Is this really true? I've got 768 megs of RAM running Mac OS 10.4.8, and I've got Mail, Safari, the Dictionary, Firefox, Word, Excel, TextEdit, Xtorrent, iTune, SoundStudio, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Preview, and the ActivityMonitor running. Plus all sorts of stuff behind the scenes. Sometimes it takes 15 or 20 secs to swap the virtual memory, but I could certainly watch a DVD too. How can there be such different performance?
[WS:] I asked our computer geek (aka tech support person) about Vista. His response - wait at least a year after they fix the bugs. In his view, Vista is supposed to be more stable than XP because it is mostly Linux based, however it has a lot of new graphic features (like translucent screen) which are supposed to be easier on the eye, but I suspect they are mainly resource hogs. AFIK, Micro$oft will discontinue its support of XP in five or so years.
My personal approach to this is "if it ain't broke, do not fix it." If you have a machine an OS that runs just fine and does what you want it to do - keep it. All my machines (two desktops and a Jornada PDA) are about five years old and their performance has not deteriorated. If they were great machines in 2002, they are still great machines. The only problem I encountered was running a video game (Civilization 4), which I received as a gift. However I could easily fix it by upgrading the video card (for less than $30). Of course, the question is whether one really needs to run new video games which are no different than old video games as far as the strategy goes, an only have more realistic - and memory hogging - graphics.
The bottom line is that planned obsolescence in the computer business is rampant and the trick is not to be fooled by it. I'd say that 99.99% of all business/academic tasks can be effectively performed on a five year old machine running Windows XP (2000 is an unstable piece of shit) or Mac. No upgrade is needed unless the hardware is kaput, in which case one will be better off by replacing it by a slightly older model rather than the newest one.
Games are a different story - this is what is driving the so-called "upgrades" in hardware and software. The truth is, however, that the new games are no better than older games as far as gaming strategies are concerned, they are just more flashy. So the question boils down to this "Is it really worth to shell $2.5+ for having a more flashy gaming experience?" My answer to it is "hell, no" but other may have different opinions.
One final comment - one of the main the reasons why the official inflation figures are so low while prices of everyday products - from fuel to food and to housing go through the roof is hedonic valuation of computers. The concept here is that while the price of computers stays the same, their quality supposedly getting much better, so the net effect is that we get more computing for the same amount of money, which is tantamount to a price drop. I heard from someone knowledgeable that BEA weighs these hedonic valuations quite heavily to achieve "politically correct" inflation rates and by implication - GDP growth (higher inflation may result in negative GDP growth). So next time you think about Vista, or for that matter any new computer gizmo, think capitalism at its worst - planned obsolescence plus Enron-style national accounting.
Wojtek