We upgrade machines at work on a rotating basis. The way it works is every employee can request an upgrade if their "primary" machine is more than 2.5-3 years old. But you're not required to upgrade. You can hold off until a future round of upgrades.
I'm a software developer and the last few years I've done device driver development. One of the benefits of this particular type of work is I have plenty of desktops and servers ranging from dual xeon boxes to dual pa-risc boxes. My "primary" box, though, for the purposes of this round of upgrades is a P3-866 with 256MB RAM. It's basically a dedicated Lotus Notes box so it's plenty adequate for that. Accordingly, I've declined upgrades the last 2-3 rounds.
My upgrade choices are (these come pre-configured, there is no flexibility here):
* P4 desktop, 3GHz, 2GB RAM, 120GB hard drive, etc...
* T43, 2GHz with 2MB cache, 2GB RAM, 80GB hard drive, 14" display, etc...
So...I can upgrade, or I can hold off again.
Reasons to upgrade instead of wait:
- I've been in the market for a laptop anyway and had planned to buy one in the near future
- I'm concerned that Thinkpad quality might take a dive if the Lenovo deal goes through
- Why not?
Reasons to hold off until a future round of upgrades:
- The T43's display is only 14". The laptops I had been considering buying were either 15.4" widescreen or 17" widescreen. I'm afraid the 14" T43 screen will be painful to use (I haven't used anything less than 21" in 4-5 years)
- Intel's roadmap suggests most of their stuff will be dual core by next year so if I hold off, there's a fair chance I could score a dual-core laptop (!) or desktop (meh) next year. Otherwise I won't be able to upgrade again until 2007/2008.
- The machine it would replace is working fine
I need to decide whether or not to jump in on this round of upgrades by Tuesday the 8th. Decisions, decisions...
I'm a software developer and the last few years I've done device driver development. One of the benefits of this particular type of work is I have plenty of desktops and servers ranging from dual xeon boxes to dual pa-risc boxes. My "primary" box, though, for the purposes of this round of upgrades is a P3-866 with 256MB RAM. It's basically a dedicated Lotus Notes box so it's plenty adequate for that. Accordingly, I've declined upgrades the last 2-3 rounds.
My upgrade choices are (these come pre-configured, there is no flexibility here):
* P4 desktop, 3GHz, 2GB RAM, 120GB hard drive, etc...
* T43, 2GHz with 2MB cache, 2GB RAM, 80GB hard drive, 14" display, etc...
So...I can upgrade, or I can hold off again.
Reasons to upgrade instead of wait:
- I've been in the market for a laptop anyway and had planned to buy one in the near future
- I'm concerned that Thinkpad quality might take a dive if the Lenovo deal goes through
- Why not?
Reasons to hold off until a future round of upgrades:
- The T43's display is only 14". The laptops I had been considering buying were either 15.4" widescreen or 17" widescreen. I'm afraid the 14" T43 screen will be painful to use (I haven't used anything less than 21" in 4-5 years)
- Intel's roadmap suggests most of their stuff will be dual core by next year so if I hold off, there's a fair chance I could score a dual-core laptop (!) or desktop (meh) next year. Otherwise I won't be able to upgrade again until 2007/2008.
- The machine it would replace is working fine
I need to decide whether or not to jump in on this round of upgrades by Tuesday the 8th. Decisions, decisions...
