So...

... I was in the market for a laptop. These decisions are always difficult since four digit figures are rather large for just about any student. The two real choices are either a ThinkPad (T or X series) or an Apple (MacBook, most likely, but haven't entirely ruled out the Pro either). The problem? Well, the MacBook looks cheap and like it's trying too hard to be too stylish. It's trendy, no doubt about it. But that's all it is. It'll look cheap and plasticy in a year or two. Plus it's too popular at the moment. The ThinkPad, on the other hand, has always looked the same. It's black and unassuming. It looked good a decade ago, it looks good now, and it'll stand time for the next decade too, assuming Lenovo keeps making it that long.

A rather good analogy, in my opinion, is suits. Go over to some trendy and hip store and get the thinly cut dark suit with two buttons, thin lapels and so on. It'll look good on you for half a year. Perhaps even a year. It'll cost rather much, since it's extremely trendy right now and carries the name of some new hip designer. But if you invest a bit more in a bespoke suit, you'll have a suit that'll turn heads even years from now. Perhaps you can even pass it along to your son, who knows.

So the choice is clear, then. I'll go with the ThinkPad. But there's a slight thing. The ThinkPad is, as per the bespoke suit in the analogy, a slippery slope. I was looking at an X41 Tablet up for auction on a Finnish e-auction site yesterday. Even if I got it for 1000-1100 euros (it still has warranty until 2009...), I'd then need to drop 200 for an X4 Ultrabase. And then 300 euros for a new, bigger battery. And now the price is in the MacBook Pro territory. And hands down the MacBook Pro will most likely beat the X41 as a single computer. But here's the thing. The MacBook Pro will break the 2 kEUR barrier. And that brings it right in front of the T-series, which is only slightly more expensive and is argubly The Best laptop series in the world. I'm not joking, it's that good. If I walk around the office, everyone has a T-series and the people who don't, they have an X-series. And now the price of the laptop has risen from 1 kEUR to 2.5 kEUR. That's 2.5 times the initial budget.

At this point I should note that today I made up my mind. I'm going for the MacBook. It's cheap, it looks cheap, but the value for money is rather good. And traditionally people who buy Apples pay good money for used machines, so chances are fairly good that I can eventually get rid of the MacBook with a decent price. I actually went to the local Apple dealer today, ready to buy the laptop. But it turned out that everything and then some has been sold and I'd most likely get my hands on one in two weeks at the earliest, probably three weeks, perhaps even more. So I chucked away 399 euros on a black overcoat. And yes, I do own a number of overcoats already. Don't ask...