disgusting.

Dunkin' wrote:

This entire upgrade parts or upgrade the whole machine is just personal preference.

I no longer feel that partial upgrades are worth the money.  I will move to the newest versions of an OS but I leave the hardware alone.

When I feel the hardware is ready for a refresh I will replace everything.  Faster: CPU, frontside bus, memory, GPU, Video memory, Firewire, ethernet, wireless, Bluetooth USB, HDD.

If it is done every 2 years you can get a pretty good price for the old hardware.  The cost of the upgrade becomes very reasonable.

For me, every 4 years is pretty good replacement cycle.  If I had an AIO, unfortunately, I would need to upgrade every two years due to the whole GPU thing.

But really, upgrading is only 25% of the problem with AIOs.  The forced monitor purchase is another 25%.  The poor hardware value is another 25%.  For half the cost of the iMac's CPU, you can get a higher-clocked quad-core C2D, with a faster FSB and double the cache.  For $150 you can buy a real video card that will thoroughly embarrass Apple's underclocked mobile GPU.  The final 25% is the lack of choice.  There is no way to configure an iMac from the factory to meet certain basic needs.  For me it's graphics and the lack of blu ray (which can't be added since the CPU is too slow to decode blu ray in software); for others it's the lack of monitor choice.  I very recently read in another thread, someone defending the 20" iMac's monitor saying, "print professionals used to do color work in their heads anyway"  I didn't dignify that with a response.  For all these reasons, it's no wonder that towers continue to dominate the marketplace, even after all these years. (yeah, I really dislike AIO's.)

Still there's some disadvantages to towers an agile bruiser such as your self might not understand despite your obvious intelligence.

I understand that they don't look as pretty on your desk, and they take up more space.  Is there something else I'm missing?

Last edited by Mr. T (2008-05-23 1:49 pm)

dvpierce wrote:

In practice, it's slow, unreliable, and annoying, which is why nobody but schools do it.

Not quite...my work does it.  It's fast, reliable (I can even seamlessly log in to my Active Directory account on my OS X laptop when I bring it in), and convenient.

Because I administer it. 

reece_james wrote:

That scientific calculator had better be coming and a graphing calculator

Just FYI, both of these capabilities are built into Calculator.app.  The latter needs to be enabled via a quick terminal command.

Last edited by Daniel (2008-05-24 1:16 am)

its DLANTZ again.... wrote:

user wrote:

You won't need to upgrade that much as a user. I upgrade every 3 or 4 years, but I'm a computer professional as well as an enthusiast. Part of the reason I got my new Vaio laptop is that I wanted to be conversant with Vista.

...much to my current regret....

My wife has a laptop with Visa on it that I've never used. Is Vista really that bad?

No, it's not.  Vista is a solid OS as long as you have the hardware power to drive it.  And it's far more stable and reliable than Leopard, despite Apple's stupid commercials.

Daniel wrote:

dvpierce wrote:

In practice, it's slow, unreliable, and annoying, which is why nobody but schools do it.

Not quite...my work does it.  It's fast, reliable (I can even seamlessly log in to my Active Directory account on my OS X laptop when I bring it in), and convenient.

Because I administer it. 

How many clients and what kind of server?

Daniel wrote:

ScifiterX wrote:

I hate the dumb terminal system and feel it has few redeeming attributes. A smart terminal system is more preferable IMO. It provides many of the benefits of both distributed and fully encapsulated systems. Things like Back to my Mac, AppleTV, iPhone are more representative of a smart terminal system than a dumb terminal. However as dv pointed out there are limits even there.

It depends on your usage.  Again I cite my business: we're deploying dumb terminals all over the place.  They run a lite UNIX which autologs via RDP into our Windows 2003 server.  This provides:
* Cheap Hardware
* Easy Administration
* Consistent User Experience
* Quick Setup/Troubleshooting
* Itsy-bitsy desk footprint (which is nice when your business serves pilots who tend to have a LOT of papers that need a LOT of space)
* Dramatic energy savings (why run 60 hard drives when you can run 8?)

For a home environment, I don't see dumb terminals making much sense.  But in the business world, they're perfect.

There is where I've seen far too many failed dumb terminal implementations to agree with you. How many businesses have you dealt with with business/work ground to a halt because the application on the main server was inaccessible for whatever reason? Perfect is far from the proper term