Why you should buy a Macbook

I was chatting online with some friends tonight when there was a knock on my door.  My brother, Alexandro.  Now, here in Cuernavaca, I could respond with "Sí?" and he'd just open the door or shout through it ("¿Quieres comer algo?").  But I have become accustomed to my Xalapeñan host mother, who will never open my door.  Calling through it is futile; I must ultimately get up and open it myself.  And so, responding to habit rather than necessity, when Alex knocked on my door, I put my laptop - an Apple Powerbook G4 - on my night stand, got up, and walked towards the door.

As you may know, Apple's latest line of standard laptops, the Macbooks, have something called a "Magsafe power adapter."  What this means is that the computer's AC/DC adapter cable has a magnetic connection to the laptop rather than a standard plug.  The reason for this is that if someone were to put their laptop on their night stand, get up, and trip over the power cable, the cable would harmlessly disconnect from the computer instead of bringing it crashing to the ground.

Had I purchased my laptop a mere two years later, I would have reaped the benefits of this feature.  However, my Powerbook G4 has no Magsafe adapter, and so when I tripped over the cable, it was dragged to the ground with a horrifying thud.

A feature the Powerbook does have is an accelerometer that locks down the drive heads when it detects sudden movement, preventing disk damage.  I choose to believe that this feature saved the life of my $2,000 computer, and so I am grateful for its inclusion in the design.  Ironically, there was one thing damaged in the fall:

The cable.

Somehow, the male pin of my plug bent and tore through the tin ring around it, rendering it utterly useless and making battery life a precious commodity.  But let me tell you: you do not get between me and my Powerbook.  Using the screwdriver tool on my pocket knife and my night stand as tools, I managed to bend the pin back (snapping half of it off in the process) and reshape the tin into something resembling its original form.  After several minutes of work, I was finally able to force the plug back into my laptop and, despite the odd angle at which it now juts out, was rewarded by the comforting green glow of "charged."

Wait.  Charged?  I left the laptop alone while eating, running on battery.  I should be seeing the orange glow of "charging."  A quick glance to my screen confirmed my fears: 35 minutes of battery life remain.  Once that goes dead, there is no replacement.

Moral of the story: Buy a Macbook.

UPDATE: Shipping an AC/DC adapter to Mexico costs $51.