My 2.0G 15″ Macbook Pro is getting a little long in the tooth. I went to the Apple store yesterday to replace an unexpected failure in the external Mag-Safe power supply. I’m now on my fourth power supply – yikes. It wasn’t covered by AppleCare – the guy behind the counter pitifully reminded me that my laptop was now over four years old. That’s at least 28 years old in computer-hardware years, and in dog-years. So it is probably time to upgrade. But I don’t think I’ll replace this laptop with another – I’ll get a desktop instead. Unlike times past, the arrival of the iPad releases me from the laptop upgrade cycle.

Happily, unlike in my old Windows days, my computer isn’t slowing-down, per se, but I’m asking a lot more of it than I used to ask. I’m doing a lot of cross device smartphone development lately, which involves running multiple simulators – tough work for any computer, let alone a laptop. The recent upgrade to Snow Leopard breathed new life into my old beast. Also, my recent upgrade to a SSD hard-drive helped, too. But my hard limit of 2Gig of RAM is killing me.

I’ve written about how my iPad is proving to be a fairly useful portable computer. I find myself writing blog posts, catching up on reading long articles using Instapaper, and writing presentations and business plans using Keynote. I can even do some emergency SSH’ing to manage basic server maintenance. I plan to eventually do app requirements development and wireframe moch-ups, too, once I get around to building those apps.

So the thing is, even good laptops don’t perform as well as good desktops. I’m realizing that my next computer might last a long time, longer than I’m used to in the Windows world. My single biggest desire, other than more horsepower, is a large screen with letters big enough to let me avoid reading glasses. I also know, from experience, that a very high quality monitor can last many, many years. So my need for an upgraded laptop just isn’t too pressing. My old laptop will probably serve my increasing occasional heavy-usage mobile needs. My iPad will probably serve my lite-usage mobile needs. My new desktop will likely serve my big screen and big cpu needs. My spectrum of needs (I’m needy), will get met.

I’ve been relying upon laptops since I got a Dell Latitude in 1998. I just need to last the two years of business school. That is about how long it lasted, too. The thought of moving away from laptop-land is weird. Scary. Exciting. Visions of three 30″, side-by-side, monitors are dancing through my head. Home office utopia might be near. Ahh, peace is settling across my being.

Good bye laptop upgrade cycle. Thank you, iPad.