Is that trip to the computer store worse than going to the dentist. The young store assistant looks you up and down and then just looks... and looks. You scan the array laptops on display, different shapes and sizes and you have no idea of where to start. Eventually you get the cool dude to amble across. He can't look too eager to help, might not be cool.
"I would like to purchase a laptop. Can you please advise me?" you ask. " Sure, no problem" he says in a ’here’s another one” voice. "What type of chip were you thinking of? There's AMD and Intel, Athlon, Phenom, Core + V pro or Core 2 version. Perhaps Atom or Itanium? Any thoughts on the clock speed? You can have 1.8 giga hertz or 2.8 giga hertz or ... Oh, and what sort of memory would you like? DDR 3 or GDDR3 and what speed would you like and how much of it would you like? 2 Gig ? 4 Gig? Any need for large SDRAM on the graphics card? And how big would you like the hard drive to be and how fast should it spin? You can also go for a solid state drive. The screens differ and some machines have x by x pixels and different refresh rates. LED or LCD? What are you going to do with your screen? The contrast ratio may also something you need to consider. Do you want something that is HD ready? What sort of slots do you need? USB, SD, firewire ? What type of video port? RGB, DVI, HDMI? This machine has 801 b/g wifi and this one has n..... So, um, like, I say, like, what would you like?"
By now your head is spinning. Your eyes are starting to gloss over and you're wishing you were at the dentist. You're wondering how the gig at your local pub has ended up in the laptop, why the chef had put chips inside and what the athlon bomb has to do with a giga clock. At least you've heard of intel and they have told you they are inside. You gather all your courage, you dig deep...."I like the silver coloured one". And then the response "Cool dude, it's got......"
Actually if the choice was primarily about colour things would be much easier. And that brings me back to the iPad. Most of the choices are made for you. You have a small number of options, the amount of storage and an option to use the cellphone network. You take it out the box, activate it and it is ready to use. No technical knowledge required.
Yesterday I used a presentation with a client prepared entirely on the iPad using Apple's Keynote software for the iPad. Using one of the standard templates I was able to put an effective and professional looking presentation together, easily. Whilst there is some serious technology built into the iPad I have no need to understand it in any way in order to have an effective tool. The technology and complexity is in the back and the simplicity in the front. That is the Apple way and I am pleased to say has become my way.
Have you had one of these techno gigmegahertzaddr experiences? If you have let us know. We would love to hear about it! Alternatively, if like Paddy you can’t wait for the release of the iPad in South Africa join our list of names to be contacted for a real deal from ydangle store on release.