I'd like to revisit this.
I'm a tech dinosaur. I'm now retired and my career has encompassed things like the invention of the PC, the smart phone....the internet. And though my working years, I always had a LOT of "IT support" and IT related support. I had to do nothing, and the latest would arrive. Problems....somebody "Fixed them." Need help....I had a full time assistant to walk into my office, and take care of it. Now gradually, that situation changed, and as I became involved in smaller entrepreneurial situations, I was on my own and had to get with it.
Today, I have a 2011 Mac Book Pro that is on it's way out. Trust me, it's on life support. I am an Apple fan. My wife and I have had iphones...forever. She lives with her iPad. Very pleased. Me.....I have an iPad, but I really prefer a laptop.
I don't do any "heavy lifting". I'm not going to be surfing the net, and sites like this. I'm going to be on Amazon, etc. I will surf the net a couple of hours a day, or so. Outside when I can. I'll deal with simple email. I can't foresee why I would ever need a Microsoft Office product. No Exel, no Word, no Outlook. Will I watch a video or "movie', sure. Will I do some Zoom meetings? yes.
I probably need to migrate a lot of pictures and some docs to the cloud. I'm that big a dinosaur. I need to be better at just deleting crap.....the 85% of worthless emails that I get. It's been easy with my older MacBook to be lazy. Particularly once "on
my own."
Now...another dynamic. I don't care what your assets are, when you really do retire {which I hope will be semi retired very soon}, you become more thrifty. I remember this with my dad. He was "more than just fine", but I recall one day having lunch with him and his saying "This is strange..I'll never have a real paycheck again in my life....or one that I can influence and earn based on results and performance." Yep. Pensions, deferred comp, 401{k}, portfolio, savings, SS. Doesn't matter....I think you think more about the outlay! Maybe it's just us.
So, a year ago, I ran this by my pretty tech savvy adult kids. The response was "Just buy a 13" MacBook Pro, with the best processor you can, get minimum 8GB of memory, maybe 16GB. Get 512GB of storage. Retina display is nice. But Apple Care. That's perfect."
I visited an Apple Store the other day, with my machine gasping, and played around. So, I really like the MBA, and the newer keyboard. Like the display. Like the size and the feel of it. The guy working with me suggested maybe a quad core i5 processor, 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage might be a great machine for me. Could I go to 512GB? Sure. Why? Dump the Microsoft Office. No need. And buy AppleCare.
I'm going to buy new. No question. That's me and my lack of support. I have time to grab a cup of coffee and visit the Genius Bar. I'm close enough to the store. it's piece of mind.
I recalled this thread. As I often find, this community helps make a lot of things simple and easy to grasp. I'm very current with our skiing and a lot of other things. This stuff...not so much. Fake my way through it!
Any thoughts....or observations? Much appreciated! Thanks!