Originally published 5.1.09
by Edward Jackson, Technical Guest Blogger
There are a number of things to consider when purchasing a PC and/or Laptop. In this article I will tell you what questions I ask myself and what I think are the most important features you should consider to make sure that you purchase the correct PC/Laptop for your needs. I usually ask myself the following questions:
1. What will I use this PC/Laptop for? Business use, Personal use, or both?
2. How much information will I be saving on this PC/Laptop?
3. What features do I really need versus what I want?
4. How much do I have to spend on this purchase?
Answering these questions will at least give you a starting point of what you need to look for. Some people put a lot of emphasis on the company that produce the product, such as Dell, HP….etc. It really does not matter to me because most of these companies buy the parts from other companies, put them together and put their names on it. To me the most important thing that would make a difference when considering the company or brand is how they provide support for their customers. You can do some research and read reviews online about the company’s tech support.
Ok, me being a techie, I can go on and on and on about computers. I’ll try to keep this short. Now let’s look at what I think are the most important features to consider when purchasing a PC/Laptop. Choosing the options can be overwhelming for the non-technical or regular home user. Here are the features I feel that are most important:
1. Processor Speed: The processor is what makes the system run. The faster the better, but be considerate of the price. The faster the processor the more you spend.
2. Memory: The amount of memory is just as important as the processor. The more memory you have the better your system will run. This day and time applications require memory so I usually get no less than 2GB (gigabytes) of memory.
3. Hard Drive size: This will be determined by what you will be using the system for. If you will be keeping a lot of large files such as music, pics, graphics or such you will need a pretty large drive. I usually tell people to get at least a 250GB if they are using for normal everyday use. This will give you enough space to last for years. If price is a factor you can always get a small hd and purchase an external drive later.
Well, as I said, I can go on and on about computers all day but to me these are the most important factors you need to consider when purchasing a computer. At least as far as hardware is concerned. There are still tons of other factors. Maybe I will write a follow up article to touch on some others at a later date.