Certainly the second-hand market here in New Zealand is healthy enough to offer some attractive deals. That might well be the route I take if I decide to replace my iMac. My first two Macs were a IIsi that was given to me by a relative who couldn’t be bothered to get it to work properly (I fixed it up in an afternoon) and a IIvx I bought used in Japan.
I have toyed with the idea of a second-hand Mac. But relax, Courier Post, I’m a teacher, so you won’t be making that delivery. A new iMac, preferably a 27-inch model, would be arriving from the online Apple Store tomorrow. Replace the iMac - If money were no object, the answer would be simple. How might I best juggle all the possibilities? Budget is the primary consideration, of course, but I would prefer not to give up having a desktop Mac for serious work, a laptop Mac for portability, and my own server for my Internet presence. However, due to a power supply that has developed the disconcerting habit of turning off randomly, the iMac has become increasingly unusable as a working computer.Īnd so I find myself, for the first time in several years, seriously considering a major overhaul of my computer systems. I don’t get to keep the Mac after the three years are up, but I hope I’ll be able to lease another one at that point.)Īpart from a hard disk failure about two years into its run, the iMac has served me well until recently.
The lease payments work out to NZ$1,876, whereas buying that Mac outright would cost NZ$2,999.
(The MacBook Pro I lease from my school for the entirely reasonable price of NZ$52 per month over a three-year period has enabled me to use a high-end laptop for an affordable price, one I likely would have struggled to justify otherwise. It was replaced with a new Thunderbolt-equipped 15-inch MacBook Pro, leased for three years under the New Zealand Ministry of Education’s excellent Laptops for Teachers program. Then there was the MacBook Pro that I bought in 2008 and donated to a friend’s daughter last year when she went away to boarding school. My Mac mini was bought in 2007, partly with the refund check that Apple issued to early iPhone adopters like me. I purchased it with the payment from my first paid FileMaker job, so it has some sentimental value. My 20-inch iMac, an original Intel Core Duo model, is the oldest, dating back to 2006. When I moved to New Zealand in 2009, I brought with me three Macs. Let me explain, and perhaps my ponderation can help you with any similar decisions you may have. I find myself in something of a tech crunch, and I don’t know what the correct path is. When the tech itch needed scratching, a quick trip took me to the famed Akihabara electronics shopping district.īut now I’m in New Zealand, making a Kiwi teacher’s wage, and while I’d not give up the life here for anything, maintaining familiarity with Apple’s latest products has become increasingly challenging. I got into computers, and tech, and Apple in particular, back in the 1990s, when I lived near Tokyo and made a rather generous Japanese salary. Staying current with the tech world requires continual investment, which has become a problem for me, given that, as a teacher in New Zealand, I’m not as flush as once I was. I gave my well-rehearsed answer, the one that explains how an international tech megastar like her Japanese and physics teacher (it’s important to maintain professorial reputation) must keep up with the latest kit in order to be able to speak authoritatively, and she was satisfied with this answer.īut I knew I was prevaricating. Oohs and aahs duly delivered, one of them asked why I had an iPhone, given how terrifyingly expensive they are. There I was at school, patrolling the playing fields as we teachers are required to do a couple of times a week, when a few high school girls who’d had me for Japanese last year asked to me to show them Siri on my iPhone.
#1625: Apple's "Far Out" event, the future of FileMaker, free NMUG membership, Quick Note and tags in Notes, Plex suffers data breach.
#1626: AirTag replacement battery gotcha, Kindle Kids software flaws, iOS 12.5.6 security fix.