How to Buy a Computer (Part 1)
I've been thinking about buying a new computer for the house, the computer I have (the one I'm using right now, in fact) is starting to become noticeably slow. I got it from my previous employer, who offered a free computer to every one of their employees back in 2002. I added a hard drive about two years ago, but the hard drive is about full. I upgraded the monitor a couple of months ago, I bought a Dell widescreen flat-panel LCD monitor which is ever so super nice. So, how do you go about choosing a new computer?
The first thing you have to decide is desktop or laptop. I definitely want a desktop, they're cheaper, faster, and since I already have a laptop for work, I really have no need for portability.
The second thing you have to decide is what you want to use it for. I mainly use it for browsing and, you know, general computing (duh). I'm not really a gamer, but I have started to get into the whole multi-media thing, with music, web design, digital photography, and playing and recording video. So I think it would be cool to have a TV tuner and decent graphics stuff. And plenty of hard drive space.
So, what's the damage? I want to spend less than $1,000, and maybe less than $500, if I can swing it. I'm comfortable enough with what I want to order a custom computer from one of the mail-order shops like Dell or Gateway or HP/Compaq (maybe I'll look at IBM, too), and I don't see any reason to try to build one from scratch, my needs are pretty similar to a lot of folks so there's probably a package already put together that will suit me, maybe with just a little tweaking.
You may be screaming at the monitor right now that I side-stepped the biggest decision of all, and that is PC or Mac? Wrong, no decision, it's PC all the way. I bought the Sony Super-Betamax HiFi VCR back in the day, because it was a better machine, period. When's the last time you saw a Beta blank tape? Five years from now Apple will be selling their little MP3 and video players and licensing OSX to Microsoft. For PC's. And that's all they'll be doing.
More decisions next time.
The first thing you have to decide is desktop or laptop. I definitely want a desktop, they're cheaper, faster, and since I already have a laptop for work, I really have no need for portability.
The second thing you have to decide is what you want to use it for. I mainly use it for browsing and, you know, general computing (duh). I'm not really a gamer, but I have started to get into the whole multi-media thing, with music, web design, digital photography, and playing and recording video. So I think it would be cool to have a TV tuner and decent graphics stuff. And plenty of hard drive space.
So, what's the damage? I want to spend less than $1,000, and maybe less than $500, if I can swing it. I'm comfortable enough with what I want to order a custom computer from one of the mail-order shops like Dell or Gateway or HP/Compaq (maybe I'll look at IBM, too), and I don't see any reason to try to build one from scratch, my needs are pretty similar to a lot of folks so there's probably a package already put together that will suit me, maybe with just a little tweaking.
You may be screaming at the monitor right now that I side-stepped the biggest decision of all, and that is PC or Mac? Wrong, no decision, it's PC all the way. I bought the Sony Super-Betamax HiFi VCR back in the day, because it was a better machine, period. When's the last time you saw a Beta blank tape? Five years from now Apple will be selling their little MP3 and video players and licensing OSX to Microsoft. For PC's. And that's all they'll be doing.
More decisions next time.
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posted by drewc4 at
11:08 PM
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