This is not some kind of inherent urge that must be answered, but simply a changing of the times. The performance that programs and web content demand from computers increases over time. I have a 5 year old laptop and an 8 year old desktop PC, and these are simply unable to cope.
I am one who has defended Microsoft for countless years, but a couple of years back I decided that my next computer would be an Apple Mac. There were three main factors in this. First, my Brother and Dad both have Macs and I was impressed with what I saw, second Windows Vista came out and I decided I certainly didn't want to upgrade to that given the reviews it was getting, and finally I got myself an iPhone and I was so impressed with the interface I wanted to try getting an apple computer.
I replaced my 8-year old PC's tower with a Mac Mini inherited from my Dad recently and I have been very impressed with it. The interface is very intuitive and it's age only shows occasionally when it's asked to run newer programs or streaming video off the internet. In 6 months I have only had one thing that hasn't worked perfectly, and that is that iChat doesn't like the webcam I'm using. Just one issue in over 6 months! The "it just works" reputation is well earned.
Windows is adept at not "just working". For example I am typing this at my lunch break at work and I just had to restart my computer because it refused to eject my USB stick, saying a program was still using it which I was pretty sure wasn't true. Such issues are something that most PC users will find to be a day-to-day occurrence.
The problem I have with my current Mac Mini is that many of the things I want to do with it, including programming and watching movies, would work a lot better with a larger screen. My 15" TFT monitor was far from the largest available when I bought it in 2001. It seems to me that 21" or larger seems to be the smallest nowadays; I use a pair of 24" monitors at work.
The trouble is that getting a new monitor would be limited by the capabilities of the graphics card in my Mac Mini, so replacing the monitor to a worthwhile size will mean replacing the Mac Mini too. I started looking at the price of decent 24" monitors and adding that to the cost of a new Mac Mini. Then, as I browsed apple's website to see what their monitors were like, I considered the new iMac.
The iMac is an all-in-one computer. It's the size and shape of a monitor but everything, save the keyboard and mouse, is included inside the monitor casing. That includes a small set of speakers, microphone, webcam, disk drive, card reader, wireless cards, everything. In the latest version there is only one external cable, the power cable; the keyboard and mouse are wireless.
The one I like the look of also has a 27" screen.
I am quickly falling in love with the idea of getting one of these, not least because I like the way in which it is all integrated. Critics of Apple computers will constantly point out that, unlike windows, Apple controls the hardware. I will point out that a great thing about Apple computers is that Apple controls the hardware, which means that everything works perfectly together because it is designed as such. The more I see of these computers the more I come to think that sourcing the hardware and operating system from completely separate companies is just asking for trouble.
Thoughts here of my windows laptop and its habit of lying dormant as intended with the lid closed, as expected, but then shutting down the moment the lid is opened springs to mind. Or indeed trying to set Windows XP to understand that I have a UK keyboard on my laptop. I am also fairly certain that it is the wireless card on my laptop that is causing it to crash completely, bringing up the dreaded blue screen of death, the windows trademark.
Even the recent release of Windows 7 hasn't changed my mind. It's much more stable than Vista, but then XP has a similar "better than Windows ME" citation that isn't saying much. Frankly I've given up on Microsoft trying to sort its act out.
So, an iMac it is then. Now all I need to do is work out how I'm going to afford it.
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