Would you buy a new PPC laptop, if A-Eon made one?

[Wilse]

I try to be respectful of everyone's positions, but sorry to say IMHO spending $2500 euros for a low performance PPC machine (400-800 MHz), when a half-the-price Core-based x86 laptop, perfectly able to emulate PPC through WinUAE and run AmigaOS 4.1 at similar/better speed, would be plain madness.

Difficult to argue with that.

[Yasu]

Emulation is not the same thing as the real thing. If it was, no one would buy a SAM or an X1000.

[Wilse]

Emulation is not the same thing as the real thing. If it was, no one would buy a SAM or an X1000.

Of course it isn't but times have changed and I doubt I would buy either of those now anyway.

When I bought my Peg1 board, I got it for a very good price (£200-odd, IIRC) and even my A1XE was a relative bargain compared to those mentioned above. Furthermore, there was no viable way at that time of buying something I could emulate OS4 on.

If the real thing is proposed at up to an order of magnitude more expensive than decent emulation, I'm unlikely to be tempted.
Granted, everyone is different but I'd be astonished if there were more than a handful of people willing to pay silly money for this when there are viable alternatives for a fraction of the cost.

[Yasu]

@Wilse

If you are looking at AmigaOS 4 as a serious alternative to Windows/MacOS/Linux: then granted. People are not. But if we look at it as a hobby then money is less of an equation. People spend stupifying amount of money on stuff and events simply because it pleases them. Then price is simply a matter if you can afford it or not, not if it's the best buy.

But yes, there is a lot of ifs and buts. If it's cheap enough, looks cool and works then I bet AmigaOS 4 lovers (and some MorphOS users) would buy one (I'm excluding you Classic only users for obvious reason). But if it costs a lot, looks just like an ordinary laptop (complete with Window keys) and has poor drivers then ... probably not so much. Except for the die hard fans who would buy an overpriced crappy coffe maker if it had the Amiga logo on it.

[Wilse]

@Wilse

If you are looking at AmigaOS 4 as a serious alternative to Windows/MacOS/Linux: then granted. People are not. But if we look at it as a hobby then money is less of an equation.

In my case it is not quite so simple and possibly even the other way around.

I used to use Amiga everyday, "as a serious alternative to Windows/MacOS/Linux". That is to say that, whilst I used it mainly for a hobby (recording music) I didn't use other platforms much at all. (I also used Amiga for all my email / browsing / university projects / etc.)
Back then, I would happily spend over the odds on Amiga gear as, even though it would be more expensive than comparable Win/Mac kit, it did everything I needed and was nicer to use.

Now I no longer use Amiga as a serious alternative to Windows/MacOS/Linux. They are still nicer to use but no longer do everything I need. Music software on the Amiga began to stagnate and I gradually started using Macs, to the point where I stopped using any of my Amigas for music at all several years ago.

Nowadays when I switch on an Amiga, it is not so much to pursue my main hobby (I didn't even bother with speakers the last time), more the Amiga *itself* being a hobby.
For this particular hobby, I'm much less inclined to spend over the odds.

Having said that, I still like using the system for it's own sake and can still occasionally be persuaded to part with some money for Amiga goodies but the amounts I'm prepared to part with are proportionally much less than in the good, old days.

[Yasu]

@Wilse

Yes, but can we agree that when we are talking about hobbies, it become about something else than pure price/performance + amount of software?

That claimed, everyone wants different things from their machines.