This is the top side of a 1st generation Microsoft Surface Book before I removed all the stickers. Shortly after taking delivery of this computer that started going everywhere, I went, Caroline nicknamed it Marlene after Marlene Dietrich because she said I was treating it like it was some precious diva that was more important to me than her. Of course, she was pulling my leg, but the name stuck. Today, I had to say goodbye to Marlene.

In getting ready to write this homage to the greatest portable computing device I’ve ever owned. I was wondering how long I had been carrying it around and was surprised to find that it was delivered back on October 28th, 2015, and now here I am, exactly five years later to the day, and I boxed it up and shipped it off, never to see it again. You see, the battery in the top half started expanding and distorting the screen. After contacting Microsoft about my options (if I had any), I was informed that, while Marlene is way out of warranty and that there is no repairing it, I can exchange it for a relatively small charge for a refurbished replacement unit. Score.

I suppose a valid question would be, “Why not upgrade to the Surface Book 3?” The answer would be that, like the one above that cost me $2,900 5 years ago, the newest model would cost about the same. The way I see it is that over the previous 1,827 days I’ve owned this computer it turns out that I was spending $1.59 a day for the use of it, not bad at all. But I wanted this computer to last forever, and in “dog years,” it did live a very long life. This particular model was still satisfying all of my mobile needs which are primarily photographic and writing. The replacement Surface Book is only costing me $599 and I have the hope that it will give me a couple more years of use before the specifications start to feel aged. By then, the Surface Book 4 should be out, and with any luck, we’ll see a significantly faster CPU, even better battery life, maybe a bump in resolution, and lower latency with the pen device.

My attachment to this computer is peculiar, with a nostalgia I’m almost uncomfortable with, as I’ve never missed a computer in my life. Maybe it has to do with how much intimacy I’ve dumped into this one, with tens of thousands of photos and countless memories assembled into hundreds of blog entries. But other computers have processed and been responsible for lending experiences to memories, too. On the other hand, the replacements always represented advancements that were going to allow me to extend what I wanted to accomplish as where Marlene was still a perfect companion. In any case, it has been boxed up with a special lithium battery safe package Microsoft sent to me, and it’s on its way to El Paso, Texas. Now I have to await notice they’ve received it and the last approval before the replacement Surface Book is shipped to me. Tragically, I honestly feel a bit crippled being without it tonight. While I have an old Samsung notebook we bought a year or two before the Surface Book, which I was recently able to update to Windows 10, it has a spinning hard drive and a 1920×1080 resolution screen that has the whole thing feeling like it’s out of the stone age.