The above was an answer to another thread. But it made me really think, because I frankly kinda reject that answer in many ways.
For common tasks, I don't feel computers have gotten ANY faster at all over the last 10+ years. This is true for Mac OR PC. Yes, I can have many more applications open at once. Yes, browsers can run web pages with active content. But most tasks still are far from instantaneous:
- Open any Office application. Heck, any application at all. Does it pop right open? Heck no!!!
- Open a new document inside an open application. Yawn. Wait.
- Play something in iTunes. Try to filter your large library, or try to rename information on a number of files.
- Boot the machine.
- Print.
For many people these are the most common tasks, and they still take basically as long as when there was only DOS. OK, a bit of exaggeration, but not much.
WHY?
Umpteen-fold increases in processor speed and memory have yielded...what, exactly?
Computers have gotten a lotttt faster.
My Mom bought me a Walmart special for my first laptop. 400 mhz processor, 80 gb hard drive, 256kb RAM, etc. It literally took 7 minutes to boot and be usable. Computers now take 30 seconds - 1 minute to boot and be usable.
What most consumers don't understand is your hard drive is the bottleneck of your system (90% of the time). A slow hard drive leads to: Slow app opening (what you posted), slow boot times (what you posted), filtering a large iTunes library (what you posted).
Computers have goten a lot faster but the average Joe doesn't understand that the HD is probably the best way to increase the speed of your computer. Why don't you upgrade to a 7200 RPM drive or even a SSD if you want speed? If you want to be proactive about it, look up the speed of your hard drive and do something about it. It's not a difficult replace. Computers ship with cheapy 5400 RPM drives, 90% of the time. If you didn't know this, you should do some research yourself and figure out how to speed up your system. Seeing as your computer is
always accessing your hard drive, you speed the hard drive up, you speed your system up.
Technology moves so fast that it is always improving. This being said, disposable parts of your computer are easier to get and replace (for that reason, upgradability). If you want a computer that you can always be upgrading and whatnot, buy a nice Windows desktop. You can upgrade the CPU, GPU, RAM, HD, Optical Drive, everything.