Talk about a difficult decision.
I hadn’t mentioned this publicly on here yet, but last week I went down to The Mac Store in the University District and plunked down the money for a mid-range 1.8 Ghz single processor Power Mac. At the time I paid for it, the salesmen were fairly sure that they’d be receiving the machines within a few days.
As the week has gone by, though, it’s become apparent that even though Apple has started shipping the new machines, it’s something of a slow process. The current theory (which I read on a messageboard last night, though I can’t find the post now) is that Apple is shipping the low-end single-processor 1.6Ghz machines to educational institutions first, and retailers second, to be followed by midrange single-processor 1.8Ghz machines, then finally, the high-end dual-processor 2.0Ghz machines. When I called The Mac Store this morning to see if they’d had any further word on their shipment date, I was given a similar story — they’re expecting the 1.6Ghz machines “any time now”, but the 1.8Ghz machines have a much looser ship date, possibly “as late as Sept. 8th”.
So, I got to thinking. Part of the reason I ordered the midrange machine was simply impatience — word was out that Apple was on-track to ship on time (which, in all fairness, they’re doing — just not as fast as we’d all like), and I’m more than ready to move up from my current 350Mhz G3 tower. I had the money available for the midrange machine, expected it to arrive within a week, and decided to go for it. Now, however, I’ve been waiting for a week, and it’s possible (though not gauranteed) that I could be waiting for another two weeks. Given that, I turned it over in my head for a bit, and decided that as long as I’m (whimper, whine) resigning myself to waiting longer than I’d expected, I might as well wait for something really worth waiting for — and called The Mac Store and changed my payment from a full payment on the midrange machine to a (large) down payment on the top of the line machine.
So, I’m going to be waiting a bit longer — current estimations for shipping on the high end G5’s are mid to late September. But that gives me a few more weeks to scrape up the last \$600 I need, and when the time comes, I’ll have the absolute top of the line high-end dual 2Ghz G5 Power Mac sitting in my apartment. The waiting’s gonna kill me — but the final result will be more than worth it.
