Looking to buy your next computer?
First thing not to do, is run out to Best Buy or any other retail store. Unless your going to buy a Mac then go to the Apple store.Myself I am not a fan of Mac’s but that’s mainly due to the fact I do not l like change, and I play games on-line.
If you do not mind learning a new operating system.Apple makes it pretty easy to learn, since you can pay 99 USD a year, for 1 class a week. They will teach you whatever you want.
I am going to go over the reason why you never want to buy a computer from Best Buy or any of those retail stores.
Price. This is a no brainier; New Egg, Tiger Direct and E-cost can always beat the price.Then there is what you really get when you buy from a retail store, you’re buying computers that are already 6 months old. Even if it say’s just arrived. The tech changes at such a rapid pace that unless you build it or have it built, your going to be a little behind, even buying on-line.
Biggest thing most people fail to do is shop for what you are going to use the machine for. If your just going to surf the web, maybe play with some pictures, burn a CD or DVD every now and again, You do not need the latest and greatest. Stop! That does not mean it’s alright to run off to Best Buy and get your new computer. Far from it. You can pick up a refurbished machine, that has a lot of bells and whistles on it for half of what you will pay for a new machine from the retail store.
If you are going to buy a notebook, once again unless you’re switching to Mac, buy on-line. IMO the best bang for the buck is Gateway. All you do is pick up the phone, and tell them exactly what you are going to use it for. They build the machine to you’re needs. Plus the customer support I have gotten from them wins hands down compared to Dell and Sony.
Basic’s of a computer
- Motherboard
- processor (cpu)
- RAM
- Video Card (some motherboards have these built in, howerver they are not the greatest)
- Modem or High Speed Ethernet card.( Most do not come with modems anymore since dial up is rare)
- Power supply
- Case
- sound card ( some motherboard have these built in)
Let’s say you want to be able to edit home movies, first thing you are going to want to check is the video card, you need a good video card. Rule of thumb a decent card will cost between 100-200 USD. Next on your list is the CPU or the processor. What you will general want is something equivelent to a Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHZ with the cooling fan, should be about 240 USD. This gives you plenty of power to edit movies as well as run other high end applications. Now I know some of you who are tech savy are saying wait, you have not picked the motherboard out yet, how do you know what cpu you can use? Simple I match the motherboard to the CPU I want to use. There is no reason to spend a lot of money on a motherboard, you can get by with a basic board that supports you’re cpu. Here is the only tricky part, you must make sure your motherboard and RAM are compatablie, this will save a lot of headaches in the long run. How do you do this? You read the motherboard spec’s. A decent motherboard will support at least 4 gigs of Ram. You just have to be sure what 4 gigs it supports. About RAM not all RAM is created equel, for this you want to talk with a tech savy friend, or better yet, Google Toms Hardware, and read about not only RAM but the rest of the computer parts. They do a real good job of spelling it all out for you.
Going to post this and come back to it latter, since FireFox 3 beta does not support my spell checker yet, and there is a movie I’am going to watch.