Chitra Ramaswamy: Conversion therapy

NEW year, new me. And by this, naturally, I mean new technology. Here we are in the minibyte days of 2013, a time of delusion and slashed-price sofas when one resolves to be a better, happier, thinner, smarter person... with a better smartphone to boot.

This, when we know we will be reverting to our slightly disappointing selves in about a week. Why pretend we’re sleek iPhone 5s when deep down we’re oversized Motorolas that can hold about ten text messages in our battered bodies before going brain dead.

Nevertheless, rituals are rituals and, like the January sales, can only be avoided for so long. And so your correspondent, in a fit of new year displacement activity, is doing a rather sad inventory of her, erm, equipment. Let’s see. What do we have here? One mobile phone: age three, which in techy years, makes it roughly the same age as a Sodastream. About as useful as one too. Texting someone takes as much patience as teaching a carrier pigeon to come back. I mostly use it these days for its black mirrored screen, which proves very useful for applying lipstick.

What else? One iPod, reconstituted by Apple elves from the discarded teeth of rich Californians, the brains of chimpanzees and various secret ingredients known only by the CIA and Heston Blumenthal. OK, it’s actually an original iPod, purchased secondhand for £50 about five years ago. The battery runs down after two songs so you have to be ultra selective about what you play. Russian roulette with pop stars, if you like. And coming in at number three, my laptop, which is so old it has featured in this column more than my own mother. Yes, the iBook MXIIV, crafted by Socrates himself out of only a sharpened stone and a hard-drive built from philosophical conundrums and sophistry. It is close to death. I daren’t even carry it into the Apple store to have its last rites read because the journey would mean the end of it. How could I bear the shame of sinking to my knees on the store’s gleaming white floors to say goodbye? (And then having to tell them that – gulp – I never did back up, which is like confessing to never making a will, which – dear God – I haven’t done either.) Anyway, my laptop should be afforded the dignity to die at home. And the time is nigh. The light beats unevenly now. The keys are all but rubbed out.

I decide to distract my grief with a spot of consumer therapy. New year displacement activity, mark two. The last time I bought a laptop was in Edith Wharton-era New York. It cost £600, which remains the most I’ve spent on anything aside from a mortgage or a holiday. Well, let’s just say things have changed. You can now get the latest Macbook Air, which has something scary called Retina display, for a grand. OK, it weighs less than a fingernail and is as slim as, well, your retina, but it’s still way out of my price league.

And so comes the darkest decision I’m likely to make this year. It is time to convert. No, not from left to right wing. It’s even worse than that. From Apple to PC. Forgive me, people. I know this goes against the laws of aesthetics, technology and nature herself. It will come back to haunt me. But needs must. It’s 2013. Time to usher in a new dawn, a new me, and a new PC.