Resisting The Call Of The Upgrade

We tried to do our part for the retail industrial complex on Black Friday, really we did. But, in the end, practicality won out.

Stupid practicality!

For several months, my wife and I have been keeping an eye on prices of 13" MacBook Pros. I use a white MacBook that's several years old and my wife has a hand-me-down iBook G4 that has a dead battery and feels heavier, clunkier and slower as the months pass. To use it, she has to keep it plugged in constantly, as if it were a misbehaving Rottweiler on a short leash.

On Friday, it seemed the deals on the model we were looking at were as good as they're going to get. Apple discounted its entire product Mac line of products for the day and other Mac dealers had even deeper discounts (after mail-in rebates, which are not ideal, but do reward the extremely patient. We're pretty patient). A chart from Apple Insider that contained all the pricing information was temptation itself. We looked at the chart. We thought about it.

And we didn't buy.

My wife is due with our second child later this month. I find myself using my own laptop less and less as I use my smart phone around the house more and more. And, while an aluminum-bodied MacBook Pro would be a nice step up for me, I couldn't justify spending more than $1,500 (I always add on the 3-year Apple Care warranty) right now on a computer that we really don't need.

We decided instead to wait it out a while longer, perhaps until next summer. My wife will use my MacBook more often instead of relying on the older, slower iBook.

As an early adopter and someone who covers tech, I'm used to getting my hands on the latest devices. The Black Friday Mac deals were a gut check, but I'm glad we didn't pull the trigger.

It's not always easy to separate want from need when it comes to the powerful, supernatural pull of Apple's marketing machine. But for us, right now, I think we made the right non-upgrade.