Every once in a while, somebody asks me what computer or phone to get, or how best to backup photos, or something like that. If you ask me, I'll ask you a battery of questions to ascertain your DPI preferences, average daily battery consumption, and the ideal weight for your backpack, and give you 3 competitively-priced options sorted by color. Or I'll tell you what I prefer and why.
(if you believe I have copied this shamelessly from Paul Thurrott's What I Use page, you would be pretty spot-on. I really like Paul's work and I think his idea is one that I would like to see a lot of other influential (and in my case, non-influential) folks copy- I'm interested in what others are using for whatever they do)
Computer - 2012 13" MacBook Pro
Despite maxing out at Ivy Bridge, this computer is still a great value, as long as you don't pay retail. It'd be OK at $999 refurbished from Apple, but it was a real steal at $750 used on eBay. 7 hours in OS X/ 5 hours in Windows is not great battery life anymore, but good enough for me. This machine came already-upgraded to 8 GB of RAM, and I swapped out the optical drive for a 128 GB Crucial M4 SSD that I had laying around, using the OWC Data Doubler bracket (not as easy as it looks, as I only found out after the point of no return). I'd love a Retina Pro someday, but the lack of upgradeability meant I'd be paying a lot more for the same RAM and disk space.
I barely use Windows anymore, but this is still the best PC I've had by far. The 128 GB is kind of killing me, though moving my OS X home folder to the spinning disk helped a lot.
Phone - Yellow iPhone 5C
When I had an iPhone 4, I was freaked out about breaking the glass on the back, so all I ever really wanted was a plastic or aluminum iPhone. After a foray into Android and even back to Symbian briefly last year (I'll have to recount my love affair with defunct Nokia's defunct operating system some other time), I realized that I enjoyed good battery life more than widgets, and picked up a used 5C from Swappa (I recommend this site). Getting it used was key- I'm on a T-Mobile no-contract plan, and $550 for a new phone was a tough pill to swallow (so I didn't!). iOS 7 erases my biggest historical gripe about iOS- the lack of true background multitasking. Sure, it faked it well enough before, but seeing a push notification for an app, then opening the app and waiting for it to pull down the exact same data it notified me about drove me nuts. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the better selfie camera on the 5C is well worth it compared to a used iPhone 5. Also, it's very easy to find a 5C that works with T-Mobile. Mine is actually a Verizon model (all 5C and 5S models have the same wireless bands, and Verizon is required in their spectrum agreement to unlock their LTE phones).
One thing I hate hate hate about this phone- the measly 16 GB of space. Felt like a lot a few years ago. I'm cleaning things up at least once a month, and apps like Office or Pages are a complete no-go.
Tablet - Nexus 7 with LTE
I really wanted a tablet with cellular data that was not a total dud, but didn't want to pay top dollar. Swappa again to the rescue! The LTE Nexus 7 works on most carriers (I use T-Mobile's free 200 MB/ month program) and has 32 GB (which I'm nowhere close to using and wish I could magically share with my phone). This thing is pretty speedy, the screen is great. Battery life is kind of miserable. It's the idle time, or lack thereof, that really gets me.
I previously wrote here that I didn't feel much of a need for a tablet, and, while I like this thing, I still kind of feel that way. I use it for casual viewing of PDF's at work in meetings, occasional couch browsing, but I read on my iPhone at least as much as I do on my Nexus 7. A Kindle Paperwhite may have been a better buy. Or, if I had a tablet that could do double-duty as a laptop. I'm really interested in the Surface 3, but only after it goes on sale, which will take quite a while.
Camera- Panasonic Lumix LX5
I quickly snapped this one up just before our second son was born. Ever since I got the Nokia N8, I've been obsessed with large-sensored point-and-shoots. This camera works great in automatic modes, and is customizable enough that you can sort of pretend you're a camera geek. Great performance in low light. My timing was a bit off in purchasing this, as micro-four-thirds cameras starting going down in price not long afterwards. A similar (though far superior) modern option is the Sony RX100.
No comments:
Post a Comment