August 2007

Your computer is ten years old and you are tired of how slow and clunky it is. Or maybe you never owned a computer before and you want to be able to get email and pictures from your grandchildren. Or perhaps you and your spouse have been sharing one machine and you both are sick of squabbling over who gets to use it. OK, it's time to buy a new computer.

Prices are cheap. You can buy a used Windows PC for less than $100.00 and very good new machines start under $600.00. Even if you go all out and buy the most super-duper computer you can find, it's hard to spend $3,000.00.

Windows or Mac?

Most people buy Windows PC's, but there are reasons to consider an Apple Macintosh system. If you are a bit more technically savvy, you could even consider using Linux or FreeBSD as your operating system.

New or used?

If you are just need email and web browsing, a slightly older used computer may meet your needs. A one or two year old system really isn't going to perform much differently than the latest and greatest fresh out of the factory, but will certainly cost a lot less. A machine that might have fetched $2,000.00 when new can often be found for a few hundred dollars on eBay

Notebook or Desktop?

Notebooks (or laptops, though that word is used less frequently now) are becoming much more popular than desktops. They are still more expensive (starting around $1,000.00 for a new model) but that isn't very much more than a new desktop system and of course can be carried around easily. Most all notebooks today have wireless network capability (or it can be added inexpensively), so you can use them anywhere wireless is available (like the Oak Point clubhouse or many coffee shops).

Processor Speed

The processor speed is measured either in GHz (Gigahertz) or MHz (Megahertz). 1800MHz is the same as 1.8 GHz. A 2.66 Ghz machine is nominally faster than a 1.8 GHz model. Hoewever, for email and simple web browsing, you might not be able to tell the difference because a lot of other things determine how fast the machine is overall. If buying used today, I wouldn't buy much less than a 1GHz machine. If buying new, you don't need the fastest processor available unless you are doing very unusual things with your computer - if you are, you probably don't need to be reading this article.

RAM vs. hard drive

Your computer uses two types of storage: RAM (random access memory) which goes away when your system is shut off, and a hard drive, which doesn't lose data when shut off. All new computers and even older systems up to a few years old come with more than adequate hard drives. A 20GB hard drive could hold several million pages of written text or hundreds of thousands of photographs. Most new systems come with 80GB drives or larger.

RAM, however, is much more limited. A typical system today has 256MB of RAM (1,000 MB is 1 GB) and that's not enough. The more RAM you have, the better (and faster) your system will run. In fact, if you are struggling with an old slow system now, just adding inexpensive RAM to it might let you put off buying a new system (see My Computer is slow!!). If you are buying a new or used system today, make sure it has at least 512MB of RAM, and more is better. When I bought my latest Mac notebook, I purchased it with 2GB of RAM.

Screen size and quality

It's just like buying a TV: generally you want bigger and better picture quality. Don't buy a CRT (cathode ray tube) monitor unless your budget is very limited - LCD screens are very reasonable now, take up less desk space, and cost less to run.

Bigger and better can get very expensive, especially in notebooks. Unless you are doing high end graphics, you probably don't need an expensive graphics card to drive your monitor.

CD or DVD

That's a no-brainer today because DVD drives are now very inexpensive. With a DVD drive, you can play movies in your computer and because every DVD drive today will also read CD's, you lose nothing. Make sure you get a DVD-RW multifunction drive so that you can create CD's and DVD's also.

Printers

There are three kinds of printers: dot matrix, ink jet, and laser jet. Dot matrix printers are most usually used for business - they are really only useful for printing text like mailing labels or reports, so I won't talk about those here. Ink jet printers are much less expensive than laser jets, but cost much more to operate, so much more that if you don't care about color and are willing to print only in black and white, buying the "more expensive" laser jet will actually turn out to be less expensive because of the cost of ink. Laser jet cartridges last a long, long time; ink jet cartridges run out quickly.

Useful links

Used Computers locally
New and used computers on eBay
Consider a Mac
More advice on Windows PC's

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