After saving my pennies for a very long time I finally reached my goal and have ordered a new laptop. In an interesting bit of synchronicity I ordered the new machine three years to the date of getting my current Powerbook. The new machine is Intel based and will run Windows XP Professional. More on that in a minute.
Having placed the order I am now anxiously awaiting its arrival. The order status page had an initial status (Processing) that changed within hours of the order being placed to “Packing.” I took this as a very good sign; the estimated availability information I had before placing the order indicated it would be at least two weeks before the machine shipped. Along with the “Packing” status the estimated ship date was set for today, 1.25.2006. I have been checking the status page every day (more like a gazillion times every day) only to see the same information every time: Packing. How long does it take to pack a notebook computer into a box?
The computer itself is a new Lenovo (formerly IBM) ThinkPad Z60m. This is the first wide-screen ThinkPad every offered, and sports a maximum resolution of 1680x1050. A 1.86 GHz chip, 512 MB RAM, DVD+/-R CDRW, and an 80 GB hard drive round out a very nice machine. I’ll be upgrading the RAM to the maximum 2 GB as soon as it arrives.
No, I am not leaving Mac OS behind. My professional work requires software that only (presently) runs on Windows OS. I’ve got a couple of older Intel machines that aren’t quite up to the task of running the suite of applications I want. Nor are they portable, something that has become increasingly important to me after three years of laptop ownership. With the ThinkPad I will have the best of both worlds in roughly 12 pounds of traveling weight.
Time to go reload the order status page again. Maybe it’s finally changed to “Shipping.”