One of the side effects of switching digital cameras has been that stuff takes longer. More pixels per picture (and new modes that generate more images) means that it takes a lot more time to do even basic photo management. And I’m not actually very well equipped to handle this: for perfectly good reasons, it turns out that although I have quite a few computers, they are all pretty puny by current standards. I have a Mac Mini and a MacBook Air, both with CPUs in the 1.6GHz range, both with fairly slow disks. The MacBook Air has 2GB of RAM, the Mini just 1GB. (The fastest machine I own, my accursed HP DV4-2045DX laptop, just went back for service – AGAIN!)
So naturally my thoughts have been turning to getting some horsepower. A Mac, of course – that HP has cured me of any interest in Windows. I figured that I wanted something like this:

• At least 3GHz 2+ core CPU
• 4GB RAM
• 500GB HDD
• Superdrive

My first impulse was to simply get a new Mac Mini. However after maxing out all of the options, I got:

• 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo
• 4GB RAM
• 500GB HDD
• SuperDrive
• Wireless Mouse and Keyboard
• Total price: $1187

That felt quite a bit more expensive (and slower) than I’d expected. Out of curiosity, I looked at the minimum configuration iMac:

• 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo
• 4GB RAM
• 500GB HDD
• SuperDrive
• Wireless Mouse and Keyboard
• 21.5 inch LCD
• Total price: $1199

So instead of buying a Mac Mini I can spend an extra $12 and get an iMac with a 15% faster CPU and a stunning 21.5 inch LCD. Something doesn’t make sense here….