TabletPC for Sale, will swap for 12inch Mac Powerbook

Toshiba Portege TabletPC

Yes shock horror, I am selling my TabletPC in the hope of getting a Apple PowerBook. For everyone who knows me well, this is a very difficult thing to admit. I somewhat like Windows but cant deal with all the crazyness of Windows XP (specially Tablet edition which has this crazy bug), so I'm moving sideways and changing to a Mac. I would move to Linux but the Mac will do for now. Apple have done some good things in the laptop world and I could deal with changing to Apple for my general laptop computing. So who will take my tablet off my hands? I mean no disrespect but at somepoint Microsoft are going to dump the TabletPC (in my own eyes) and then where we all be?

However this move to Apple does not mean I will turn into one of these nerdy apple boys! Dusting and polishing there apple laptops while the playing with there Sony Ericsson Phones! Oh no, I'll use the laptop but it doesnt mean I'm part of the cult of Apple! I pledge I WILL NOT GET A IPOD, IPOD Mini or IPODSHUFFLE ever!

Anyway has anyone got a clue of where I can actually just swap the tabletPC for a Mac laptop? Ebay does not seem to have the greatest range of TabletPC's which could be a good thing or a bad thing. And no matter how tempting, I'm not going to sell it abroad through ebay.com. I've also been thinking I must beable to get a educational or some kind of discount, as I should just buy the Mac new from Apple. I mean 1100 for the G4 powerbook, I'm sure the price wont go down much 2nd hand. I'm really hoping I will get about 1000+ for the TabletPC which is a little less than half of the street price.

So after a super humorous conversation with Harry on the phone where I almost laughed to death of hysterical choking. Why have I made the change? Well let me explain a little more.

  1. I never or hardly ever use the Tablet features of the TabletPC. I never got use writing on the screen and adopted style simular to my ipaq of tapping on the screen instead of writing.
  2. The same reason as I tried switching to Linux a while ago, all the applications I actually use on the PC are opensource, free as in beer or free as in freedom. From Firefox, Thunderbird and itunes to PSI, OpenOffice and VLC. All of them fit into one of the three categories. All of these Applications will run on the Mac no problem. So I will only loose Windows, oh what a shame…
  3. I've had it with the viruses, spyware, adware and crazy updates. Damm I had to install 8 patches the other weekend. I dont mind doing this for my computer and server but not for my laptop too. I'm an advanced computer user (hate that word) but when I pick up my laptop I dont expect to download patches, update and restart the computer before I can use it. I treat my laptop a bit like my ipaq, I just want to use it and do an update once in a while.
  4. The web is the platform, it doesnt matter what operating system I'm using on my machine as long as its secure and realiable. Windows Tablet edition isnt either
  5. I'm not one for looks and actually I think the Apple powerbooks are not all that but its consistent unlike my tablet which has bits all over the place and dont get me started on the construction of my tablet…
  6. Having no optical drive is great when your at home or somewhere with lots of networking but take it anywhere else and having no optical drive is a pain to say the least. In time no optical drive will make sense but Apple have fit an optical drive into the same space as my TabletPC.
  7. I look at whats going into OSX 10.4 (I refuse to call it by its stupid animal name) and I'm thinking what on earth is Microsoft doing? Longhorn (or as I'm now calling it Longyawn) is years off now and wont catch up with OSX 10.4. Microsoft would need to do something very radical like build on Linux, the hybrid strategy. To catch up with OSX for someone like me. For example, lets look at some of the highlights of OSX 10.4. Spotlight, a lucene/google for the desktop. Not that special but good to have, specially when compared to the built in search in Windows XP. Yeah yeah I'm sure Longyawn will have it and more but OSX will have it this year, when I need it. And I cant get over smartfolders which acts like smartplaylists in iTunes. I've been dieing for this for years and now my mail client (thunderbird) has it I want it on the desktop too. Automator, I wont be learning applescript any time soon but you know what this is just what I need now and then. Yes you can use VB on Windows but screw that when this builds it for you.
  8. The technologies of the Mac are pretty damm good. I love the fact Mpeg4 H.264 is built in now, Windows has never taken advantage of mDns (rendezvous or zeroconf) and still makes a pigs ear of bluetooth while the mac just does the job. OSX is just the gui, so I can skip to a Unix shell when ever I like which makes the cmd shell in windows look like a 486 processor in 2005. I actually really hate using the windows shell and look forward to getting rid of it on my laptop. The mixture of Open and propitery in OSX is much more balanced than Windows will ever be. I dont rule out Linux but right now the gui's are not as easy to use day in day out like OSX.

I will buy a Apple Mac, but it doesnt mean I will love or like it *smile*. Now who will take this TabletPC off my hands?

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Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io