Welcome to 2023… Time for a new computer.
Now, I know what you’re saying - there are two kinds of computer users. Those whose computers have crashed and those whose computers will crash. Thankfully, nothing wrong with the old one. It’s a 2016 27-inch iMac and I’m not able to upgrade from macOS Monterey to macOS Ventura. Seven+ years in and it’s time to look at replacing it. That and i noticed that the 2TB hard drive is about 75-80% full. We’ve been really happy with the all-on-one form factor on the iMac so I started by looking at the current iMac model from Apple. Upgrade from an Intel chip to Apple’s M1 Silicon? Yup. Choice of color? Yup. Takes up a lot of desktop real estate like the iMac G3? Nope. So far so good. Did I mention that the purple looks good? But, am I ready to go from a 27" screen down to a 24" screen? No. And the same 2TB hard-drive.
So, now what? Let’s look at the Mac Mini. All good except the hard-drive tops out at 2 TB which is what I have on the iMac now. Mac Studio? Bigger hard-drive? Yes! Good to go.
On to a display. While I would love to get Dell’s UltraSharp 49 Curved Monitor that’s just too big for the small desk the iMac is on. Apple’s Studio Display on the other hand is the same 27" at the iMac and gives me upgraded speakers and camera compared to the iMac. Ended up deciding on a refurbished display. Since I’m moving to Apple Silicon I took the opportunity to treat myself to the Magic Keyboard with TouchID and numeric keypad with that I saved on the monitor.
Configure, add to cart, push “order” button…
Time passes…
Boxes arrive!
Open the brown shipping boxes and take out the white Apple boxes. I have to admin that I’m impressed with Apple’s packaging. I’m not going to do a full unboxing post but the attention to detail on the boxes and the lack of plastic is a welcome change compared to so many other things we’ve all purchased. Laying the monitor box on it’s side and opening the lid reveals a wonder of cardboard engineering cradling the screen. As you pull the sides away the bottom edge expands as well releasing their grip on the monitor. Plastic? For the monitor the only thing was the film on the screen. As much thought / design / engineering was put into the box as the display. Similar situation unboxing the studio but here there was no plastic.
Setup was easy. The monitor comes with a power cord and thunderbolt cable, Studio has a power cord, and the keyboard comes with a USB C to Lightning cable. Using my existing Logitech mouse and was able to plug the dongle into one of the USB ports on the back of the Studio. Plugged everything in and was up and running in about a minute.
As part of the first time boot experience there’s an option to migrate from the old computer. To migrate or not? Decisions decisions. Since I’m moving from Intel to Apple Silicon I decided not to migrate and to install everything from scratch. We’ll see if that was the right decision…
So now it’s time to download and install what I think I want / need.
To be continued