Prelude
This is a re-posted article I published on May 19th, 2012, long long time ago on the currently already died Google Plus.
Bought a lowest entry level Macbook Pro 13” i5 refurbished during the week. This is the first ever Apple product I bought. I’m not a fan boy of sleeky, popular iPhone. I keep poo-pooing iPad. But because of the admiration of MBP’s impeccable design and high quality, moreover as a tribute to Steve Jobs, I join the cohort of yuppies, with a silver MPB on my laptop.
Macbook Pro package comes without Mac OS X Lion installation DVD. You have to re-install OS from internet.
Impeccable design and high quality product, even the refurbished one.
However, as a typical PC person living a life of hacker. There should no boundary, no limitation, no rules can’t be broken. In order to maximise all the potentials inside this piece of hardware, and get my investment back, I also ordered 16GB DDR3 RAM, 240GB SATA3 SSD this week from two computer parts shops, at the best price I can find on the market. After some tweak to get rid of the bottleneck in the overall performance, finally this baby is muscled up.
Refurbished MBP, $1189.00 paid on credit card with free shipping. 16GB Patriot DDR3 RAM for Mac, $150 on cash. Corsair Force SATA3 240GB SSD, $295 on cash. The happiness and achievement to get something done after a long time planning, researching, waiting, torture and agony, priceless. There is something money can’t buy. For everything else, there is a Mastercard. And you have to work harder to earn your dole and make this happen.
Totally under 1700 dollars investment will keep me happy for a long time. I reckon it will be good money spent on. If you see the used to be memory hogging applications like M$ Office and Eclipse , suddenly they all jump on your face when you click and open them, the blissful feeling is hardly to describe in a single word, especially you need reward and motivate yourself if you were kept in the shity work. Lifespan? Certainly not. Longevity? Probably not. However, what else you can do if you don’t hack it?
Need to change my PC mindset finally. Keep reminding me “Don’t panic, you are using a Mac.”