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The Easel and the Typewriter
15 May 2023
We've always armed ourselves with two computers, even in the previous century. In those days it was the accelerated Mac SE for graphics and the DEC Rainbow for text.
The easel and the typewriter.
Over the years each of those options evolved into more powerful tools whose capabilities eventually overlapped. Especially after we left MS-DOS and Windows for the Mac.
The SE turned into a Power Macintosh 7300 with a 17-inch color monitor for production graphic work and automation development while the typewriter became a PowerBook 3400 on which we designed publications as we commuted with it.
GOING SMALL
Portability became a top feature in itself. We were able to work in cities all over the country and in all sorts of places from press rooms to libraries to hospital rooms.
Our most recent pairing are both laptops but one is larger than the other. The smaller one, which is slightly newer (well, less older) travels.
We've relied on our 16-inch MacBook Pro and 13-inch MacBook Pro for well over a decade now.
Tech waits for no man, though. So we're about to replace one of them.
BACKWARDS UPGRADING
But, we wondered, why are we trying to replace the expensive easel?
The 16-inch MacBook Pro with 8-GB RAM and a 1-TB SSD is the older of our current machines and does the heavy lifting around here. It's the one we have been planning to replace with a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro, 16-GB RAM and a 1-TB SSD.
But we worry that configuration will soon be leapfrogged and we'll need the latest and greatest to keep running the best software on the planet.
It's not an unreasonable fear. This week revealed sightings of the M3 carved with the 3-nanometer process to pack more transistors in less real estate. We could see that M3 in a MacBook Pro later this year. And an iMac. And....
So what if we pulled in the reins a bit and replaced the typewriter now instead of the easel. We'd spend less now (especially buying refurbished, which we like to do with our backup systems because they've been manufacturered twice, in effect), get a big boost in productivity from our 2010 laptops) and be able to update the easel later with the latest and greatest.
Backwards but brilliant, we thought. So we did the math.
BAD AT MATH
Paying a mortgage in San Francisco automatically disqualifies us on loan-to-income ratio for Apple Card or anything else. We happen to have the highest possible credit rating, though, so our existing cards offer zero-interest loans, which a dear friend now diseased told us she used to pay for unexpected expenses. We merely follow her lead.
Last time we did this the easel cost us $2,800 and the typewriter $1,000. This time around, the typewriter (with 16-GB RAM and a 1-TB SSD but previous generation CPU) is $1,500 and the easel is $3,000. That's a $700 increase.
But it also shows you the relative leap we're making for the easel isn't as much as for the typewriter. Which is what concerns us. On both ends.
Should we consider an Air for the typewriter? Well, our 16-GB/1-TB specs deliver a $1,700 Air. No savings there.
EUREKA
We had visited Apple's refurb store late Monday to look for that Air typewriter. Almost by divine providence we discovered our $2,699 16-inch MacBook Pro preference available refurbished for $2,289.
We thought about it over dinner and then went back to site to check the specs. Yep, same Jan. 2023 machine as the $2,699 we would have bought walking into the store.
So we ordered. We don't think we'll beat that price and it nicely splits the difference between the new typewriter and new easel. And, as we said, we think refurb doubles the quality assurance.
Oddly we don't feel suddenly impoverished but enriched. We'll pick it up Thursday. Easel and typewriter in one for once.