This week, I received my latest Macintosh computer : a dual processor 2Ghz Powermac + 23″ screen. I have been a Mac user since 1991 and have owned about 30 different Macs since then. I’m something of a fanatic (though show me a Mac user who isn’t). I buy high-end Macs and don’t keep them too long which gives me the possibility to stay abreast with technology. I always have one desktop and one notebook (and yes, I also have a PC….).

This latest Powermac is a real beast. It’s huge and it breathes power in it’s aluminum body. And the specs are truly incredible : two 2 Ghz G5 processors, 2 Gb RAM, 128Mb graphics card, 250 Gb hard disk, bluetooth, WiFi, 8x DVD burner. I haven’t really done anything very intensive on it yet so I can’t really say if it’s as fast as it looks but all the benchmarks on this machine seem to be promising. One very good thing about it (definitely compared to earlier powermacs): it’s very quiet. The screen is a real joy to use. It’s bright. It’s huge. On the picture, I put my notebook (12″ screen) next to it so you can compare. It took me a few moments to get used to it’s sheer size. I’ve never had this big a screen and I can still remember what it was like to work on 640×480 resolution so imagine 1920×1200 😉 . But as the nature of progress requires, you immediately adapt your way of working to what you have available to you and enjoy the newfound advantages.

One last thing. The coolest feature that this machine came with is the migration functionality. When you start it up for the first time, it asked me “Do you own an older Mac”. Upon answering yes, it then proposed to transfer all of my existing documents, apps, settings etc… by simply connecting the old mac to the new one with a firewire cable. It worked flawlessly and one hour after having set up the new machine, I was ready to go. My applications, documents, bookmarks, passwords, email accounts, digital photos etc… had all been transferred and set up. Anyone who has changed computers often can identify with the huge hassle it represents. Not this time 😉