It will, I’m certain, shock and surprise you to know that I’m the person anyone in my family comes to when they’re thinking about buying a new piece of technology. But earlier this week, when my cousin came to me looking for advice about buying a new laptop, I realized something: The specs race is over.

I don’t mean to suggest that computer specs aren’t important—believe me, were I in the market for a new Mac, I’d be poring over Apple’s product pages to figure out what I need. But where I used to be able to rattle off all the specs of my Mac like a car enthusiast discussing what’s under their hood, these days, I honestly couldn’t tell you what processor is in the MacBook Air I’m typing on at this very moment. (A 1.7GHz Intel Core i7, as it turns out, thanks to About This Mac.) 

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